Not exactly Cherokee-centric, but an Oklahoma Indian woman and Citizen Potawatomi Professor Angela Riley (UCLA Law) brings down the house at the US Supreme Court historical society lecture - available on C-Span. Her topic is native lands and kudos to Turtle Talk for the link.
Posts filed under Research
A New Cherokee Blog of Interest
Ryan Mackey's new blog on Cherokee-related and other things has been on-line for a few months and I'd like to call attention to it. To check out the blog, click here. Below you'll find an early excerpt from the blog to give you a flavor of his introspection: I used to be a sovereignty sort of fellow, I even wanted to be a tribal attorney and "fight" as a modern ᏗᏟᎯ. That was until I spent some time in our communities as an adult. I still think that we need those sort of legal warriors, I have since realized that’s not my path. I know our ᎠᏂᎦᏚᏩᎩ people have always been an ᎠᏰᎵ, a Nation, but not by ᎠᏂᎦᎵᏏ definitions. Those ᏲᏁᎦ people had to remake us in their own image. I know how they used colonialism and hegemony to oppress our ancestors but now they don’t even need too. We can do that ourselves - that’s self determination for you.... I had better explain myself, I am not anti-Indian or completely self loathing or even unstable - not really. I am just afraid that we are focused on the wrong things. It maybe that we are on the right path, but it is likely that if we take the time to re-evaluate our system we will find that we are beyond our scope and out of step with our needs and priorities. I am only suggesting that we re-evaluate our foundation while we still have the means.
New Law Review Article - Cherokee Legal History
Judge J. Matthew Martin (Associate Judge at EBCI) has a new law review article out The Nature and Extent of the Exercise of Criminal Jurisdiction by the Cherokee Supreme Court: 1823-1835 at 32 North Carolina Central Law Rev. 27 (2009). The most interesting part of the article is the evidence that the Cherokee Nation did exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians (albiet over the non-Indians' objection). It's on westlaw and an earlier version of the final piece is here.