338
Opinion of the Court
Article I of the agreement provided that the Tribe would "cede, sell, relinquish, and convey to the United States" all of the unallotted lands on the reservation. Pursuant to Article II, the United States agreed to compensate the Tribe in a single payment of $600,000, which amounted to $3.60 per acre.2 Much of the agreement focused on the payment and disposition of that sum. Article VII further provided that all the signatories and adult male members of the Tribe would receive a $20 gold piece to commemorate the agreement. Some members of the Tribe also sought unpaid wages from their service as scouts in the Sioux War, and in Article XV, the United States recognized their claim. The saving clause in Article XVIII, the core of the current disagreement between the parties to this case, stated that nothof this agreement by Congress the same shall be paid in lawful money of the United States to the said scouts or to their heirs.
. . . . . "Article XVII. "No intoxicating liquors nor other intoxicants shall ever be sold or given away upon any of the lands by this agreement ceded and sold to the United States, nor upon any other lands within or comprising the reservations of the Yankton Sioux or Dakota Indians as described in the treaty between the said Indians and the United States, dated April 19th, 1858, and as afterwards surveyed and set off to the said Indians. The penalty for the violation of this provision shall be such as Congress may prescribe in the act ratifying this agreement.
"Article XVIII. "Nothing in this agreement shall be construed to abrogate the treaty of April 19th, 1858, between the Yankton tribe of Sioux Indians and the United States. And after the signing of this agreement, and its ratification by Congress, all provisions of the said treaty of April 19th, 1858, shall be in full force and effect, the same as though this agreement had not been made, and the said Yankton Indians shall continue to receive their annuities under the said treaty of April 19th, 1858." 28 Stat. 314-318.
2 In 1980, the Court of Claims concluded that the land ceded by the Tribe had a fair market value of $6.65 per acre, or $1,337,381.50, that the $600,000 paid pursuant to the 1892 agreement was "unconscionable and grossly inadequate," and that the Tribe was entitled to recover the difference. Yankton Sioux Tribe v. United States, 623 F. 2d 159, 178.
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