Partial justice : federal Indian law in a liberal constitutional system

Book

Partial justice : federal Indian law in a liberal constitutional system / Petra T. Shattuck and Jill Norgren.

Shattuck, Petra T. (Author). Norgren, Jill. (Added Author).

Summary:

"Using American legal history, politics and jurisprudence, this study considers the degree to which American courts have maintained their autonomy and withstood political pressure, when the sovereignty and property rights of Native American tribes were at issue. In 1879, a chief of the Ponca tribe, when released from military custody by an order of a U.S. district court, pronounced the use of law “a better way” to redress Indian grievances. This study explores the development of legal doctrine affecting Native American tribes by courts and commissions in the United States beginning with seminal court cases of the early 19th century and continuing through to the 1980’s. Whether the law ever was a better way for Native Americans is a question of fundamental importance not only with regard to the rights - or even the survival - of American Indian tribes but also with respect to the claim of the American legal system to be equally fair and just to all groups in society regardless of their economic and political power."--pub. desc. 1991 ed.

Record details

ISBN: 0854963421
ISBN: 9780854963423
ISBN: 0854965882
ISBN: 9780854965885
Physical Description: xv, 208 pages ; 23 cm.
Edition: Pbk. ed.
Publisher: Providence : Berg, 1993, ©1991.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references (pages 200-203) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Introduction: the contradictions of federal Indian law -- Original principles of federal Indian law -- Nineteenth-century "friends of the Indian" and the rule of law: limits on the use of raw power -- The transformation of Indian law: trusteeship, plenary power, and the political question doctrine -- The Indian Claims Commission: politics as law -- Federal courts, tribal sovereignty, and Indian civil rights -- Conclusion: the two-tier structure of federal Indian law and the impossibility of partial justice [Indians, Indigenous, Aboriginal or Native peoples, First Nations]