Date of Completion
2025
Document Type
Honors College Thesis
Department
History
Thesis Type
Honors College, College of Arts and Science Honors
First Advisor
Melanie Gustafson
Keywords
sovereignty, tribal courts, Indian law, Ex Parte Crow Dog, Indian Reorganization Act, Public Law 280
Abstract
This thesis explores the development of tribal legal sovereignty through three case studies: Ex Parte Crow Dog (1883), a Supreme Court case awarding jurisdiction to tribes over crimes committed by Native people on Native land; the Indian Reorganization Act (1934), which offered tribes a federally recognized path to self-government; and Public Law 280 (1953), a piece of Termination Era legislation that imposed state jurisdiction over crimes committed on Native land. Behind the legal history of these case studies is the social history of Indigenous activism and agency. While only one component of sovereignty as a whole, the struggle for sovereignty over systems of law and justice is a crucial and ongoing issue. Since the end of Indigenous military resistance in the late nineteenth century, their sovereignty has been fought for not on the field of battle but in the field of law.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Owen, Olivia, "Tribal Sovereignty through Criminal Jurisdiction" (2025). UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses. 743.
https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/hcoltheses/743