 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution (1868) |
|
The Fourteenth Amendment gave citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and ensured equal protection of the laws for all persons. The writers intended the amendment to support the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which mandated that all citizens were entitled to equal protection under the law, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of slavery. The amendment has since been used to support civil rights and justify the expansion of rights across marginalized groups. The Equal Protection Clause is among the most litigated parts of the Constitution, meaning that many court cases are decided based on interpretations of the 14th Amendment. The amendment was passed by Congress on June 13, 1866, and ratified July 9, 1868.
|
| Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia Colony (1642-1705) |
|
Between 1642 and 1705, Virginia Colony established a series of statutes that increasingly limited the rights of Indigenous and Black residents while expanding the rights of Europeans. These acts reflect the increasing racialization of the colonial legal code.
|
| Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl (2013) |
|
In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that a father who was a member of the Cherokee Nation could not reclaim parental rights of his child under the Indian Child Welfare Act because he never had custody of the child.
|
| Affirmative Action's Origins and Legacies (2023) |
|
This teaching module provides an in-depth look at affirmative action, delving into its origins and tracing its impact to the present day, featuring a webinar with Nebraska Law faculty Catherine Wilson, Danielle Jefferis, and Eric Berger.
|
| Albert Wiley v. Moses Keokuk (1869) |
|
In this case, Moses Keokuk, a chief of the Sac and Fox Nation, successfully used habeas corpus to free himself from the arrest and detention of a U.S. Indian Agent after he left the Sac and Fox reservation without authorization. When a lower court ordered his release, the agent appealed the case to the Kansas Supreme Court. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the lower court, acknowledging the mobility and autonomy of Native Americans.
|
| Amending Indian Appropriation Act of 1892 (1896) |
|
This report from the Committee of Public Lands asserted that dispossessed treaty lands and former military reservations should be closer in price per acre to lands distributed under the Homestead Act.
|
| American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978) |
|
This act protected the right of Native Americans to practice their traditional religions and access to sacred sites, objects, and materials. The act was amended in 1994 to allow for the protected use of peyote as a sacrament in traditional religious ceremonies.
|
| An Act making compensation to Messrs. Lewis and Clark, and their companions (1807) |
|
This Congressional act showed government interest in land appropriation. Exploration by white Americans laid foundations for tribal land dispossession.
|
| An Act Temporarily Providing for Such Persons as Have Been to the Present Time Considered as Slaves (1865) |
|
This law, which did not universally abolish slavery in the Choctaw Nation, regulated the way in which persons who had been previously enslaved in the nation were allowed to remain with their former enslavers. It also legally barred any Black enslaved person who escaped from bondage in the Choctaw Nation from "returning for the purpose of residing in the Nation."
|
| An Act to Adopt the Freedmen of the Choctaw Nation (1883) |
|
This act enrolled Choctaw freedpeople as citizens of the Choctaw Nation, seventeen years after their emancipation.
|
| An Act to Adopt the Negroes of the Chickasaw Nation (1873) |
|
This tribal law, which was adopted by the Chickasaw Nation on January 10, 1873, called for the adoption of Chickasaw Freedmen as citizens of the Chickasaw Nation. The law included three primary stipulations for the adoption of Chickasaw Freedmen as tribal citizens: first, that Chickasaw Freedmen be excluded from any financial interests in the $300,000 the tribe would receive and any other tribal invested funds or claims; second, that despite these exclusions from monetary benefits, Chickasaw Freedmen be considered fully subject to the "jurisdiction and laws" of the Chickasaw Nation; and third, that the law would go into effect after being approved "by the proper authority of the United States." The law would not be approved by the U.S. Congress until 1894.
|
| An Act to Authorize the Sale of Certain Lands to the State of Oklahoma (1953) |
|
This law authorized the state of Oklahoma to buy land once under the control of tribal nations, as the U.S. government resolved to terminate the special trustee relationship tribes held with the United States, further eroding tribal sovereignty.
|
| An Act to enable the President of the United States to take possession of the territories ceded by France to the United States (1803) |
|
This federal law allowed the United States to ratify the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, and reflected United States ambitions toward empire, while ignoring critical issues regarding the incorporation of Native nations.
|
| An Act to Provide for the Appointment of Additional Judges of the United States Court in the Indian Territory (1895) |
|
This act reorganized the federal court system in Indian Territory. The establishment of United States courts worked to undermine tribal judicial systems by asserting broad federal authority over regional criminal and civil disputes.
