Crow Dog's Case: American Indian Sovereignty, Tribal Law, and United States Law in the Nineteenth Century (Studies in North American Indian History)

315 Pages·1994·9.3 MB·English

by  Sidney L. Harring

Crow Dog's case
CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN
NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN HISTORY
Editors
Frederick Hoxie, The Newberry Library
Neal Salisbury, Smith College
Also in the series
RICHARD WHITE The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and
Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815
Crow Dog's case
American Indian sovereignty, tribal law,
and United States law
in the nineteenth century
SIDNEY L. HARRING
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1994
First published 1994
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harring, Sidney L., 1947-
Crow Dog's case : American Indian sovereignty, tribal law, and
United States law in the nineteenth century / Sidney L. Harring.
p. cm. - (Cambridge studies in North American Indian
history)
ISBN 0-521-41563-2 (hardback)
ISBN 0-521-46716-0 (paperback)
1. Indians of North America - Legal status, laws, etc. - History.
2. Indians of North America - Government relations - History.
I. Title. II. Series.
KF8205.H37 1994
346.7301'3-dc20
[347.30613] 92-23823
CIP
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-521-41563-2 hardback
ISBN 0-521-46716-0 paperback
Transferred to digital printing 2003
To Crow Dog, Crazy Snake, Sitting Bull, Bill Whaley, Sah Quah,
Corn Tassel, White Path, Isparhecher, Spotted Tail,
Plenty Horses, Standing Bear, Bai-a-lil-le, Tla-coo-yel-lee,
Columbia George, Nynche, Red Jacket, Scun-doo,
their people, and their jurisprudence
They are strangers to the common law. They derive their jurisprudence
from an entirely different source.
Ex pane Tiger 47 S.W. 304 (1898), at 305
Contents
Acknowledgments page xi
1 "This high pretension of savage sovereignty" 1
Crow Dog and the origins of U.S. Indian law 1
Indians and their law 10
Legal pluralism: the meaning of sovereignty in U.S.
Indian law 12
The century of dishonor 15
Of red, black, and yellow: the relationship of U.S. Indian
law to the legal oppression of other racial minorities 18
Legal history and legal doctrine 20
The plan of the study 21
2 Corn Tassel: state and federal conflict over tribal
sovereignty 25
Corn Tassel's case 26
State criminal jurisdiction over Indians 34
The Northeast and South, 1822-35 36
The North and West, 1835-80 44
Federal Indian law from Worcester to Crow Dog 53
3 U.S. Indian law and the Indian nations: the Creek
Nation, 1870-1900 57
The legal status of the Indian Territory, 1865-1900 60
Creek legal culture, 1870-1900 73
The constitutional legal system of the Creek Nation 82
Crazy Snake's rebellion 93
4 Crow Dog's case 100
Brule law 103
Spotted Tail and Crow Dog: Brule Sioux society in 1381 105
The killing of Spotted Tail 108
viii Contents
Early BIA attempts to prosecute Indians under state or
territorial law 115
The trial of Crow Dog 118
Crow Dog's appeal 126
The Supreme Court's decision 129
Law for the Indians: the Major Crimes Act 134
Conclusion 141
5 Imposed law and forced assimilation: the legal impact
of the Major Crimes Act and the Kagatna decision 142
A Klamath killing under U.S. law 144
State criminal jurisdiction after Crow Dog and Kagama 149
The jurisdictional problems of land allotment 153
Jurisdiction over railroad lands 158
Civil jurisdiction 160
Jurisdictional problems of liquor control 162
The racial geography of federal Indian law 165
Cultural geography: inherent limits of the reach of U.S. law
into tribal cultures 169
Conclusion 174
6 Sitting Bull and Clapox: the application of BIA law to
Indians outside of the Major Crimes Act 175
The arrest and killing of Sitting Bull 176
The Indian police 182
Courts of Indian Offenses 185
Indian court reform 190
The writ of habeas corpus and reservation Indians: the legal
significance of Standing Bear v. Crook 192
Bai-a-lil-le and the Indian Rights Association challenge to
the "big stick" policy of Commissioner Leupp 198
Indian citizenship 203
The reservation as prison: forced confinement of Indians
on reservations 204
Conclusion 206
7 The struggle for tribal sovereignty in Alaska,
1867-1900 207
Russian colonization and Tlingit sovereignty 208
U.S. legal jurisdiction over Alaskan natives 212
Tlingit law meets U.S. law 220
Tlingit law under the purview of U.S. courts 230
The accelerating imposition of U.S. law, 1886-1900 236
Contents ix
The development of an assimilationist policy for the Tlingit 246
Conclusion 248
8 The legal structuring of violence: U.S. law and the
Indian wars 251
The legal recognition of Indian wars: the Indian
Depredations Act of 1891 252
The Indian war as a criminal defense: the trial of Plenty
Horses 258
U.S. law and Indian crime: the legal structuring of
intra-Indian violence 262
Witch killings 268
The killing of authority figures 273
Drinking and fighting 277
Indian property crime 280
Conclusion 281
9 Conclusion 282
Toward an ethnolegal history of Indian law 282
American Indian law 287
Toward a new Indian legal history 291
Index 293