Salois v. United States

The first depredation set up in this case was committed at Bridges Ferry, on the North Platte, on the route from Fort Laramie to Fort Phil Kearney, in the spring of 1867, by Indians of the Sioux tribe. The Indians who committed the depredation were not then with their tribe, then at war with the United States. Personally, it is insisted, they should be regarded as thieves and not as belligerents. Assuming that this was the fact, the question presented is whether the Oga-lalla band of the Sioux tribe, then at war with the United States, can be made to pay for such depredations.

The court is of…