|
| An Act to Provide for the Care and Support of Insane Persons in the Indian Territory (1904) |
|
This act weaponized Western medical diagnoses against tribal citizens in Indian Territory for the purpose of incarceration and confinement. Nearly four hundred Native people from fifty different nations were confined to the Canton Asylum in South Dakota during its operation from 1902-1934.
|
| An Act to Terminate Certain Federal Restrictions upon Indians (1953) |
|
This act ended federal support for programs on Native reservations, as the U.S. government resolved to terminate the special trustee relationship tribes held with the United States, further eroding tribal sovereignty.
|
| Articles of Peace and Amity (1666) |
|
This treaty, signed between the English colony of Maryland and twelve Eastern Woodland Native American nations, stipulated the rights of Native peoples and their lands and established regulations for interactions between Native Americans and English colonists. The document reflects an already established relationship between the colonists and Native nations by 1666.
|
| Brief of Amici Curiae American Historical Association and Organization of American Historians In Support of Federal and Tribal Parties (2022) |
|
The amicus brief for Haaland v. Brackeen, submitted by the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians in support of federal and tribal parties, outlines key historical issues of child removal in tribal communities.
|
| Burke Act (1906) |
|
The Burke Act amended Section 6 of the Dawes Act to explicitly add competency as a legal marker for allottees, tying settler-colonial judgements of social and cultural behavior to land holding.
|
| Cherokee Nation v. the State of Georgia (1831) |
|
This landmark Supreme Court case in Federal Indian Law introduced the concept of domestic dependent nations. In this case, the Cherokee Nation sued the state of Georgia in an attempt to prevent the enforcement of laws that stripped the Cherokee of their rights and land. The Court ruled that as the Cherokee Nation was a "domestic dependent nation" not a foreign nation, they did not have the legal standing to bring the case to court.
|
| Cherokee Removal Order (1838) |
|
This broadside details the United States Army orders to force Cherokees from their home districts in Tennessee during removal.
|
| Civil Liberties Act (1988) |
|
This act granted reparations to Japanese Americans who had been removed from their homes and interred in concentration camps by the United States government during World War II. It also made restitution to Native Americans in Alaska who were interred by both the Japanese and Americans.
|
| Constitution And By-Laws of the Sac and Fox Tribe of Missouri (1937) |
|
As part of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, Native American tribes were encouraged to create tribal governments that mirrored the United States government. Many of the tribes' constitutions were essentially the same.
|
| Curtis Act (1898) |
|
The Curtis Act shows federal land dispossession in Indian Territory through settler colonial judicial and administrative practices. The act dissolved regional tribal courts, voided tribal laws, and reorganized jurisdiction in Indian Territory.
|
| Dawes Act (1887) |
|
This classic document in Native American legal history formalized the process of federal land dispossession. Section 6 made claims to the adoption of civilized life as a necessary precursor to Indigenous participation in allotment.
|
| Dear Colleague Letter (2025) |
|
This letter, sent to the departments of education in all 50 states, summarized the Trump administration's position on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). While the letter does not carry the force of law, it states that any institutions of higher education who do not comply with the administration's interpretation of existing nondiscrimination requirements may lose federal funding.
|
| Defining Race & Lifelong Servitude in the Colonial Americas (2024) |
|
This module links Spanish colonial documents from the turn of the sixteenth century to British colonial innovations in the seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries, demonstrating how European colonists developed a racialized hierarchy that justified the widespread enslavement of Africans and their descendants.
|
| Discussions of Habeas Corpus in the Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1845-1892) |
|
In this collection of reports to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Indian agents wrote of their concerns regarding the use of habeas in and beyond Indian Country. While the majority of lower court records are unpublished and unindexed, these reports compiling the complaints and summaries of agents accounting for every reservation within the United States provides insight into the presence of Indigenous litigants and defendants in the legal system.
|
| Dispossession: Congressional Acts and Allotment, 1887-1906 (2026) |
|
This teaching module examines the critical phase of Indigenous land dispossession that unfolded in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) between 1887 and 1906. Prior to this period, tribal nations in Indian Territory operated independent forms of government, determined tribal citizenship and descent, and managed their own judiciary and commerce. Congressional acts detailed a methodical process for dissolving judicial, political, and economic forms of tribal sovereignty starting in 1887. Key documents show the suppression of familial kin structures, the undermining of tribal laws, courts, and governments, and the establishment of a guardianship regime. Lesser-known acts passed between 1893 until 1906 reveal the administrative underpinnings behind allotment, specifically for the Five Tribes.
