Book Selections

"The rights of indigenous peoples under international law have seen significant change in recent years, as various international bodies have attempted to address the question of how best to protect and enforce their rights. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the strongest statement thus far by the international community on this issue. The Declaration was adopted by the United Nations on 13 September 2007, and sets out the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples, as well as their rights to culture, identity, language, employment, health, education, and other issues. While it is not a legally binding instrument under international law, it represents the development of international legal norms designed to eliminate human rights violations against indigenous peoples, and to help them in combating discrimination and marginalisation. This comprehensive commentary on the Declaration analyses in detail both the substantive content of the Declaration and the position of the Declaration within existing international law. It considers the background to the text of every Article of the Declaration, including the travaux preparatoire, the relevant drafting history, and the context in which the provision came to be included in the Declaration. It sets out each provision's content, interpretation, its relationship with other principles of international law, and its legal status. It also discusses the significance and outlook for each of the rights analysed. The book assesses the practice of relevant regional and international bodies in enforcing the rights of indigenous peoples, providing an understanding of the practical application of the Declaration's principles"--

How taking Indigenous sovereignty seriously can help dismantle the structural racism encountered by other people of color in the United States Settler Colonialism, Race, and the Law provides a timely analysis of structural racism at the intersection of law and colonialism. Noting the grim racial realities still confronting communities of color, and how they have not been alleviated by constitutional guarantees of equal protection, this book suggests that settler colonial theory provides a more coherent understanding of what causes and what can help remediate racial disparities. Natsu Taylor Saito attributes the origins and persistence of racialized inequities in the United States to the prerogatives asserted by its predominantly Angloamerican colonizers to appropriate Indigenous lands and resources, to profit from the labor of voluntary and involuntary migrants, and to ensure that all people of color remain "in their place." By providing a functional analysis that links disparate forms of oppression, this book makes the case for the oft-cited proposition that racial justice is indivisible, focusing particularly on the importance of acknowledging and contesting the continued colonization of Indigenous peoples and lands. Settler Colonialism, Race, and the Law concludes that rather than relying on promises of formal equality, we will more effectively dismantle structural racism in America by envisioning what the right of all peoples to self-determination means in a settler colonial state.

"Federal Indian Law encompasses nearly 400 Indian treaties, hundreds of federal statutes, and thousands of court decisions. When the first edition of The Rights of Indians and Tribes was published in 1983, it firmly established itself as the only book explaining Federal Indian Law in a clear and easy-to-understand way for students and practitioners of Indian law, tribal advocates, government officials, and the general public. Numerous tribal leaders highly recommend this book. Incorporating a user-friendly question-and-answer format, veteran legal counsel Stephen Pevar addresses the most significant legal issues facing Indians and Indian tribes, including tribal sovereignty, the federal trust responsibility, the regulation of non-Indians on reservations, Indian treaties, the Indian Civil Rights Act, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, and the Indian Child Welfare Act. This fully updated new edition includes a wealth of new information on recent legislation and judicial decisions, and it also features an introduction by John Echohawk, Executive Director of the Native American Rights Fund"--

This engaging collection surveys and clarifies the complex issue of federal and state recognition for Native American tribal nations in the United States. Den Ouden and O'Brien gather focused and teachable essays on key topics, debates, and case studies. Written by leading scholars in the field, including historians, anthropologists, legal scholars, and political scientists, the essays cover the history of recognition, focus on recent legal and cultural processes, and examine contemporary recognition struggles nationwide. Contributors are Joanne Barker (Lenape), Kathleen A. Brown-Perez (Brothe

"In the landmark 1978 case Oliphant v. Suquamish, the Supreme Court ruled that no Indian tribe can lawfully prosecute non-Indians. This decision had far-reaching effects in subsequent disputes about the jurisdiction of American Indian tribes, the terms of their relationship to the United States, their powers as political entities, and the significance of Indian reservations. Yet, even though few developments have highlighted the tensions, hopes, and fears associated with American Indians' unique political-legal status as clearly as contemporary tribal governments' assertion of jurisdiction over non-Indians, that subject hasn't received the attention it deserves from historians. The Non-Indian Problem recounts the history of tribes' desire for inclusive jurisdiction and the circumstances that encouraged them finally to act on that desire in the twentieth century. The manuscript focuses on the legal battles of the Quinault and Suquamish tribes beginning in the 1960s and culminating in the 1978 decision, with an epilogue addressing the consequences of that ruling"--

