The Indian wars: Efforts to resolve Western Shoshone land and treaty issues and to distribute the Indian claims commission judgment fund

International human rights agencies have found the United States in violation of international treaties and human rights standards by, denying the Western Shoshone Nation the use of their ancestral lands. The 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley did not cede any Western Shoshone land to the United States, nor did it purport to "take" or "extinguish" Western Shoshone aboriginal Indian title. Nonetheless,, all Western Shoshone tribes and communities combined now hold less than 28,000 acres of Indian trust lands; about five one-hundredths of their ancestral territory in Idaho,. Nevada, and California. The Western Shoshone require a much larger land base to survive culturally and economically in the twenty-first century. Three decades of continuous litigation and political conflict with the federal government have been punctuated by dramatic seizures of Shoshone livestock by the Bureau of Land Management. Efforts to legislate distribution of a $26 million 1979 Indian Claims Commission award for a fictional federal "taking" of Western Shoshone land have failed because of strong opposition from Western Shoshone tribal governments and political organizations demanding a land base and recognition of aboriginal rights. Efforts to negotiate a resolution of these issues have been unsuccessful because the. federal government has never made an equitable offer. It is incumbent upon the U.S. Congress to secure a culturally and economically adequate land base for the Western Shoshone Nation.