|
| Dollar General Corp. v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (2016) |
|
After an anonymous boy was sexually assaulted by the manager of a Dollar General on Choctaw land, the boy sued the manager and Dollar General in tribal court, using the precedent set in Montana v. United States (1981) that tribal courts could regulate the activity of non-tribal members who enter into a consensual relationship with the tribe. The Supreme Court was equally divided, so the ruling of the Court of Appeals was held: the tribal court could exercise jurisdiction over Dollar General.
|
| Duro v. Reina (1990) |
|
This Supreme Court case looked at Native American tribal jurisdictions. The Court ruled that Native tribes did not have criminal jurisdiction over nonmembers.
|
| Duro-Fix (1991) |
|
This amendment to the Indian Civil Rights Act was designed to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling in Duro v. Reina. It reinstated the power of Native American tribes to exercise criminal misdemeanor jurisdiction over all Indians.
|
| Elk v. Wilkins (1884) |
|
In Elk v. Wilkins, the Supreme Court denied United States citizenship to Native Americans. Newspapers at the time identified John Elk as Winnebago, however, he had renounced his tribal allegiance and resided off-reservation in Omaha, Nebraska. Elk brought his case before the court when he attempted to register to vote and was denied. He claimed birthright citizenship as defined by the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case was heard before both Circuit and District judges, and when they could not agree on a ruling, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that despite severing tribal ties and living amongst white citizens, Elk could not claim birthright citizenship.
|
| Ex Parte Crow Dog (1883) |
|
Ex Parte Crow Dog was a Supreme Court case that asserted the federal government's role in criminal jurisdiction on tribal lands. The Court held that the federal government did not have jurisdiction over crimes committed by Native peoples against one another on tribal land. The Court's decision in this case affirmed tribal sovereignty, leading to the passage of the Indian Major Crimes Act two years later, which brought certain crimes committed on tribal lands under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
|
| Executive Order 10925 - Establishing the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (1961) |
|
This executive order by President John F. Kennedy directed government contractors to use affirmative action to ensure people of any "race, creed, color, or national origin" were given equal treatment and opportunity for employment. This executive order also established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity.
|
| Executive Order 11246 - Equal Employment Opportunity (1965) |
|
This executive order enacted by President Lyndon B. Johnson was repealed by a January 2025 executive order from Donald Trump. The original order was written to ensure equal opportunity in government employment and limit discrimination based on race. It required employers to furnish documentation of nondiscriminatory practices upon request.
|
| Executive Order 11478 - Equal Employment Opportunity in the Federal Government (1969) |
|
This executive order from President Richard Nixon ensured the continuation of affirmative action and increased directives to limit discrimination in the workplace. Nixon emphasized that this order was intended to prevent discrimination based on sex as well as race.
|
| Executive Order 12432 - Minority Business Enterprise Development (1983) |
|
This executive order from President Ronald Reagan sought to protect minority business owners and provided regulations to prevent discrimination. This was one of a series of executive orders to ensure affirmative action issued by every president across the second half of the twentieth century.
|
| Executive Order 14053 - Improving Public Safety and Criminal Justice for Native Americans and Addressing the Crisis of Missing or Murdered Indigenous People (2021) |
|
This executive order by President Joe Biden sought to improve the federal government's response to the public safety and criminal justice crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples.
|
| Executive Order 14151 - Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing (2025) |
|
This executive order by President Donald Trump directed the Office of Management and Budget to terminate all mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities relating to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. It also required federal agencies to report a list of all employees in DEI positions within 60 days. As a result, these employees were terminated.
|
| Executive Order 14173 - Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (2025) |
|
This executive order by President Donald Trump took aim at diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives in private institutions, especially institutions of higher education receiving federal funding. It also revoked several longstanding executive orders related to equal employment opportunity and affirmative action.
|
| Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report (2022) |
|
This report initiated data collection and information gathering on abuses in the Native American boarding school system.
|
| Haaland v. Brackeen (2023) |
|
In Haaland v. Brackeen, the Supreme Court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act, ruling that states could not circumvent ICWA adoption protocol.
