A bad men clause is a

clause In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb wi ...

in treaties signed between the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

and participating Native American tribes that states, if "bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States" committed crimes against the tribes, that the United States would arrest and punish bad men involved while also reimbursing individuals affected by bad men. Though the clause has rarely been enforced, it remains an applicable way for tribes that signed treaties to seek justice for crimes committed against them by citizens of the United States.

History

Bad men provisions would appear in nine such treaties with various tribes between 1867 and 1868. The Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 was an agreement between the

and the

Oglala The Oglala (pronounced , meaning "to scatter one's own" in Lakota language) are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires). A majority of the Oglala live ...

Miniconjou The Miniconjou ( Lakota: Mnikowoju, Hokwoju – ‘Plants by the Water’) are a Native American people constituting a subdivision of the Lakota people, who formerly inhabited an area in western present-day South Dakota from the Black Hills ...

, and

Brulé The Brulé are one of the seven branches or bands (sometimes called "sub-tribes") of the Teton (Titonwan) Lakota American Indian people. They are known as Sičhą́ǧu Oyáte (in Lakȟóta) —Sicangu Oyate—, ''Sicangu Lakota, o''r "Burnt ...

bands of Lakota people,

Yanktonai Dakota The Dakota (pronounced , Dakota language: ''Dakȟóta/Dakhóta'') are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided into ...

and

Arapaho The Arapaho (; french: Arapahos, ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho ...

Nation, following the failure of the first Fort Laramie treaty, signed in 1851. The first of seventeen articles in the treaty holds a clause that has been described as the "bad men clause" that requires the US to prosecute and punish white settlers who commit crimes against the

Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin (; Dakota language, Dakota: Help:IPA, /otʃʰeːtʰi ʃakoːwĩ/) are groups of Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribes and First Nations in Canada, First Nations peoples in North America. The ...

. In practice, the "bad men among the whites" clause was seldom enforced.

Legal usage

The first plaintiff to win a trial case on the provision did so in 2009, based on the 1868 Fort Laramie treaty. The plaintiff was a female Native American woman who was sexually assaulted by an Army recruiter. In 2008, a police officer of the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation arrested a female minor accused of underaged drinking; the officer reportedly sexually assaulted and took compromising photos of the girl. The officer plead guilty and was sentenced to two years in jail, though a lawsuit against the United States government by the minor's family, which was seeking "future medical, rehabilitative, and psychological counseling, treatment, and therapy", was thrown out since the girl lived "outside the boundaries of the reservation recognized by the Treaty". In 2015, the

Lower Brule Indian Reservation The Lower Brulé Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation that belongs to the Lower Brulé Lakota Tribe. It is located on the west bank of the Missouri River in Lyman and Stanley counties in central South Dakota in the United States. It ...

invoked the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 against TransCanada Corp. for its construction of the

Keystone XL The Keystone Pipeline System is an oil pipeline system in Canada and the United States, commissioned in 2010 and owned by TC Energy and as of 31 March 2020 the Government of Alberta. It runs from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Albert ...

, with the tribe stating "presence of the Keystone XL Pipeline is hazardous to both the land and its inhabitants". With the expansion of man camps in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

and the United States, some have suggested the use of bad men clauses to be invoked when sexual violence is used against Native American victims.

References

{{Reflist United States and Native American treaties Treaties Violence against indigenous peoples Law enforcement in the United States