WINNIPEG, Manitoba, July 29 (UPI) -- The Canadian government has agreed to pay a Manitoba Indian reservation $80 million to settle a 108-year-old land dispute, officials in Ottawa said Friday.
Chief Terry Nelson of the Roseau River First Nation band, 60 miles south of Winnipeg, said the settlement ended an "injustice [that] has plagued our people," the Winnipeg Free Press reported.
In 1903, the federal government took 12 parcels of land covering some 7,700 acres from the band and sold it to farmers and settlers, the Winnipeg Sun said. That was a loss of 60 percent of the reservation, the reports said.
The band first filed a claim in 1986, which was rejected, as was a second one in 2001.
A 2007 claim for compensation resulted in Friday's settlement, the newspapers said.
The Indian band has some 2,325 members, the Free Press said.
