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The Dark Matter Of Federal Indian Law: The Duty Of Protection, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Maine Law Review

The United States and every federally recognized tribal nation originally entered into a sovereign-to-sovereign relationship highlighted by the duty of protection, an international customary law doctrine in which a larger, stronger sovereign, America in this case, agrees to “protect” the small, weaker sovereign, in this case, tribal nations. America agreed to this in exchange for massive, occasionally unquantifiable amounts of land and resources, as well as the power to control the external sovereign relations of the protected sovereign. The smaller sovereigns received protected reservation lands, hunting and fishing rights, small cash infusions, and the vague promise of protection. What tribal …