Treaties and, later, agreements between the United States and Indian tribes are records of negotiations of relationships between the governmental parties. Although treaty-making comprises but one arena of federal Indian policy, it has spawned a substantial literature.
United States Statutes at Large (various titles).
An official compilation of the public laws of the federal government. Volume 7 of the Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America contains the texts of Indian treaties entered into between 1778 and 1845. After that date, they are in the respective volume chronologically associated with the date of the treaty and are indexed by tribal name. (Note that not all Indian treaties appear in the Statutes at Large series.)
Location: KF50
Charles D. Bernholz, Brian L. Pytlik Zillig & Cokie G. Anderson, You Say Cranberry and I Say Cramberry, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off: A Lexicon of the Recognized American Indian Treaties (2009).
This unusual document reports a study of lexicon lists—ordered alphabetically and by frequency—for the texts of the 375 acknowledged American Indian treaties created with the British and the federal governments.
Vine Deloria, Jr. & David E. Wilkins, Tribes, Treaties, and Constitutional Tribulations (1999).
According to one reviewer, this work
examines the historical development of laws defining the legal status of Indian tribes. Starting with the "Doctrine of Discovery," the authors carefully analyze every major organic legal document, legislative enactment, court decision, executive order and governmental policy affecting the rights of Native Americans. They focus particularly on the origin, wording and interpretation of key provisions of the United States Constitution and its amendments. Never has there been such an in-depth analysis of the application of the Constitution, or lack thereof, to the rights of the first Americans.
Larry EchoHawk, Justice for Native Americans Requires Returning to Our Constitutional Origins, 4 Green Bag 2d 101, 102 (2000) (book review).
Location: KF8210.C5 D45 1999
Henry F. De Puy, A Bibliography of the English Colonial Treaties with the American Indians, Including a Synopsis of Each Treaty (Lawbook Exchange 2001) (1917).
A collection of facsimile title pages of publications of treaties and related conference documents from 1677 through 1769, this reprint is fundamentally of bibliographic and historical value, the synopses providing evidence of the sorts of disputes that arose at the time. (The Robbins Collection holds a copy of the original 1917 publication at KF8202 1677.)
Location: KF8202 2001
Beth DiFelice, Indian Treaties: A Bibliography, 107 Law Libr. J. 241 (2015).
"This bibliography describes sources for research into treaties between the U.S. government and Indian tribes, focusing on primary sources. The sources are preceded by an overview of the treaty process and the termination of the government's power to enter into treaties with Indian nations."--Abstract.
Documents of American Indian Diplomacy: Treaties, Agreements, and Conventions, 1775-1979 (Vine Deloria, Jr. & Raymond J. DeMallie comps. 1999).
This impressive two-volume enumeration of treaties and other diplomatic documents supplements Kappler's seven-volume Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties (described below), volume 2 of which collected treaties then in force. The editors of the present volumes aim to improve Kappler "by offering a new chronoloigcal list composed of the State Department list [i.e., Kappler's primary source] supplemented by those treaties that have or that we believe should have full status as ratified treaties. It offers an accurate list of ratified agreements made with Indian tribes, and it suggests deletion of certain treaties from the old list because they were legally defective from the beginning...." (Introduction, 3.) Treaties not included in Kappler are here reproduced in full-text. Numerous lists of treaties with cross-references to sources, bibliography, index.
Location: KF8202 1999
Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties (Charles J. Kappler comp. and ed., 2d ed. 1904-).
A standard seven-volume compilation of US treaties, laws, and executive orders pertaining to Native American Indian tribes. The volumes cover US government treaties with Native Americans from 1778-1883 (vol. II) and US laws and executive orders concerning Native Americans from 1871-1970 (vols. I, III-VII).
Location: KF8202 1904
Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly (1994).
A comprehensive historical study of "the treaty system" (Preface, xiii), the process by which treaties with Indian tribes were negotiated and enforced. As in his other works, Father Prucha approaches his subject "largely from the white perspective," (Preface, xiv), emphasizing US national interests and strategies. Appendices include a succint account of treaty documentation and promulgation, and lists of ratified and unratified treaties.
Location: KF8205 .P75 1994
Charles F. Wilkinson & John M. Volkman, Judicial Review of Indian Treaty Abrogation: "As Long as Water Flows, or Grass Grows Upon the Earth"—How Long a Time Is That?, 63 Cal. L. Rev. 601 (1975).
A frequently cited article describing the negotiation and interpretation of treaties, and the law of treaty abrogation.
Location: KB1 .C153 CLR
Robert A. Williams, Jr., Linking Arms Together: American Indian Treaty Visions of Law and Peace, 1600-1800 (1997).
A study of the diplomatic language of American Indian treaty literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth century era of Encounter, aimed at discerning how Indians responded to Western colonialism and formulated their "visions of law and peace."
Location: KF8205 .W541 1997