What do you think?
Rate this book
Not Without Our Consent: Lakota Resistance to Termination, 1950-59
In a 1953 effort to end the authority of local Native American governments, Congress passed Public Law 83-280. Allowing states to apply their criminal and civil laws to Native American country, the law provided an unparalleled opportunity for the state of South Dakota to crush burgeoning Lakota nationalism. _x000B__x000B_Edward Valandra's Not Without Our Consent documents the tenacious and formidable Lakota resistance to attempts at applying this law. In unprecedented depth, it follows their struggle through the 1950s when, against all odds, their resistance succeeded in the amendment of PL 83-280 to include Native consent as a prerequisite to state jurisdiction. The various House and Senate bills discussed in the manuscript are reproduced in five appendices.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published June 26, 2006
2 people are currently reading
86 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 18, 2014
This is an exceptional book - one of the first to really bring political history and ethnohistory together, by examining the case of Lakota resistance to Termination in the 1950s. This is also one of the few books that focuses on PL 280 rather than HCR 108 as a tool of termination, so is significant for that in itself. The first chapter is definitely worth a 5 star rating, offering quite a unique approach and thorough introduction into termination policy. Unlike most other studies of Termination, Valandra looks not just as examples of individuals who supported termination, but reflects on the broader build-up of Senate and Congress, as he aptly terms them "white, male, Christian, heterosexual, racist and scared of communism."
The reason I haven't rated the whole book as a 5 star effort may say more about me than the text. Quite a bit of the last two chapters went slightly over my head in legal jargon. While Valandra does make an effort to explain the significance of each bill or amendment or court decision, I struggled to follow as keenly along in these sections. Furthermore, (particularly as the book is relatively short for an academic publication) I think more could have been added to bring in perspective of the range of Lakota/Dakota tribal members alongside the legal tactics of tribal leaders. In fact, Valandra does not pay much attention to looking at who these leaders or other tribal members were to see how their backgrounds may have influenced their decision-making or to more closely unpick intra-group tensions.
Nevertheless more work like this needs to be done and understandings of indigenous groups as legal and political actors should be better recognised, both in academic circles and among a wider readership.
The reason I haven't rated the whole book as a 5 star effort may say more about me than the text. Quite a bit of the last two chapters went slightly over my head in legal jargon. While Valandra does make an effort to explain the significance of each bill or amendment or court decision, I struggled to follow as keenly along in these sections. Furthermore, (particularly as the book is relatively short for an academic publication) I think more could have been added to bring in perspective of the range of Lakota/Dakota tribal members alongside the legal tactics of tribal leaders. In fact, Valandra does not pay much attention to looking at who these leaders or other tribal members were to see how their backgrounds may have influenced their decision-making or to more closely unpick intra-group tensions.
Nevertheless more work like this needs to be done and understandings of indigenous groups as legal and political actors should be better recognised, both in academic circles and among a wider readership.
Displaying 1 of 1 review