pickAnother excellent selection from the #wpnf25 long list. Centering on the ups and downs and legal manipulations of a Supreme Court decision, Nagle explores Indigenous Land Rights in the US. It is sad and infuriating, with occasional glimmers of hope.
pickCentered around a recent Supreme Court case, this is a look at Native land rights and the myriad of ways the US government has stolen land throughout history and reneged on its promises, including some of the unbelievable current laws that try to keep Native populations powerless. Reading it made my blood boil and I kept wishing more people would read this although I fear those who truly need the history lesson never will.
The legal doctrines the US created to take Indigenous land still govern how the US treats those living at the margins...
Powerful end to a powerful book.
As recently as 2022, Justice Samuel Alito argued that Indigenous nations do not share a common political interest, because "before the arrival of Europeans, the tribes were at war with each other."
What is sad about these statements is that Supreme Court justices are no better or worse than the general public; most people don't know what a federally recognized tribe is, how jurisdiction works on a reservation...
In a personal letter to President Monroe in 1817, Jackson confessed that he had long viewed treaties with Indigenous nations as an "absurdity." Such treaties were necessary, Jackson wrote, when Indigenous nations were strong and the federal government was still weak, but now, "circumstances have entirely changed." ?
pickNagle looks at a modern day jurisdictional debate as well as the history of US government behavior regarding native peoples in this book. While I liked all the parts of it, it didn‘t entirely work for me as a whole. The current story is regarding the Muskogee reservation but much of the past history was about her own Cherokee family. I found that split a little confusing and would have liked to see one or the other as the focus. #WPNF25
I wrote this book because I believe the American public needs to understand that the legacy of colonization is not just a problem for Indigenous peoples, but a problem for our democracy.
#WomensPrizeLL25
“I wrote this book because I believe the American people need to understand that the legacy of colonization is not just a problem for Indigenous peoples but a problem for our democracy.
And, selfishly, I wrote this book because the story lived in my body and I needed it to come out.”
pickHeartbreaking, maddening, unbelievable what the white man has perpetrated against the Native American people. This should be required reading, in order to understand the systematic way people were removed from land, the way entire ways of life have been destroyed. This begins with a crime and a legal battle over tribal lands and jurisdiction which I felt was a great way to introduce the many and varied ways tribes have been denied rights.
