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Federal Indian Law, Verónica C. Gonzales-Zamora

Faculty Scholarship

Introduction to Federal Indian Law, broken down by years: 1492, 1787, 1828, 1887, 1934, 1953, 1968 to the present. Includes major cases and additional resources.

Brief For Southwest Indian Law Clinic As Amici Curiae, United States V. Smith, Verónica C. Gonzales-Zamora, Barbara L. Creel

Faculty Scholarship

Prior cases, have assumed, without analysis that the ACA applies to Indian Country. This review of the ACA failed to consider and incorporate clearly established Indian law principles and foundational tenets of criminal law in the analysis of its applicability to Indians and Indian Country. Most importantly, the precedent and the Court below failed to understand the racial component involved in the analysis. These failures to understand the principles of Indian law and criminal law, have rendered haphazard and incoherent decisions.

Amici seek to bring clarity to the complex jurisdictional interplay and provide a practical framework for the proper analysis …

Human "Being", Laura Spitz

Faculty Scholarship

In this summary, Professor Spitz discusses how the Douglas Treaties acknowledged Aboriginal title when negotiations with Indigenous populations when purchasing land. She looks at how what the definition of “human being” is during the 18th century and how Douglas’ respect of Aboriginal land title also indicated he was these people as people. This diverges from categorizations surrounding the term Indian, and its implication that populations were subhuman and/or a different species.

Douglas is still embedded in a larger social and legal structure even as he understands indigenous populations as human when it comes to resources and allocations. Where the …