Legal Codes and Talking Trees: Indigenous Women’s Sovereignty in the Sonoran and Puget Sound Borderlands, 1854-1946

The Lamar Series in Western History

by Katrina Jagodinsky

Katrina Jagodinsky’s enlightening history is the first to focus on indigenous women of the Southwest and Pacific Northwest and the ways they dealt with the challenges posed by the existing legal regimes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In most western states, it was difficult if not impossible for Native women to inherit property, raise mixed-race children, or take legal action in the event of rape or abuse. Through the experiences of six indigenous women who fought for personal autonomy and the rights of their tribes, Jagodinsky explores a long yet generally unacknowledged tradition of active critique of the U.S. legal system by female Native Americans.



Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University

Genres: History, Grad School

352 pages, Hardcover

First published April 26, 2016

Reviews

[Alex Milton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Katrina Jagodinsky’s Legal Codes and Talking Trees: Indigenous Women’s Sovereignty in the Sonoran and Puget Sound Borderlands, 1854-1946 delves into the legal sovereignty of Native American women in the Mexican and Canadian borderlands. Through the analysis of legal documents, correspondence, and news publications, Jagodinsky presents the stories of six women from tribal communities descending from the Puget Sound and Sonoran Desert, with the concept of corporeal sovereignty, or reproductive agency connecting the narratives. Native American women of the Puget Sound and Sonoran Desert expressed corporeal sovereignty as colonial migrants to the regions sought to claim authority over their reproductive labors. She argues that Native American women used courts and reproductive agency to resist gendered challenges to sovereignty, particularly surrounding child custody, inheritance, and reproductive labor. The book’s historiographical contributions surround its introduction of corporeal sovereignty in discussions of American settler-colonialism. Jagodinsky further expands borderlands historiography through her effective analysis colonial resistance of indigenous women living in both the northern and southern American borderlands.

[Alexa Chambers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book comparing Indigenous women's actions in state and territorial legal spaces in Arizona and Washington. Jagodinsky set out to give voice to Indigenous women in the legal archives and prove that they deserve an honored space in the history of the North American West and the Indigenous West. Native women have always and will always remain, and fought for their corporeal sovereignty in the courts and through the federal government, and their actions matter and shape tribes and their efforts today. She can sometimes spend a little too long on the historical context and not the active story of the Indigenous women she writes about, but Jagodinsky brings home the argument every time. This is important work, and should be read by anyone who thinks the West doesn't include Native women, because they are right in the middle of it all.

[Bean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly well-researched and respectfully written by a non-indigenous author -- don't skip the last chapter of the book, where Jagodinsky describes her process of researching the lives and struggles of these six women (including the anti-indigeneity she witnesses in state and local archives, and details of one tribe's refusal to work with her as she researched their ancestor. I think the author could have reflected a bit harder on why this is, as a non-Native person). The accounts of Nora Jewell and Louisa Enick were especially moving to me.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This very well-researched book is chock-full of details from the lives of six Native women who were systematically silenced. It highlights their brave acts of overt and discrete resistance to a legal system designed to conquer and subdue.

Jadodinsky compares the stories of legal interactions of six women from Arizona and Washington. Her work shows that laws did not change the hearts of those with power, but these women found innovative ways to push back and make their voices heard.

Expect to take in a LOT of detail throughout this book (my interpretation of the amount might be influenced by needing to read it in two days for a class). It may be overwhelming, but it is important when reconstructing the lives of women who have largely been left out of and/or misrepresented in historical documentation.

My only reason for not giving it 5 stars is the academic nature of the writing which can be a barrier to entry for readers not used to it.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I think this is very well done. I wish there had been more on the potential or perils of recognition.