"Domestic Dependent Nations": The Puzzle of Native Sovereignty in America

In 1831, John Marshall deemed Native American tribes “domestic dependent nations.” This moniker still serves as the Supreme Court’s ambiguous answer to the question of where Native tribes belong in America. In this course we will consider the sovereignty of “domestic dependent nations” in relation to U.S. sovereignty. Key texts will include Kevin Bruyneel’s The Third Space of Sovereignty and Vine Deloria’s Custer Died for Your Sins. We will situate histories of Native resistance, resilience, and persistence alongside histories of American expansion to understand the logics that undergird the displacement of Native peoples and the development of federal Indian policy.