Rewriting history and proving property rights: Hualapai Indian activism and the law of land claims in the twentieth century (Arizona).

摘要

By looking carefully at one Supreme Court case and the historical context surrounding it, I argue that between ca. 1910 and 1941---when the Court decided United States, as Guardian of the Hualpi Indians of Arizona, v. Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Co. (314 U.S. 339)---an intellectual and legal revolution occurred in the field of federal Indian law, a new way of writing Indian history emerged to serve the law of land claims, and Indian people and their lawyers developed an effective methodology for litigating land claims. Profound changes followed as a result of the Court's opinion that went well beyond the boundaries of the Hualapai case. The dissertation highlights Hualapai activism as the catalyst for reform. As the tribe learned how to marshal an effective political campaign to save their land, they enlisted the help of sympathetic reformers during what has come to be called the Indian New Deal. From the joint efforts of the Hualapai and their attorneys, a new way of litigating emerged; anthropology and law formed a permanent union where there had only been evanescent connections; the case defined aboriginal title---the basis for many of the cases heard by the Indian Claims Commission, as well as in international law; it reaffirmed that abrogation of Indian sovereignty, including property and treaty rights, could only occur if clear Congressional intent could be shown---a major doctrinal ruling and a principal of law adopted by courts in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and being explored in South Africa and Malaysia; and it began to reshape the debates within and outside of academia over the place of nomadic peoples and their land rights, in the past and the present, all over the world. This case is the direct ancestor of the two most recent and important aboriginal land rights cases--- Mabo and Others v. State of Queensland (107 A.L.R. 1, 1992) in Australia and Delgamuukw v. British Columbia (3 S.C.R. 1010, 1997) in Canada.