Reclaiming the Reservation: Histories of Indian Sovereignty Suppressed and Renewed

by Alexandra Harmon

In the 1970s the Quinault and Suquamish, like dozens of Indigenous nations across the United States, asserted their sovereignty by applying their laws to everyone on their reservations. This included arresting non-Indians for minor offenses, and two of those arrests triggered federal litigation that had big implications for Indian tribes' place in the American political system. Tribal governments had long sought to manage affairs in their territories, and their bid for all-inclusive reservation jurisdiction was an important, bold move, driven by deeply rooted local histories as well as pan-Indian activism. They believed federal law supported their case.

In a 1978 decision that reverberated across Indian country and beyond, the Supreme Court struck a blow to their efforts by ruling in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe that non-Indians were not subject to tribal prosecution for criminal offenses. The court cited two centuries of US legal history to justify their decision but relied solely on the interpretations of non-Indians.

In Reclaiming the Reservation, Alexandra Harmon delves into Quinault, Suquamish, and pan-tribal histories to illuminate the roots of Indians' claim of regulatory power in their reserved homelands. She considers the promises and perils of relying on the US legal system to address the damage caused by colonial dispossession. She also shows how tribes have responded since 1978, seeking and often finding new ways to protect their interests and assert their sovereignty.

Reclaiming the Reservation is the 2020 winner of the Robert G. Athearn Prize for a published book on the twentieth-century American West, presented by the Western History Association.

Genres: History

424 pages, Paperback

First published July 26, 2019

Reviews

[David Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about the issues confronting federally recognized tribes within the American political system. At a superficial level, Harmon's discourse is a commentary about the infamous 'Oliphant v Suquamish' case, in which Chief Justice Rehnquist denigrated tribes' capacity, not to mention sovereign right, to prosecute non-Indians committing crimes on Indian land. At a deeper level, Harmon's historical analysis of 'Oliphant' is about the assault on the inherent or retained sovereignty of Indigenous nations. In this book, the Suquamish, Quinault, and other nations Indigenous to the state of Washington, were considered to be fully sovereign, the same as any other nation in the world. However, through conquest motivated by a presumption of racial superiority, treaties that were regularly ignored and violated by non-Indian settlers, and statutes designed to unilaterally--based on the doctrine of congressional plenary power over Indian affairs--to strip tribes of their inherent political rights, the issue of tribal jurisdiction has become a legal morass of conflicting laws and policies. A subplot, if you will, of 'Reclaiming the Reservation' is how federal Termination Policy, as it was implemented among Olympic Peninsula tribes, sparked the Indian Protest Movement, begin with the legendary Fish-Ins, in which the names of Horton Capoeman, Joe DeLaCruz, Jim Jackson, Hank Adams, and others became prominent in the battle for treaty rights. Superb scholarship, compelling writing, and a brilliant thesis!

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not always an easy book to read for many reasons, but I learned so much from it.