I always listen to the Big Chiefs of the Whites that come up the River to speak to us. When you gave us those papers you told us no white man would trouble us and none of them would travel over the country unless they were sent by the President ... For the last two or three years Comissioners have been coming here all the time. They take a big book and scratch it all over and take it to the President. I do not believe it ever gets there. We never hear anything from it. ‒LITTLE PHEASANT, FORT SULLY, AUGUST 31, 1867

What you are talking about•signing the treaty•I do not want to do. I can not do anything here by myself. You know very well that if the treaty is signed by only a portion of our people it is not likely to stand good. ‒AMERICAN HORSE, FORT SULLY, APRIL 29, 1868

This article brought to my attention the ways in which quantifying the unquantifiable has been forced upon Native communities throughout history and even today. It reminded me of the different ways in which quantifying has attempted to systemically erase and displace Native peoples. ‒REYNA HERNANDEZ, YANKTON SIOUX TRIBE, 2019

I see the treaty as a broken legal document. My Native ancestors were lied to from the very beginning. ‒LORRI ANN TWO BULLS, OGLALA SIOUX TRIBE, 2019

It’s been a lifelong journey of opportunities to raise awareness of this broken treaty, and the theft of the sacred Black Hills. I was born the “Not for Sale Winter” in 1979 which is when our Lakota people refused the settlement monies for the sale of the Black Hills. ‒SHELDON RAYMORE, CHEYENNE RIVER SIOUX TRIBE, 2019

Article 12. THREE-FOURTHS REQUIREMENT

Alienation of reservation land requires the signatures of three-fourths of adult male citizens. Any cession of land by the tribe does not deprive individual citizens of their land rights.

ARTICLE 12. No treaty for the cession of any portion or part of the reservation herein described which may be held in common shall be of any validity or force as against the said Indians, unless executed and signed by at least three-fourths of all the adult male Indians, occupying or interested in the same; and no cession by the tribe shall be understood or construed in such manner as to deprive, without his consent, any individual member of the tribe of his rights to any tract of land selected by him, as provided in article 6 of this treaty.