The Commission was also, in its way, a demonstration of the limits of what the American legal system would provide.

The Sioux had been told, in effect, that the proper remedy for the taking of the Black Hills was money.

The Commission would assess the monetary value; Congress would appropriate funds; the claim would be resolved.

The Sioux had spent thirty years in the Commission process partly in the hope that the Commission would rule in their favor and partly in the knowledge that even a favorable ruling would not produce what they actually wanted.

When the ruling came, in 1974, and when the Supreme Court affirmed it in 1980, the result was exactly what had been anticipated: an acknowledgment that the taking had been wrong, and a monetary remedy that the Sioux declined to accept.

The Language Of Treaties — And Why It Still Matters