"Thirty years ago the Indian law community was small enough that it was possible for even a new scholar to the field to keep up with most of the Indian law scholarship published annually. However, as our field has proliferated, it has also fragmented, and today more than two-hundred pieces of new legal scholarship are published annually in law reviews alone. These law reviews are not just ivory tower musings; there are now some scholarly contributions which are as fundamental for the study of Indian law as many cases or statutes. These articles help to contextualize the changing doctrines announced by the court, reconcile contradictory authority, challenge assumptions of race/place/power, and push for courts, tribal leaders, legislators, lawyers, educators, and students to adopt new ways of thinking about our fundamental doctrine. However, with so many new contributions we realized that new scholars may miss some of the most impactful articles, and even the progenitors of the field will have forgotten about some of the best ideas put forward by colleagues over the years. While several federal Indian law textbooks exist to preserve judicial doctrine, there is no definitive collection of related legal scholarship"--

A mix of academic research as well as field experience, this book draws on author Laurence French's more than 40 years of experience with American Indian individuals and groups. It illustrates how, despite changes in the law to correct past injustices, a subculture of discrimination often persists in law enforcement, whether by a prosecutor or a street cop. The book provides specific examples of the role of police in extra-legal confrontations with American Indians, as well as examples of using the United States military to police American Indians. It covers the ways in which U.S. policy regarding American Indians has changed since the country's birth, including recent changes in policy as a response to issues of national security following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

This book introduces the Original Nation scholarship to examine the historical genealogy of the nation's struggles against the state. A fundamentally different portrait of history, geography, politics, and the role of law emerges when the perspective of the nation and peoples is placed at the center of geopolitical analysis of global affairs. In contrast to traditional and canonical state-centric narratives, the Original Nation scholarship offers a diametrically distinct "on-the-ground" and "bottom-up" portrait of the struggle, resistance, and defiance of the nation and peoples. It exposes persistent global patterns of genocide, ecocide, and ethnocide that have resulted from attempts by the state to occupy, suppress, exploit, and destroy the nation. The Original Nation scholarship offers a powerful and widely applicable intellectual tool to examine the history of resilience, emancipatory struggles, and collective efforts to build a vibrant alternative world among the nation and peoples across the globe.

2019 National Native American Hall of Fame Inductee This stirring memoir is the story of Ada Deer, the first woman to serve as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Deer begins, "I was born a Menominee Indian. That is who I was born and how I have lived." She proceeds to narrate the first eighty-three years of her life, which are characterized by her tireless campaigns to reverse the forced termination of the Menominee tribe and to ensure sovereignty and self-determination for all tribes. Deer grew up in poverty on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin, but with the encouragement of her mother and teachers, she earned degrees in social work from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Columbia University. Armed with a first-rate education, an iron will, and a commitment to justice, she went from being a social worker in Minneapolis to leading the struggle for the restoration of the Menominees' tribal status and trust lands. Having accomplished that goal, she moved on to teach American Indian Studies at UW-Madison, to hold a fellowship at Harvard, to work for the Native American Rights Fund, to run unsuccessfully for Congress, and to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs in the Clinton administration. Now in her eighties, Deer remains as committed as ever to human rights, especially the rights of American Indians. A deeply personal story, written with humor and honesty, this book is a testimony to the ability of one individual to change the course of history through hard work, perseverance, and an unwavering commitment to social justice.

Traces the thirteen-year trial of Dennis Banks, and describes the actions and attitudes of the United States government towards the leaders of the American Indian Movement.

This readable yet sophisticated survey of treaty-making between Native and European Americans before 1800, recovers a deeper understanding of how Indians tried to forge a new society with whites on the multicultural frontiers of North America-an understanding that may enlighten our own task of protecting Native American rights and imagining racial justice.

