Enduring Legacies

Treaties are so fundamental to the lives of Native Americans and their nations in the United States and Canada that life without them would be difficult to imagine. Most contemporary issues, from land claims to resource ownership to gambling permits, are rooted in laws that derive much of their sustenance from such documents. Treaties are, therefore, vibrant documents that define important issues in our time. This book is an attempt to maintain a national conversation on the treaty basis of important contemporary laws and issues. While the texts of such treaties have long been available, discussion and other annotation in a context that gives them contemporary meaning has been scarce.This collection of essays by experts in Native American history examines these historic agreements in light of recent and ongoing controversies. Claims to ancestral land bases are one prime example: the Canandaigua Treaty of 1794 provides a context in which to address the Onondaga's claim to most of the Syracuse urban area. Treaties provide the bases for events such as the modern-day rebirth of the Ponca Nation in Nebraska more than a century after a bureaucratic error resulted in banishment from ancestral land. One chapter explores why the U.S. Army still officially regards tragic events at Wounded Knee in December 1890 as a battle, rather than a massacre. Another reveals how treaties and laws have been used to retain and regain gas and oil resource ownership. Still another expert examines why so much energy has been expended over the fate of 9,300- year-old bones that have come to be called Kennewick Man.

"A must-read for students who are interested in continuing reevaluation of Native history of law and sovereignty....The analyses are often original and thought-provoking. Old ground is reinterpreted and rethought, while new case studies update the reader about significant contemporary issues and events."-Duane Champagne, Native Nations Law and Policy Center University of California, Los Angeles, "Anyone possessed of a belief in the integrity with which Angloamerica's vaunted 'government[s] of laws' are supposedly imbued, or the notion that they consistently pursue such ideals as freedom and equality, should feel obliged to read the essays collected in this book."-Ward Churchill author of Perversions of Justice: Indigenous Peoples and Angloamerican Law, "Approximately four-hundred treaties have been enacted between Native Nations and the United States government. A good share of these honorable agreements have been eroded, or severely bruised, by time, cultural misunderstandings, and the actions or lack thereof of the USA. This insightful book puts a clear light upon some of the issues involved. Each author writes elegantly and with meticulous informative detail. Readers will get a good sense of what it was like during those historic times when the agreements were hammered out."-John Fadden Director Six Nations Indian Museum, "This anthology offers 11 case studies in historical and contemporary treaty-rights issues. the contributors are recognized authorities on their particular subjects; the essays are uniformly well researched and well presented....[t]he anthology succeeds in its avowed purpose of supporting renewed inquiry into the general question on treaty rights and settlements."-Multicultural Review, ?[A] genuinely thought-provoking collection of essays in which the reader is challenged to address some very important questions....[g]iven the depth of scholarship and the commitment each of the contributors displays in this book, I would aver that Enduring Legacies is a worthwhile place to begin thinking about the answers.?-American Indian Culture and Research Journal

BRUCE E. JOHANSEN is Professor of Communication and Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He is the author of numerous works including The Global Warming Desk Reference (2001).