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Full-Text Articles in Legal History

Federal Indian Law As Method, Matthew L. M. Fletcher Mar 2024

Federal Indian Law As Method, Matthew L. M. Fletcher

Articles

Morton v. Mancari is well-known in Indian law circles as a foundation for the tribal self-determination era, which is generally understood to have begun in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The case involved an Act of Congress that required the federal “Indian Office” (now called the Bureau of Indian Affairs) to grant preference in employment to “Indians.” The case is typically understood as the basis for analyzing how federal statutes that apply exclusively to Indian people do not implicate the anti-discrimination principles of the United States Constitution. This understanding of the case, while correct, is too narrow.


Failed Protectors: The Indian Trust And Killers Of The Flower Moon, Matthew L.M. Fletcher Jan 2019

Failed Protectors: The Indian Trust And Killers Of The Flower Moon, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Michigan Law Review

Review of David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.


Williams V. Lee And The Debate Over Indian Equality, Bethany R. Berger Jun 2011

Williams V. Lee And The Debate Over Indian Equality, Bethany R. Berger

Michigan Law Review

Williams v. Lee (1959) created a bridge between century-old affirmations of the immunity of Indian territories from state jurisdiction and the tribal self-determination policy of the twentieth century. It has been called the first case in the modern era of federal Indian law. Although no one has written a history of the case, it is generally assumed to be the product of a timeless and unquestioning struggle of Indian peoples for sovereignty. This Article, based on interviews with the still-living participants in the case and on examination of the congressional records, Navajo council minutes, and Supreme Court transcripts, records, and …


A Race Or A Nation? Cherokee National Identity And The Status Of Freedmen's Descendants, S. Alan Ray Jan 2007

A Race Or A Nation? Cherokee National Identity And The Status Of Freedmen's Descendants, S. Alan Ray

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article examines the Cherokee Freedmen controversy to assess whether law and biology can function as sufficient models for crafting Cherokee identity at this crucial moment in the tribe's history. The author will argue that while law and biology are historically powerful frames for establishing tribal self-identity, they are inadequate to the task of determining who should enjoy national citizenship. The wise use of sovereignty, the author suggests, lies in creating a process of sustained dialogical engagement among all stakeholders in the definition of Cherokee citizenship on the question of Cherokee identity. This dialogue should ideally have been undertaken before …


Individual Aboriginal Rights, John W. Ragsdale Jr. Jan 2004

Individual Aboriginal Rights, John W. Ragsdale Jr.

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article will, in Section I, deal with the legal development of the concept of individual aboriginal rights. It will focus on the Western Shoshone land claims before the Indian Claims Commission, and the federal government's trespass claims against the ranching operations of the redoubtable, irrepressible Dann sisters. Section II will explore the development and utilization of the doctrine of individual aboriginal rights in a series of cases involving the Dann sisters, subsequent Western Shoshone, and other efforts by native people to secure subsistence hunting and fishing rights and possession of or access to sacred sites. Section III will explore …


Not Because They Are Brown, But Because Of Ea*: Why The Good Guys Lost In Rice V. Cayetano, And Why They Didn't Have To Lose, Gavin Clarkson Jan 2002

Not Because They Are Brown, But Because Of Ea*: Why The Good Guys Lost In Rice V. Cayetano, And Why They Didn't Have To Lose, Gavin Clarkson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part II of this Article therefore reviews the history of Native Hawaiians in the broader context of the history of federal Indian law, focusing on the vacillating congressional policies regarding Indians and how those policies almost always treated Indian tribes as political entities rather than ethnic communities. Part III reviews and analyzes the procedural history of the Rice case and its resolution by the Supreme Court. Part IV concludes with the argument that constitutionally-permissible alternative methodologies exist for accomplishing the same objective of self-determination for Native Hawaiians


The Unsettling Of The West: How Indians Got The Best Water Rights, David H. Getches May 2001

The Unsettling Of The West: How Indians Got The Best Water Rights, David H. Getches

Michigan Law Review

A single, century-old court decision affects the water rights of nearly everyone in the West. The Supreme Court's two-page opinion in Winters v. United States sent out shock waves that reverberate today. By formulating the doctrine of reserved water rights, the Court put Indian tribes first in line for water in an arid region. Priority is everything where water law typically dictates that the senior water rights holder is satisfied first, even if it means taking all the water and leaving none for anyone else. In the West, water rights belong to "prior appropriators." The earliest users of water secure …


Chicana/Chicano Land Tenure In The Agrarian Domain: On The Edge Of A "Naked Knife", Guadalupe T. Lunda Jan 1998

Chicana/Chicano Land Tenure In The Agrarian Domain: On The Edge Of A "Naked Knife", Guadalupe T. Lunda

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Neither sovereignty nor property rights could forestall American geopolitical expansion in the first half of the nineteenth century. The conflicts that resulted from this clash of doctrine with desire are perhaps most evident in the history of the Chicanas/Chicanos of Texas, California, and the Southwest, who sought to maintain their land and property, as guaranteed by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in the aftermath of the U.S.- Mexico War. Integrating an exploration of case law with political and social histories of the period, the Author explores the sociolegal significance of Chicana/Chicano land dispossession; exposes the racial, economic, and political motivations …


A Tale Of Two Rivers, Carol M. Rose May 1993

A Tale Of Two Rivers, Carol M. Rose

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Green Cathedral: Sustainable Development of Amazonia by Juan de Onis and Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England by Theodore Steinberg


Black Hills/White Justice: The Sioux Nation Versus The United States, Martin J. Lalonde May 1992

Black Hills/White Justice: The Sioux Nation Versus The United States, Martin J. Lalonde

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Black Hills/White Justice: The Sioux Nation Versus the United States by Edward Lazarus


The American Indian In Western Legal Thought: The Discourses Of Conquest, Melissa L. Koehn May 1991

The American Indian In Western Legal Thought: The Discourses Of Conquest, Melissa L. Koehn

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest by Robert A. Williams, Jr.


Criminal Procedure On The American Frontier: A Study Of The Statutes And Court Records Of Michigan Territory 1805-1825, William Wirt Blume Dec 1958

Criminal Procedure On The American Frontier: A Study Of The Statutes And Court Records Of Michigan Territory 1805-1825, William Wirt Blume

Michigan Law Review

The area north and east of Lake Michigan, organized in 1805 as Michigan Territory, was first organized in 1796 as Wayne County of the Northwest Territory. In 1800 the western half of the county, and in 1803 the eastern half, became parts of Indiana Territory, and so remained until July 1805. In 1818 Michigan Territory was expanded westward so as to include all of the area north of Illinois to the Mississippi River.