Sioux leaders await study in Black Hills settlement

About 100 Sioux leaders have postponed a decision on whether to accept a $105 million award to eight tribes in compensation for 7.3 million acres of land in the Black Hills. The leaders planned to form a fact-finding committee to study the settlement. The US Supreme Court ruled in June that Congress illegally seized the black Hills from the Sioux without compensation in 1877 after an expedition led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer discovered gold in the area. Some Indian leaders are willing to accept the award, but others want to continue trying to regain the land, which they consider sacred. Any decision will have to be ratified by the members of at least five tribes.