Second Treaty of Fort Laramie

The Second Treaty of Fort Laramie, signed in 1868, aimed to establish an undisturbed reservation for the Lakota Indians in present-day South Dakota. This treaty guaranteed them exclusive possession of the territory west of the Missouri River. However, the treaty was broken when gold was discovered in the Black Hills in 1874, leading to an influx of miners and settlers. Despite Native American resistance, including the victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, the U.S. government forced the Lakota to relinquish their treaty rights to the Black Hills by 1877. The U.S. military eventually expelled the Lakota from the region by 1877. In 1980, the Supreme Court awarded the Sioux approximately $1.5 billion for the illegal seizure of the Black Hills, a sum that remains uncollected.1234