In 1974, Judge George Boldt issued a ruling that affirmed the fishing rights and tribal sovereignty of Native nations in Washington State. The Boldt Decision transformed Indigenous law and resource management across the United States and beyond. Like Brown v. Board of Education, the case also brought about far-reaching societal changes, reinforcing tribal sovereignty and remedying decades of injustice.
Eminent legal historian and tribal advocate Charles Wilkinson tells the dramatic story of the Boldt Decision against the backdrop of salmon’s central place in the cultures and economies of the Pacific Northwest. In the 1960s, Native people reasserted their fishing rights as delineated in nineteenth-century treaties. In response, state officials worked with non-Indian commercial and sport fishing interests to forcefully—and often violently—oppose Native actions. These “fish wars” spurred twenty tribes and the US government to file suit in federal court. Moved by the testimony of tribal leaders and other experts, Boldt pointedly waited until Lincoln’s birthday to hand down a decision recognizing the tribes’ right to half of the state’s fish. The case’s long aftermath led from the Supreme Court’s affirmation of Boldt’s opinion to collaborative management of the harvest of salmon and other marine resources.
Expert and compelling, Treaty Justice weaves personalities and local detail into the definitive account of one of the twentieth century’s most important civil rights cases.
Über den Autor
Charles Wilkinson is the Moses Lasky Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Colorado. His fourteen books on law, history, and society in the American West include the standard law casebooks on Indian Law and Federal Public Land Law; The Eagle Bird: Mapping A New West (Pantheon Books, 1992); Fire on the Plateau: Conquest and Endurance in the American Southwest (Island Press, 1999); Messages from Frank’s Landing: A Story of Salmon, Treaties, and the Indian Way (University of Washington Press, 2000); Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations (W.W. Norton & Co., 2005); and The People Are Dancing Again: The History of the Siletz Tribe of Western Oregon (University of Washington Press, 2010).
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