Broken Landscape: Indians, Indian Tribes, and the Constitution
Frank Pommersheim
Abstract
This book is a chronicle of Indian tribal sovereignty under the United States Constitution and the way that legislators have interpreted and misinterpreted tribal sovereignty since the nation's founding. The author offers a novel and deeply researched synthesis of this legal history from colonial times to the present, confronting the failures of constitutional analysis in contemporary Indian law jurisprudence. The author demonstrates that the federal government has repeatedly failed to respect the Constitution's recognition of tribal sovereignty. Instead, it has favored excessive, unaccountabl ... More
This book is a chronicle of Indian tribal sovereignty under the United States Constitution and the way that legislators have interpreted and misinterpreted tribal sovereignty since the nation's founding. The author offers a novel and deeply researched synthesis of this legal history from colonial times to the present, confronting the failures of constitutional analysis in contemporary Indian law jurisprudence. The author demonstrates that the federal government has repeatedly failed to respect the Constitution's recognition of tribal sovereignty. Instead, it has favored excessive, unaccountable authority in its dealings with tribes. The author argues that the Supreme Court has strayed from its constitutional roots as well, consistently issuing decisions over two centuries that have bolstered federal power over the tribes. Closing with a proposal for a constitutional amendment that would reaffirm tribal sovereignty, the book asserts that the Indian tribes and Indian people be accorded the respect and dignity that are their due.
Keywords:
Indian tribe,
tribal sovereignty,
United States Constitution,
Indian law jurisprudence,
federal government,
federal power
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2012 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199915736 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199915736.001.0001 |
