Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T10:04:22.244Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The “Middle Ground” Perspective on the Expropriation of Indian Lands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Abstract

In How the Indians Lost Their Land, Law and Power on the Frontier (2005), Stuart Banner weaves together a perceptive interpretation of the historical record, with a novel economic analysis of conflicts, to create a sophisticated narrative of the process by which European colonists took control of the lands that now comprise the United States. Banner's view of expropriation falls somewhere between the parsimony of an economic model and the richness of a traditional historical account. It forms part of a growing trend to focus on finding positive facts about the taking of Indian lands, as opposed to making normative judgments.

Type
Review Essay
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2008 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, Douglas W. 1991. Homesteading and Property Rights, or, How the West Was Really Won. Journal of Law and Economics 34 (1): 123.Google Scholar
Anderson, Terry L., and McChesney, Fred S. 1994. Raid or Trade? An Economic Model of Indian-White Relations. Journal of Law and Economics 37 (1): 3974.Google Scholar
Cohen, Felix S. 1947. Original Indian Title. Minnesota Law Review 32 (1): 2859.Google Scholar
Deloria, Vine. 1974. Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence. New York: Delacorte Press.Google Scholar
De Tocqueville, Alexis. 1990. Democracy in America. Vol. 1, ed. Bradley, Phillips. New York: Vintage Books [ Orig. pub. 1835].Google Scholar
De Vattel, Emer. 1758. Law of Nations. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institute [Repr.1916].Google Scholar
Harris, Marshall. 1953. Origins of the Land Tenure System in the United States. Ames: Iowa University Press.Google Scholar
Hirschleifer, Jack. 1994. The Dark Side of the Force. Economic Inquiry 32 (1): 110.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Thomas. 1907. Hints on the Subject of Indian Boundaries, Suggested for Consideration. In Writings of Jefferson. Vol. 17, ed. Bergh, Albert E. Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association.Google Scholar
Kades, Eric. 2000. The Dark Side of Efficiency: Johnson v. M'Intosh and the Expropriation of American Indian Lands. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 148 (4): 10651190.Google Scholar
Prucha, Francis Paul. 1962. American Indian Policy in the Formative Years, The Indian Trade & Intercourse Acts, 1790–1834. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schuyler, Philip. 1783. Letter to Congress, July 29, 1783. In Papers of the Continental Congress 1774–89. Vol. 3 (item 153, microfilm). Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Service.Google Scholar
Springer, James Warren. 1986. American Indians and the Law of Real Property in Colonial New England. American Journal of Legal History 30 (1): 2558.Google Scholar
Washington, George. 1931. Letter to James Duane, Sept. 7, 1783. In The Writings of George Washington. Vol. 27, ed. Fitzpatrick, John C. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Williams, Robert. 1990. The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
White, Richard. 1991. The Middle Ground, Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar