Making Indian Law: The Hualapai Land Case and the Birth of Ethnohistory (The Lamar Series in Western History)

In 1941, after decades of struggling to hold on to the remainder of their aboriginal home, the Hualapai Indians finally took their case to the Supreme Court—and won. The Hualapai case was the culminating event in a legal and intellectual revolution that transformed Indian law and ushered in a new way of writing Indian history that provided legal grounds for native land claims. But __Making Indian Law__ is about more than a legal decision. It’s the story of Hualapai activists, and eventually sympathetic lawyers, who challenged both the Santa Fe Railroad and the U.S. government to a courtroom showdown over the meaning of Indian property rights—and the Indian past. At the heart of the Hualapai campaign to save the reservation was documenting the history of Hualapai land use. __Making Indian Law__ showcases the central role that the Hualapai and their lawyers played in formulating new understandings of native people, their property, and their past. To this day, the impact of the Hualapai decision is felt wherever and whenever indigenous land claims are litigated throughout the world.

In 1941, after decades of struggling to hold on to the remainder of their aboriginal home, the Hualapai Indians finally took their case to the Supreme Court - and won. The Hualapai case was the culminating event in a legal and intellectual revolution that transformed Indian law and ushered in a new way of writing Indian history that provided legal grounds for native land claims. But Making Indian Law is about more than a legal decision. It's the story of Hualapai activists, and eventually sympathetic lawyers, who challenged both the Santa Fe Railroad and the U.S. government to a courtroom showdown over the meaning of Indian property rights - and the Indian past.

At the heart of the Hualapai campaign to save the reservation was documenting the history of Hualapai land use. Making Indian Law showcases the central role that the Hualapai and their lawyers played in formulating new understandings of native people, their property, and their past. To this day, the impact of the Hualapai decision is felt wherever and whenever indigenous land claims are litigated throughout the world.

In 1941, a groundbreaking U.S. Supreme Court decision changed the field of Indian law, setting off an intellectual and legal revolution that continues to reverberate around the world. This book tells for the first time the story of that case, United States, as Guardian of the Hualapai Indians of Arizona, v. Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Co., which ushered in a new way of writing Indian history to serve the law of land claims. Since 1941, the Hualapai case has travelled the globe. Wherever and whenever indigenous land claims are litigated, the shadow of the Hualapai case falls over the proceedings. Threatened by railroad claims and by an unsympathetic government in the post - World War I years, Hualapai activists launched a campaign to save their reservation, a campaign which had at its centre documenting the history of Hualapai land use. The book recounts how key individuals brought the case to the Supreme Court against great odds and highlights the central role of the Indians in formulating new understandings of native people, their property, and their past. Contents 7 Acknowledgments 9 Introduction 13 Part I: Keeping the Country Whole 23 1. The Hualapais 23 2. The Conflict 32 3. The Hualapai Awakening 37 4. The Government Versus the Hualapais 56 5. Taking Hualapai Land 70 6. Writing Indians out of Their Land 79 7. The Hualapais and History 91 8. Land and Law 106 9. Saving Hualapai Land 124 Part II: Making Indian Law 145 10. Building a Case 145 11. The Case in Court 164 12. The Supreme Court and the Power of History 179 13. In the Wake of Hualpai 186 Notes 205 Index 291