Should the law be praised or cursed for what it has done to the American Indian?

Using American legal history, politics and jurisprudence, this study considers the degree to which American courts have maintained their autonomy and withstood political pressure, when the sovereignty and property rights of Native American tribes were at issue.

In 1879, a chief of the Ponca tribe, when released from military custody by an order of a U.S. district court, pronounced the use of law "a better way" to redress Indian grievances. This study explores the development of legal doctrine...