|
| Habeas Corpus in Indian Country (2026) |
|
This teaching module explains the extensive presence of Native Americans in U.S. courts and American law in Indian Country throughout the nineteenth century, with a particular focus on habeas corpus petitions.
|
| In the Matter of the Application of Jacob West for a Writ of Habeas Corpus (1843) |
|
In this case, Jacob West, a white man who had resided within the Cherokee Nation for thirty years, was charged with the murder of a Cherokee man in a tribal court. West petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in a federal court, claiming immunity from the tribal courts as a white man. The writ was denied by the district court judge, who argued that given West's term of residence within the tribe, he was subject to their jurisdiction: "He has made himself one of them and is to be regarded as an Indian." West was executed by the tribal court.
|
| In the Matter of the Application of Standing Bear et al. for a Writ of Habeas Corpus (1879) |
|
Standing Bear's writ of habeas corpus showed implications for citizenship, land dispossession, and human rights.
|
| In the Matter of the Petition of Juan Rey Abeita for a Writ of Habeas Corpus (1892) |
|
In this case, Juan Rey Abeita petitioned on behalf of his three sons against the superintendent of the Government Indian School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who refused to allow his sons to return home. The writ was granted, but Abeita later withdrew the petition. Records in the Office of Indian Affairs indicate that the agency pressured the superintendent into releasing the children to avoid an unfavorable legal ruling.
|
| Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 |
|
The United States Congress passed several laws that ended treaty-making with Native American nations, eroding tribal sovereignty. This 1871 act stated that Native nations were no longer considered or recognized by the federal government as independent nations.
|
| Indian Appropriations Act of 1893 |
|
This appropriations act shows funding for a range of federal projects on tribal lands in the late nineteenth century. Monies were allocated toward payroll for agents, interpreters, surveyors, and boarding school superintendents, as well as traveling and various expenses for same; treaty stipulations and material support on reservations and treaty lands; boarding schools; and distribution on interest of trust fund stocks. The act shows key federal interventions in the establishment of institutions, as well as the commission later entitled the Dawes Commission.
|
| Indian Appropriations Act of 1902 |
|
Referred to as the "Dead Indian Act," this congressional act shows how privilege was given to guardians with the power to sell allotted land of minor heirs of deceased tribal citizens. The act also established a new federal judicial district in Indian Territory.
|
| Indian Appropriations Act of 1904 |
|
This act allocated funds for a wide variety of expenditures on Native lands including boarding schools, asylums, payroll, transportation, warehouses, police, judges, and medical supplies, and called for the liquidation of tribal land not already allotted to tribal citizens. It also removed alienation restrictions for some allottees on a case-by-case basis.
|
| Indian Child Welfare Act (1978) |
|
An act intended "to protect the best interests of Indian Children," the Indian Child Welfare Act supports tribal sovereignty and tribal involvement in the welfare of its children. The Indian Child Welfare Act was upheld in the 2023 Supreme Court decision in Haaland v. Brackeen.
|
| Indian Citizenship Act (1924) |
|
The Indian Citizenship Act granted automatic United States citizenship to all Native American people while allowing them to maintain their tribal citizenship.
|
| Indian Civil Rights Act (1968) |
|
The Indian Civil Rights Act ensured that constitutional rights were extended to Native Americans while also ensuring tribal sovereignty.
|
| Indian Major Crimes Act (1885) |
|
The Indian Major Crimes Act brought certain crimes committed on tribal lands under the jurisdiction of the United States federal government, weakening tribal sovereignty.
|
| Indian Removal Act (1830) |
|
The Indian Removal Act outlined the intent and plan by the federal government to forcibly remove Native Americans "residing in any of the states or territories" and relocate them west of the Mississippi River.
|
| Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975) |
|
This act gave tribal nations increased funding and decision-making power over education systems on reservations. This law signified an increase in tribal sovereignty.
|
| Indian Territory Citizenship Act (1901) |
|
This act amended section six of the Dawes Act to give United States citizenship to all Native Americans residing in Indian Territory.
|
| Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790 |
|
The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts had important economic, legal, and political implications in the Early Republic. A key feature of the legislation was the recognition of tribal sovereignty and legal jurisdiction.
|
| Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1793 |
|
The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts had important economic, legal, and political implications in the Early Republic. A key feature of the legislation was the recognition of tribal sovereignty and legal jurisdiction.
