Making Indian Law
Subtitle: The Hualapai Land Case and the Birth of Ethnohistory
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: January 10, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 304
ISBN-13: 9780300114607
Subjects: American history: from c 1900 -; History of specific racial & ethnic groups; Indigenous peoples; Property, real estate, land & tenancy law; Law; Legal Reference / Law Profession; Arizona; General; Law / General; United States - 20th Century; 20th century; History; Hualapai Indian Reservation (Ariz.); Hualapai Indians; Indian title; Legal status, laws, etc; Trials, litigation, etc; United States
Description: Publisher description: In 1941, after decades of struggling to hold on to the remainder of their aboriginal home, the Hualapai Indians finally took their case to the Supreme Court -- and won. The Hualapai case was the culminating event in a legal and intellectual revolution that transformed Indian law and ushered in a new way of writing Indian history that provided legal grounds for native land claims. But Making Indian Law is about more than a legal decision. It's the story of Hualapai activists, and eventually sympathetic lawyers, who challenged both the Santa Fe Railroad and the U.S. government to a courtroom showdown over the meaning of Indian property rights -- and the Indian past. At the heart of the Hualapai campaign to save the reservation was documenting the history of Hualapai land use. Making Indian Law showcases the central role that the Hualapai and their lawyers played in formulating new understandings of native people, their property, and their past. To this day, the impact of the Hualapai decision is felt wherever and whenever indigenous land claims are litigated throughout the world.