Tweedy, "How Allotment-Era Literature Can Inform Current Controversies on Tribal Jurisdiction and Reservation Diminishment"

Via Turtle Talk, we have word of a recent article by Ann Tweedy (Hamline University School of Law): “How Allotment-Era Literature Can Inform Current Controversies on Tribal Jurisdiction and Reservation Diminishment” appeared in Volume 82 of the University of Toronto Quarterly, in a special issue on law and literature. Professor Tweedy explains:

I looked at non-Native authored and Native-authored literature of the time, specifically in South Dakota and surrounding states and territories, to see whether it helped illuminate the injustices that were being perpetrated on tribes through the allotment process and the takings of surplus lands. The idea was that this literature might have, like the news articles I looked at in “Unjustifiable Expectations: Laying to Rest the Ghosts of Allotment-Era Settlers,” put purchasers on notice that tribal lands were being taken unjustly. Most of the non-Native literature I looked at was not that helpful, but a work by historian/poet Doane Robinson was an exception. On the Native side, Zitkala-Sa’s short stories proved to be the most helpful, but the works I looked at by Luther Standing Bear and Charles Eastman were also somewhat helpful.

The published version is available on Project Muse (subscribers only); an older version is available here, on SSRN.