| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 34.1

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 34.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Law. By David E. Wilkins and K. Tsianina Lomawaima. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. vi + 326 pp. Tables, notes, bibliography, index. $39.95.)

David Wilkins and K. Tsianina Lomawaima focus on state disclaimers of authority over Indian tribes and six key doctrines of Indian law—the doctrine of discovery, the trust doctrine, the plenary power doctrine, the doctrine of reserved rights, the doctrine of implied repeals, and the doctrine of sovereign immunity. They seek to provide an "indigenous perspective in federal Indian policy and law," essentially a wish list of how tribes would like these doctrines to be interpreted (p. 17). Their jumping-off point is the inherent preconstitutional sovereignty of Indian nations, and their (re)interpretations of doctrine all support or seek to expand the current boundaries of tribal sovereignty. 1

Take the doctrine of discovery. In its current formulation, it awards a superior title to Indian lands to the Euro-American "discoverer" of such lands and assigns the Indians only a right of occupancy. Wilkins and Lomawaima argue that tribes' inherent sovereignty means that their property rights are in no way inferior to the discovering nation's. Discovery only gave the discoverer a preemptive right to purchase the land from the Indians against the claims of other European nations; it did not impair the Indians' title to their lands.. They buttress their position with evidence from treaties, federal policy, and royal and colonial precedents. . . .

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