"Broken Treaties" offers a comparative assessment of Indian treaty implementation focusing on the U.S.-Lakota Treaty of 1868 and Treaty Six (1876) between Canada and the Plains Cree, through 1885. The thesis is that the label of "broken treaties," imposed by nineteenth-century observers and perpetuated in the historical literature, has obscured the implementation experience of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal participants and distorted understanding of the relationships between them. This has led to the erasure of the viable relationship through which the United States and the Lakota effectively mediated the cultural divide between them in the period 1868-1875, and stifled appreciation for the broader context of U.S. politics that undermined a treaty solution to the Black Hills crisis of 1876. In Canada, the "broken treaties" tradition has obscured the fact that Canada and the Plains Cree held different understandings of the treaty - contract versus covenant - and that failure to appreciate each other's position fostered the friction exposed in the events and aftermath of the 1885 Rebellion.