Denying indigenous peoples the right to control their own lives is not just a thing of the past. It continues to occur wherever indigenous peoples are found. The ongoing political contest between the Western Shoshone of the North American Great Basin region and the U.S. government is just one powerful example of how once sovereign societies lose their autonomy to powerful nations.

In 1863 the U.S. government signed the Treaty of Ruby Valley with the Western Shoshone who occupied a 43,000 square-mile territory that included parts of southern California, the eastern half of Nevada, and parts of Idaho. This treaty was unusual in the history of relationships between the United States and American Indian societies because it ceded no land to the United States, which was still involved in a civil war and was concerned with ensuring the continued flow of gold from California. The Shoshone did agree to end warfare against the United States and to allow the construction of roads, railways, and telegraph lines through mining settlements within their territory. Over the next 125 years, the U.S. government obtained billions of dollars worth of resources from Western Shoshone lands under this arrangement.

During the 1920s conflicts over land use increased between the Shoshone and non-Indian settlers. In 1934 the U.S. government installed a tribal council form of government among the Shoshone, a system that was fundamentally different from their traditional way of governing. In 1946 Congress created the Indian Claims Commission, which would be authorized to adjudicate Native American land claims against the United States. The legislation authorized lawyers who represented Indians in such cases to be paid 10 percent of any awards the commission made to Indians. In the same year, the Bureau of Indian Affairs persuaded one group of Shoshone, the Temoak Bank, to file a claim for compensation for the loss of Shoshone lands. The Temoak understood the purpose of this claim to be the recovery of their control over their traditional lands.

The law firm appointed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to represent the Shoshone was the same one that had drafted the legislation creating the claims commission. Other Western Shoshone bands protested that their land had never been ceded to the United States, and that to accept compensation would amount to selling their lands. In 1951 the law firm petitioned the claims commission to recognize that its actions in behalf of the Temoak Shoshone actually represented the interests of the entire Western Shoshone people. A group of Temoak Shoshone were selected by the law firm as the "exclusive representatives" of the Western Shoshone. Those who disagreed with its plans were dismissed from the group. Despite objections by the majority of the Shoshone involved, the petition was granted by the commission. The Temoak and other Shoshone soon learned that the law firm was not attempting to secure a ruling that would recognize their ownership of their traditional land; instead it was seeking a monetary award.

In 1962, the Indian Claims Commission noted that it had been "unable to discover any formal extinguishment" of Western Shoshone lands in Nevada. However, on February 11, 1966, the law firm that ostensibly represented the Shoshone's interests against U.S encroachment on Shoshone lands stipulated that the Shoshone had ceded 24 million acres of land to the United States (including 16 million acres that were occupied by no one but Shoshone Indians), and arbitrarily fixed the date of that stipulated loss as July 1, 1872, the middle day of the year, but otherwise a date of no known historical significance.

The law firm requested that these lost lands be paid for and that land values in mid-1872 be used to compute the amount of the compensation. In 1972 the Indian Claims Commission concluded that the lands of the Western Shoshone had been "taken" in the nineteenth century by "gradual encroachment of whites, settlers and others."

Since the Temoak were now convinced that their lawyers were serving the interests of the U.S. government, instead of Indian interests, the Temoak fired the law firm as their agents. However, the Bureau of Indian Affairs refused to recognize the right of the Temoak to do so and continued to renew the firm's contract "in the Indians' behalf." In effect, the lawyers were now being employed by the government to act as representatives of the Indians against their clients' own wishes and to pursue a course of argument favored by the government.

The Western Shoshone hired their own lawyer and appealed the Commission's ruling in the U.S. Court of Claims. The Court refused to rule on the issue of who held title to the traditional Shoshone lands, but awarded the Shoshone $26,154,600 for the loss of 24 million acres, land that by 1979 values would have been worth more than $40 billion. The law firm that had been contracted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs was paid $2.5 million "for services rendered."

To pay the Shoshone for the lands they had now lost, the U.S. Department of Interior transferred $26,145,189.89 (the amount of the award less $9,410.11 as an offset against goods it claimed the government had delivered to the Shoshone in the 1870s) into a trust account held by the U.S. Treasury Department in behalf of the Shoshone. Accumulating interest since 1979, this money now amounts to 70 million dollars. The Western Shoshone have refused to accept receipt of this money since that date. Their purpose had never been to sell their territory, but to gain recognition of their ownership of it. As of today, the Western Shoshone have unsuccessfully continued their efforts to reassert their sovereignty over their traditional lands.

To learn about efforts to restore Western Shoshone sovereignty rights over their own lands, visit the Western Shoshone Defense Project

Read about the Cherokee Trail of Tears.

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