This course is a legal history of indigenous people in Canada and the United States from 1713 to 1886. The course examines the history of treaty making, the process by which indigenous people were dispossessed of their lands, and the extension of the common law into their communities. Specific murder cases are examined to illustrate how these changes affected them. The course begins in 1713 and the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht and ends in 1886 with the United States Supreme Court Decision in Kagama v. the United States. Topics discussed include indigenous legal systems, the treaties of peace and friendship made with British colonial officials before 1783, the Royal Proclamation of 1763, land surrender agreements with indigenous communities in Canada and the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court decisions which resulted in the forced removal of various indigenous nations from the southeastern United States, the wars of the 1860s to the 1880s, which forced indigenous nations onto reserves, and the creation of a statutory regime which made these communities subject to legislative and legal control. An important aspect of the course considers the incremental way in which the common law criminalized indigenous behavior by instituting laws, which sought to regulate and to control their behaviour.
