I’m way late with posting this news but on the Obama administration announced Dec. 8 that it is settling the long-running and contentious lawsuit over royalties and other monies owed to about 300,000 American Indians land owners for monies the U.S. collected over the past 100 years in regards their lands.
Under the agreement, the Interior Department will pay $1.4 billion to more than 300,000 tribe citizens to compensate them for historical accounting claims, and to resolve future claims.
The settlement resolves a 13-year-old dispute in which Indians and tribal nations claim they were swindled out of billions of dollars in oil, gas, grazing, timber, and other royalties under contracts overseen by the Interior Department since 1887.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called the settlement a historic, positive development for Indian country and a major step to reconcile decades of acrimony between Indian tribes and the federal government.