Robert A. Williams Jr. boldly exposes the ongoing legal force of the racist language directed at Indians in American society. Fueled by well-known negative racial stereotypes of Indian savagery and cultural inferiority, this language, Williams contends, has functioned "like a loaded weapon" in the Supreme Court's Indian law decisions. Beginning with Chief Justice John Marshall's foundational opinions in the early nineteenth century and continuing today in the judgments of the Rehnquist Court, Williams shows how undeniably racist language and precedent are still used in Indian law to justify the denial of important rights of property, self-government, and cultural survival to Indians. Building on the insights of Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, and Frantz Fanon, Williams argues that racist language has been employed by the courts to legalize a uniquely American form of racial dictatorship over Indian tribes by the U.S. government. Williams concludes with a revolutionary proposal for reimagining the rights of American Indians in international law, as well as strategies for compelling the current Supreme Court to confront the racist origins of Indian law and for challenging bigoted ways of talking, thinking, and writing about American Indians. Robert A. Williams Jr. is professor of law and American Indian studies at the James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona. A member of the Lumbee Indian Tribe, he is author of The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest and coauthor of Federal Indian Law.

Now in paperback, an important account of ten Supreme Court cases that changed the fate of Native Americans, providing the contemporary historical/political context of each case, and explaining how the decisions have adversely affected the cultural survival of Native people to this day.

"If the moral issues raised by the Sioux people in the federal courtroom that cold month of December 1974 spark a recognition among the readers of a common destiny of humanity over and above the rules and regulations, the codes and statutes, and the power of the establishment to enforce its will, then the sacrifice of the Sioux people will not have been in vain."--Vine Deloria Jr. The Great Sioux Nation: Sitting in Judgment on America is the story of the Sioux Nation's fight to regain its land and sovereignty, highlighting the events of 1973-74, including the protest at Wounded Knee. It features pieces by some of the most prominent scholars and Indian activists of the twentieth century, including Vine Deloria Jr., Simon Ortiz, Dennis Banks, Father Peter J. Powell, Russell Means, Raymond DeMallie, and Henry Crow Dog. It also features primary documents and firsthand accounts of the activists' work and of the trial. New to this Bison Books edition is a foreword by Philip J. Deloria and an introduction by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz.

The Great Father was widely praised when it appeared in two volumes in 1984 and was awarded the Ray Allen Billington Prize by the Organization of American Historians. This abridged one-volume edition follows the structure of the two-volume edition, eliminating only the footnotes and some of the detail. It is a comprehensive history of the relations between the U.S. government and the Indians. Covering the two centuries from the Revolutionary War to 1980, the book traces the development of American Indian policy and the growth of the bureaucracy created to implement that policy.

A critical evaluation of a new era in American Indian policy Over the past twenty years, American Indian policy has shifted from self-determination to ?forced federalism,? as indigenous nations in the United States have encountered new threats from state and local governments over such issues as taxation, gaming, and homeland security. During the forced federalism era (1988?present), public perceptions of indigenous peoples as ?rich Indians? have been just as damaging to Native nations as anti-sovereignty legislation. This book examines how state governments have manipulated ?rich Indian? images when setting policies targeting indigenous peoples and discusses how indigenous nations have responded politically to these contemporary threats to their nationhood. Drawing on original survey data collected from Native governments from 1994 to 2000 and on interviews with Chief Chad Smith of the Cherokee Nation as well as other indigenous leaders, Jeff Corntassel and Richard C. Witmer II examine the power dynamics of the indigenous-state compacting system, and show how electoral activism among indigenous peoples has increased their political power while also giving rise to ?rich Indian racism? among non-Indians?especially in the wake of the Indian Gaming and Regulatory Act. The authors warn that current widespread Native participation in non-Native politics is undermining both the political and the cultural foundations of indigenous nationhood, especially as the American culture of money gains influence in Native politics. They also offer specific strategies for regenerating indigenous communities in order to meet future challenges to their nationhood.

