The Harvard Law Review has published, “A Bad Man Is Hard to Find” (PDF).

Here is an excerpt:

Nine treaties concluded between the United States and various Indian tribes in 1867 and 1868 each contain what is known as a “bad men” provision. Within each of these provisions is a clause in which the United States promises to reimburse Indians for injuries sustained as a result of wrongs committed by “bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States.”

Although these “bad men among the whites” clauses have rarely been used in the last century and a half, they remain the source of a viable cause of action for Indians belonging to those tribes that signed the nine treaties of 1867 and 1868. In 2009, Lavetta Elk won her action for damages under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, recovering a judgment in the Court of Federal Claims of almost $600,0004 from the United States government.