|
| Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1796 |
|
The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts had important economic, legal, and political implications in the Early Republic. A key feature of the legislation was the recognition of tribal sovereignty and legal jurisdiction.
|
| Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1834 |
|
The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts had important economic, legal, and political implications in the Early Republic. A key feature of the legislation was the recognition of tribal sovereignty and legal jurisdiction.
|
| Iroquois Confederacy and Indian Nations—Recognizing Contributions to the United States (1988) |
|
In this resolution, Congress acknowledged the contributions of the Iroquois Confederacy and other Native nations to the formation and development of the United States and reaffirmed the federal government's responsibilities and obligations to Native Americans.
|
| John Heo v. Robert H. Milroy (1880) |
|
In this habeas suit, John Heo was arrested by an Indian agent after he refused to reside on the reservation with his wife and children. Heo argued that he had severed his tribal relations, as had his parents, and that they never lived on a reservation or accepted government annuities. Despite "constantly living with the whites engaged in the pursuits of civilized life" and having "at no time lived with any tribe of Indians" or "acknowledged himself a member of any Indian tribe," the judge ruled in favor of the Indian agent, and Heo remained in custody.
|
| Johnson v. McIntosh (1823) |
|
In this case, the Supreme Court decided that only the federal government could could purchase lands from Native Americans, not private citizens. Additionally, referencing the Doctrine of Discovery, it ruled that Native communities merely possessed the right to occupy land, not to own it outright.
|
| Letter from Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Superintendent, Round Valley, California (1902) |
|
This letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Superintendent of the Round Valley Reservation in California reveals the connections between appearance and progress towards civilization in the eyes of federal Indian policymakers during the Progressive Era. This federal document is an example of policies restricting Native American identity for the purpose of furthering assimilation. In it, racialized presumptions about civilization are tied to hair, Native practices of face painting, and clothing. The agent is encouraged to get his wards to wear their hair short, as it will "hasten their progress towards civilization." Hair is especially seen as an agent of regression for former boarding school students, who return to the reservation, let their hair grow long, and subsequently "adopts all the old habits and customs which his education in our industrial schools had tried to eradicate." Dancing and feasts are prohibited because of their effects on morality. The Commissioner suggests withholding employment and supplies from Native Americans who do not comply with these orders.
|
| Letter from Nelson Harris to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1867) |
|
In this letter, Choctaw Freedman Nelson Harris describes his treatment by the Choctaw Nation following the 1865 act. He draws upon the Treaty of 1866, asking for assistance in ensuring his rights to reside and work in the Choctaw Nation were respected.
|
| Letter from Thirteen Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen Pleading for Federal Assistance in Emancipating their Kin (1865) |
|
This letter, formulated by a group of thirteen men who fled enslavement in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, details how Choctaw and Chickasaw enslavers continued to hold Black people in bondage. The letter includes a plea for federal assistance in ensuring the freedom of the authors' family members, an exhibit with the names and locations of eighty people who were still enslaved in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, and an accounting of how self-emancipated Black people were under threat of immediate death if they were to return to either nation.
|
| Letters of Application for Fee Patent (1915) |
|
Three applications sent to the Secretary of the Interior for admission to full American citizenship through the competency process. These applications summarized the main assets and qualities of the Native American individual that qualified them for U.S. citizenship. Some applications were written by the Native American applicant, but the majority were composed by a reservation agent. Together, these three applications reveal the changes brought upon Native American landholdings and personal identity as a result of the Allotment and Assimilation era. They emphasize how legal schemes, such as the competency commissions, upheld racialized legal benchmarks as indicators of a Native person's readiness for citizenship.
|
| Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903) |
|
After Congress attempted to pass legislation that violated the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867, Kiowa chief Lone Wolf filed a complaint on behalf of the tribes who had signed the treaty. The Supreme Court sided with Congress and upheld the violation of the treaty.
|
| Louisiana Purchase Treaty (1803) |
|
The Louisiana Purchase Treaty reflected United States ambitions toward empire, while ignoring critical issues regarding the incorporation of Native nations.