"This book is a collaborative effort by more than twenty law school professors and thought leaders across the globe. In addition to providing a text for a semester-long classroom curriculum, the book will include a compendium of ecocentric law that will serve as a comprehensive reference for practitioners"--

"In 2016, thousands of people travelled to North Dakota to camp out near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to protest the construction of an oil pipeline that is projected to cross underneath the Missouri River a half mile upstream from the Reservation. The Standing Rock Sioux consider the pipeline a threat to the region's clean water and to the Sioux's sacred sites (such as its ancient burial grounds). The encamped protests garnered front-page headlines and international attention, and the resolve of the protesters was made clear in a red banner that flew above the camp: "Defend the Sacred". What does it mean when Native communities and their allies make such claims? What is the history of such claim-making, and why has this rhetorical and legal strategy - based on appeals to religious freedom - failed to gain much traction in American courts? As Michael McNally recounts in this book, Native Americans have repeatedly been inspired to assert claims to sacred places, practices, obj ects, knowledge, and ancestral remains by appealing to the discourse of religious freedom. But such claims based on alleged violations of the First Amendment "free exercise of religion" clause of the US Constitution have met with little success in US courts, largely because Native American communal traditions have been difficult to capture by the modern Western category of "religion." In light of this poor track record Native communities have gone beyond religious freedom-based legal strategies in articulating their sacred claims: in (e.g.) the technocratic language of "cultural resource" under American environmental and historic preservation law; in terms of the limited sovereignty accorded to Native tribes under federal Indian law; and (increasingly) in the political language of "indigenous rights" according to international human rights law (especially in light of the 2007 U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). And yet the language of religious freedom, which resonat es powerfully in the US, continues to be deployed, propelling some remarkably useful legislative and administrative accommodations such as the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Reparation Act. As McNally's book shows, native communities draw on the continued rhetorical power of religious freedom language to attain legislative and regulatory victories beyond the First Amendment"--;"The remarkable story of the innovative legal strategies Native Americans have used to protect their religious rights. From North Dakota's Standing Rock encampments to Arizona's San Francisco Peaks, Native Americans have repeatedly asserted legal rights to religious freedom to protect their sacred places, practices, objects, knowledge, and ancestral remains. But these claims have met with little success in court because Native American communal traditions don't fit easily into modern Western definitions of religion. In Defend the Sacred, Michael McNally explores how, in response to this situation, Native peoples have creatively turned to other legal means to safeguard what matters to them. To articulate their claims, Native peoples have resourcefully used the languages of cultural resources under environmental and historic preservation law; of sovereignty under treaty-based federal Indian law; and, increasingly, of Indigenous rights under international human rights law. Along the way, Native nations still draw on the rhetorical power of religious freedom to gain legislative and regulatory successes beyond the First Amendment. The story of Native American advocates and their struggle to protect their liberties, Defend the Sacred casts new light on discussions of religious freedom, cultural resource management, and the vitality of Indigenous religions today"--

The first legal history of the first tribal court upends long-held misconceptions about the origins of Westernized tribal jurisprudence. This book demonstrates how the Cherokee people—prior to their removal on the Trail of Tears—used their judicial system as an external exemplar of American legal values, while simultaneously deploying it as a bulwark for tribal culture and tradition in the face of massive societal pressure and change. Extensive case studies document the Cherokee Nation's exercise of both criminal and civil jurisdiction over American citizens, the roles of women and language in the Supreme Court, and how the courts were used to regulate the slave trade among the Cherokees. Although long-known for its historical value, the legal significance of the Cherokee Supreme Court has not been explored until now.

