The Western Shoshone Nation, Shoshone for short, is still a
sovereign nation lying within the borders of the United States of America. Their area
includes about 1/3 of Nevada and parts of California, Idaho and Utah.
The Shoshone Nation legally owns all this land in the Western United States according to
the Treaty of Ruby Valley 1863, concluded on October 1, 1863. Treaty's according to the US
Constitution can only be made with sovereign foreign nations.
Treaty of Ruby Valley of 1863, signed by Nevada Territorial Gov.
James Nye and 12 Indian leaders, including Te-Moak, ancestral chief of Western Shoshone's,
later proclaimed by President Ulysses S. Grant and ratified by Congress in 1869:
"It is understood that the boundaries of the country claimed and occupied by said
lands are defined and described by them as follows: On the north by Wong-gong-da Mountains
and Shoshone River Valley; on the west by Su-non-to-yah Mountains or Smith Creek
Mountains; on the south by Wi-co-bah and the Colorado Desert; on the east by Po-ho-no-be
Valley or Steptoe Valley and the Great Salt Lake Valley."
U.S. District Court in Reno, Nevada on Sept. 15, 1986,
a decision by Judge Bruce Thompson:
"The government has admitted that the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley is in full force and
effect."
This territory is called Newe Sogobia or The Land of the People of the Earth Mother by the
Western Shoshone Nation. It has be their ancestral home for several thousand years. Death
Valley, Yucca Mountain, the Nevada Test Site, Area 51, the majority of North America's
gold reserves and the cities of Elko, Ely and Tonopah lie within this territory.
For the last decade the BLM, Bureau of Land Management a
part of the Federal Government has been attempting to take the Shoshone's land from them.
