The majority’s response was implicit but clear: the doctrine of deference to Congress does not extend to finding good faith where the evidence of bad faith is overwhelming.

The government had threatened starvation to obtain signatures.

It had obtained those signatures from ten percent of the population a treaty required to approve any cession.

The majority was not substituting its judgment for Congress’s; it was applying the standard the law required to facts that met it clearly.

The Indian Claims Commission — And The Long Road That Led There

The Indian Claims Commission deserves more attention than it typically receives in accounts of the Black Hills dispute, because it was the institutional mechanism through which the Sioux were finally able to get a substantive hearing on the merits of their claim.