Review: Walter Echo-Hawk tackles '10 Worst Indian Law Cases'

Wednesday, January 19, 2011  

"Finally someone has written a book that shines a light into the dark corners of the Supreme Court’s thievery of the rights of Native America. Did you ever wonder by what quiet sleight-of-hand huge dimensions of the inherent rights and cultures of Native people disappeared or were radically reduced? Turns out some of the worst damage ever done to the original people came from the highest level of the judicial branch… the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court who historically have enjoyed (and cultivated) the perception that they are objective, neutral and above the fray of politics and ideology. Oh, if only it were true.

The book is In the Courts of the Conqueror, The 10 Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided. And this book isn’t written by just any old someone. It was painstakingly researched and written by Walter Echo-Hawk (Pawnee) who Vine Deloria Jr. once referred to as “the best Indian law attorney in America.” Echo-Hawk earned his chops as a staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund for 35 years where he was personally involved in many of the biggest Indian rights issues of our time.

Echo-Hawk sets the bar high when it comes to intellectual honesty, cultural values and the ethics of legal analysis. From that perspective he walks us through what he believes are the ten worst Indian law cases ever decided. Scholars and activists will quibble over a few of his top ten (or is it bottom ten?), but they’ll risk missing the bigger point, which is the devastation of these decisions as they change the course of history.

Echo-Hawk could’ve selected 20 such cases, but as it is this book weighs in at a hefty 470 pages, not counting notes. You’ll get your money’s worth out of this one. The book looks thoughtfully at the context and circumstances from which these cases emerge and then gives a careful assessment of how the high court turns phrases and facts in such a way as to devastate the cultural integrity of Indian Country… well beyond the implications of the specific question before them."

Get the Story:
James Botsford Reviews Walter-Echo-Hawk’s “Ten Worst Cases” (Turtle Talk 1/18)