|
| Loving v. Virginia (1967) |
|
In this landmark civil rights case, the Supreme Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage were unconstitutional for violating the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
|
| Lucia Martinez v. Thomas Barnum, K. S. Woolsey, John Emmerman & Mrs Emmerman (1871) |
|
In this case, Yaqui mother Lucía Martínez used habeas to secure custody of her three- and five-year-old daughters from the former legislator who had fathered them, King S. Woolsey. Lucía had been held by Woolsey as an indentured servant while a child. When she left his custody at age 18, Woolsey kept two of the three children she had born. Shortly after filing her petition, Lucía dismissed her case. She retained custody of her children after Woolsey died eight years later.
|
| Making A Sioux Indian Into An American Citizen (1916) |
|
In this newspaper article, Secretary of Interior Franklin Lane gives an account of a naturalization ritual that took place on the Yankton Reservation, South Dakota, in 1916. This article highlights the lived experience of naturalization processes for Native American individuals becoming U.S. citizens, revealing the involvement of other participants at the ceremony. This account highlights the complexities with receiving allotment for Native individuals and some of the effects citizenship had on legal and political rights. With a photograph of the event, this document provides a glimpse into the symbolic nature of the event, where the restructuring of Native identity encouraged in Allotment and Assimilation era policies is performed.
|
| Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009) |
|
This act of legislation was enacted as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, creating a new federal law that criminalized the willful causing of bodily injury (or attempting to do so) because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person. It also provided funding and technical assistance to state, local, and tribal jurisdictions to help them more effectively investigate and prosecute hate crimes.
|
| McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Commission (1973) |
|
In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the state did not have the right to tax Native Americans living and earning income on tribal land.
|
| McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020) |
|
In McGirt v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court found that the lands in eastern Oklahoma were under the legal jurisdiction of the tribal nations. This decision reestablished tribal sovereignty for the Five Tribes, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, and Seminole.
|
| Medicine Lodge Treaty (1867) |
|
Signed between the United States government and several Native nations from the Great Plains, the Medicine Lodge Treaties were a series of treaties relocating these Native American groups to Indian Territory. The October 21, 1867, treaty relocated the Kiowa and Comanche people.
|
| Memorial of the Freedmen of the Chickasaw Nation (1882) |
|
This statement prepared by two Chickasaw Freedmen used clauses in Article 3 of the Treaty of 1866 to assert that Freedmen had the right to remain in the Chickasaw Nation despite not being formally adopted as citizens. They also demanded Chickasaw Freedmen be guaranteed the right to vote within the Chickasaw Nation.
|
| Meriam Report: General Summary of Findings and Recommendations (1928) |
|
The Meriam Report highlighted the failures of allotment while advocating for reform.
|
| Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones (1973) |
|
In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the state could tax tribal business that is off-reservation, but not business that took place on the reservation.
|
| Message from the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (1776) |
|
This message from the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy addressed members of the Continental Army after they were sent to New York City from Albany by General Philip John Schuyler. After New York, they traveled to Philadelphia where they addressed the Continental Congress. This document is an example of the involvement of Native Americans in the American War for Independence.
|
| Native American Citizenship and Competency During the Allotment and Assimilationist Era (2025) |
|
This teaching module explores how citizenship featured in Native American policy during the Allotment and Assimilation Era. It highlights the first formal naturalization process for individuals on a national scale. Focusing on competency commissions from 1915 to 1920, this unit guides students in analyzing how legal assessments of "competency" in the context of citizenship were shaped by race, gender, and settler values. Using primary documents— including applications, inspection reports, and naturalization rituals—this module examines how federal policies enforced whiteness and domestic norms as criteria for inclusion. The module also encourages discussion about the dual role of citizenship as both a tool of assimilation and a potential resource for Native resistance and legal agency.
|
| Naturalization Act of 1790 |
|
The Naturalization Act of 1790 had important legal and political implications in the Early Republic. An emerging racial hierarchy was reflected in the determinations of who was allowed to become a citizen. The act specified that any free white person who had resided in the U.S. for two years could be admitted to become a citizen, provided they were a "person of good character" according to a court of law.
|
| Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative (2008) |
|
This amendment to the Nebraska Constitution banned the use of affirmative action in the "operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting." It was initiated as a ballot measure that was approved in 2008.
|
| Nebraska Vagrancy Law (1881) |
|
Vagrancy acts passed by the Nebraska state legislature reflected race-neutral legal language that was used to target the poor, people of color, and women.
|
| Nebraska Vagrancy Law (1929) |
|
Vagrancy acts passed by the Nebraska state legislature reflected race-neutral legal language that was used to target the poor, people of color, and women.