"In the American imagination "the West" denotes a border--between civilization and wilderness, past and future, native and newcomer--and its lawlessness is legendary. In fact, there was an abundance of law in the West, as in all borderland regions of vying and overlapping claims, jurisdictions, and domains. It is this legal borderland that Beyond the Borders of the Law explores. Combining the concepts and insights of critical legal studies and western/borderlands history, this book demonstrates how profoundly the North American West has been, and continues to be, a site of contradictory, overlapping, and overreaching legal structures and practices steeped in articulations of race, gender, and power. The authors in this volume take up topics and time periods that include Native history, the US-Canada and US-Mexico borders, regions from Texas to Alaska and Montana to California, and a chronology that stretches from the mid-nineteenth century to the near-present. From water rights to women's rights, from immigrant to indigenous histories, from disputes over coal deposits to child custody, their essays chronicle the ways in which marginalized westerners have leveraged and resisted the law to define their own rights and legacies. For the authors, legal borderlands might be the legal texts that define and regulate geopolitical borders, or they might be the ambiguities or contradictions creating liminal zones within the law. In their essays, and in the volume as a whole, the concept of legal borderlands proves a remarkably useful framework for finally bringing a measure of clarity to a region characterized by lawful disorder and contradiction. "--;"In popular culture, the American West is generally thought of as a lawless place, full of gunfights and vigilante justice. In this edited collection, which comes out of the Clements Center's annual symposium program, Katrina Jagodinsky and Pablo Mitchell bring together a cast of scholars who show that, far from being lawless, the West was actually home to a multitude of overlapping laws and legal systems. Contributors will address how race, gender, and citizenship intersect with issues around water and natural resource rights, crime and punishment, health care, property rights, and child custody fights. While critical legal studies--advanced by such people as UPK author Lawrence Friedman--has been a strong field since the 80s, and Western/borderlands history has similarly been a vibrant field, the two have never really come together in a solid way. Jagodinsky and Mitchell hope to correct that through this vibrant collection that puts critical legal scholars and historians in conversation"--

"Interrogating the concept of environmental justice in the U.S. as it relates to Indigenous peoples, this book argues that a different framework must apply compared to other marginalized communities, while it also attends to the colonial history and structure of the U.S. and ways Indigenous peoples continue to resist, and ways the mainstream environmental movement has been an impediment to effective organizing and allyship"--

Baffled by the stereotypes presented by Hollywood and much historical fiction, many other Americans find the contemporary American Indian an enigma. Compounding their confusion is the highly publicized struggle of the contemporary Indian for self-determination, lost land, cultural preservation, and fundamental human rights--a struggle dramatized both by public acts of protest and by precedent-setting legal actions. More and more, the battles of American Indians are fought--and won--in the political arena and the courts. American Indians, American Justice explores the complexities of the present Indian situation, particularly with regard to legal and political rights. It is the first book to present an overview of federal Indian law in language readably accessible to the layperson. Remarkably comprehensive, it is destined to become a standard sourcebook for all concerned with the plight of the contemporary Indian. Beginning with an examination of the historical relationship of Indians and the courts, the authors describe how tribal courts developed and operate today, and how they relate to federal and state governments. They define such key legal concepts as tribal sovereignty and Indian Country. By comparing and contrasting the workings of Indian and non-Indian legal institutions, the authors illustrate how Indian tribes have adapted their customs, values, and institutions to the demands of the modern world. Describing the activities of attorneys and Indian advocates in asserting and defending Indian rights, they identify the difficulties typically faced by Indians in the criminal and civil legal arenas and explore the public policy and legal rights of Indians as regards citizenship, voting rights, religious freedom, and basic governmental services.

"A masterful and unsettling history of the forced migration of 80,000 Native Americans across the Mississippi River in the 1830s. On May 28, 1830, Congress authorized the expulsion of indigenous peoples from the East to territories west of the Mississippi River. Over the next decade, Native Americans saw their homelands and possessions stolen through fraud, intimidation, and murder. Thousands lost their lives. In this powerful, gripping book, Claudio Saunt upends the common view that "Indian Removal" was an inevitable chapter in US expansion across the continent. Instead, Saunt argues that it was a contested political act-resisted by both indigenous peoples and US citizens-that passed in Congress by a razor-thin margin. In telling the full story of this systematic, state-sponsored theft, Saunt reveals how expulsion became national policy, abetted by southern slave owners and financed by Wall Street. Moving beyond the familiar story of the Trail of Tears, Unworthy Republic offers a fast-paced yet deeply researched account of unbridled greed, government indifference, and administrative incompetence. The consequences of this vast transfer of land and wealth still resonate today"--