The Western Shoshone did not cede land under this treaty but agreed to allow the U.S. the "right to traverse the area, maintain existing telegraph and stage lines, construct one railroad and engage in specified economic activities.
In the early 1860s, some of the Western Shoshone people were conducting raids against European American settlers who were traveling along the Humboldt River and the Overland Trail.
[2] The U.S. started negotiating treaties with the Shoshone and other peoples of the Great Basin to protect gold sources in the West in order and prosecute the American Civil War.
B. Moore, a lieutenant colonel in the Third Infantry California Volunteers; Jacob T. Lockhart, the Indian agent in the Nevada Territory; and Henry Butterfield, the interpreter.
The chiefs would allow free passage for European Americans along the routes through Shoshone country, establish U.S. military posts and rest stations for travelers and for mail and telegraph companies, continue the operation of telegraph and stage lines, and construct a railway passing through their country from the Plains to the Pacific Ocean.
When the President of the United States "deem[ed] it expedient for them to abandon the roaming life," they agreed to become herdsmen or agriculturalists on reservations assigned to them.
The U.S. entered into the Doty treaties with the Shoshone to gain access and free passage to their extensive territory.
In 1863, the U.S. signed the Treaty of Ruby Valley with the 12 Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation (18 Statute 689-692) and identified the boundaries of their 40,000 sq.
Because the tribe still legally controls the territory, the United States Department of Energy was unable to prove ownership of land for construction of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
In another effort to close a 1951 Indian Claims Commission 326-k case, which was transferred to federal court, Congress passed the Western Shoshone Claims Distribution Act of 2004, appropriating and authorizing payment of $160 million to the Great Basin tribe for the perceived acquisition of 39,000 square miles (100,000 km2).
They have also filed for court injunctions against the gold mining that would result in the dewatering of Mount Tenabo, Nevada.
Seven of the nine tribal councils within the Western Shoshone Nation passed resolutions opposing the legislation and refusing settlement payment.
[7] On March 10, 2006, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination stated "credible information alleging that the Western Shoshone indigenous people are being denied their traditional rights to land.