|
| Northwest Ordinance (1787) |
|
The Northwest Ordinance had important legal and political implications during the Early Republic. A key feature of the legislation was the recognition of tribal sovereignty and legal jurisdiction. Slavery was prohibited in the Northwest Territory, however, a fugitive slave clause meant that enslaved people who escaped into the Territory could be "lawfully reclaimed." Enslaved people were still brought into the Territory, though some challenged their enslaver's claim in court, filing petitions for freedom based on the Northwest Ordinance's prohibition of slavery.
|
| Oklahoma's Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Legalized Robbery (1924) |
|
The introduction of Zitkala-Ša's groundbreaking report on Native Americans in Oklahoma opened the scene on fraud facilitated by guardians, lawmakers, and county clerks at the expense of minors, heirs, and incompetents during early Oklahoma statehood. It focused on probate courts as a site of legal exploitation.
|
| Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (1978) |
|
In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that Native American tribes have no jurisdiction over non-Indians. The ruling was later overturned by the Indian Civil Rights Act (1968) and Duro-Fix (1991) that stated tribes had criminal jurisdiction over nonmember Indians. The case of Dollar General v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (2016) also held that tribes had jurisdiction over non-Indians.
|
| Peonage Act of 1867 |
|
Following the passage of the 13th Amendment, this act officially abolished peonage, or debt slavery, in the United States. It specifically targeted New Mexico Territory, where this form of involuntary servitude was historically practiced. This act was later codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1994.
|
| Perez v. Sharp (1948) |
|
In this case, a 4-3 majority of the Supreme Court of California ruled that the state's ban on interracial marriage violated the 14th Amendment. It was the first of any state to strike down an anti-miscegenation law in the United States, preceding Loving v. Virginia by almost 20 years. Laws against interracial marriages became unenforceable by the 1967 Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, which held that anti-miscegenation laws violated the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.
|
| Plymouth, Massachusetts, Colonial Court Cases (1646-1675) |
|
These excerpts from the Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England document Native Peoples' engagement with the law after a 1641 code grants due process.
|
| President Thomas Jefferson's Confidential Message to Congress (1803) |
|
Jefferson's statement showed government interest in tribal removal, land appropriation, and eventual dispossession.
|
| Public Law 280 (1953) |
|
This law gave California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and Wisconsin criminal and civil jurisdiction on Indian reservations, as the U.S. government resolved to terminate the special trustee relationship tribes held with the United States, eroding tribal sovereignty.
|
| Re: DEI Programs Are Lawful Under Federal Civil Rights Laws and Supreme Court Precedent (2025) |
|
This memorandum from law professors across the United States explains how diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are legally defensible, in spite of the January 21, 2025, Executive Order titled "Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity."
|
| Re: February 14, 2025 Dear Colleague Letter issued by the United States Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights (2025) |
|
In this letter from the Montana University System, the Chief Legal Counsel responded to the Dear Colleague letter, describing its compliance with the guidance from the letter. It called attention to Montana's work with tribal governments to increase the recruitment and retention of tribal students, noting that the Supreme Court has recognized distinctions based on tribal enrollment as political not racial classification.
|
| Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act Fact Sheet (2022) |
|
This statement from the White House outlines critical elements in the reauthorized Violence Against Women Act signed by President Joe Biden as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022. One of the new additions to the act includes provisions to address the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples across the country and re-enforced Tribal sovereignty by giving Tribes the means to address domestic violence within their communities.
|
| Ritual on Admission of Indians to Full American Citizenship (1918) |
|
This set of instructions for conducting the Ritual on Admission of Indians to Full American Citizenship was produced by the Department of the Interior in 1918 so that such ceremonies could take place across the Western reservations. It includes the opening remarks from the Representative of the Department, followed by instructions for each participant to undergo to receive U.S. citizenship. There are separate instructions for men and women. The document reveals the centrality of performance during naturalization events for Native Americans.
|
| Royal Proclamation of 1763 |
|
Following the 1763 Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years' War, this Royal Proclamation ceded all French territory in North America to the Great Britain. The proclamation set up governments for the new British territories. It also limited settlement past a line drawn down the Appalachian Mountains. As a reward to soldiers who fought in the war, the proclamation also outlines the amount of land soldiers of different ranks were entitled to.
|