Federal Anti-Indian Law: The Legal Entrapment of Indigenous Peoples

Telling the crucial and under-studied story of the U.S. legal doctrines that underpin the dispossession and domination of Indigenous peoples, this book enhances global Indigenous movements for self-determination.

In this wide-ranging historical study of federal Indian law-the field of U.S. law related to Native peoples-attorney and educator Peter P. d’Errico argues that the U.S. government’s assertion of absolute prerogative and unlimited authority over Native peoples and their lands is actually a suspension of law.

Combining a deep theoretical analysis of the law with a historical examination of its roots in Christian civilization, d’Errico presents a close reading of foundational legal cases and raises the possibility of revoking the doctrine of domination. The book’s larger context is the increasing frequency of Indigenous conflicts with nation-states around the world as ecological crises caused by industrial extraction impinge drastically on Indigenous peoples’ existences. D’Errico rethinks the role of law in the global order-imagining an Indigenous nomos of the earth, an order arising from peoples and places rather than the existing hegemony of states.

Peter d’Errico, JD (LLB) is professor emeritus of legal studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he has taught for more than 30 years.