Here:
An excerpt:
Plaintiffs file this Complaint seeking an accounting of those monies the United States of America solemnly agreed to pay to each of Plaintiffs’ ancestors as reparations for a massacre of Native American citizens at Sand Creek, Colorado by members of the federal army.
Here.
Here.
Here, from Slate’s history vault.
The case is captioned James L. v. Devin H.
Petition here.
Docket here.
We will post the entire petition once we get it.
Questions presented:
The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA), 25 U.S.C. §§ 1901-63 applies, with two express exceptions, “In any involuntary proceeding in a State court, where the court knows or has reason to know that an Indian child is involved”. Despite that fact, many state courts of last resort, and countless state appellate courts in this country have been called upon, year after year, throughout the 35 year history of the Act, to decide a single question of Federal law. That question has involved hundreds of custody disputes to date and a significant number of Indian children each and every year. It is one of the most important questions which this Honorable Court will ever decide regarding the ICWA, and one which all Indian children, families, and tribes have needed a conclusive answer from this Court on for the past 35 years:
(1) Does the Indian Child Welfare Act apply to an involuntary child custody proceeding involving an Indian child, between biological parents and a third party non-parent?
As a separate issue, Petitioner also presents the following question:
(2) Does awarding conservatorship of a child to a third-party non-parent, over the objections of a biological parent and without a finding of parental unfitness, unconstitutionally infringe upon “the interest of parents in the care, custody and control of their children”?
Here.
Here. An excerpt:
Tribal leaders, parents and some inspiring children I’ve met make valiant efforts every day to overcome unemployment, endemic poverty, historical trauma and a lack of housing, educational opportunity and health care.
But these leaders and communities are once again being mistreated by a failed American policy, this time going under the ugly name “sequestration.” This ignorant budget maneuvering requires across-the-board spending cuts to the most important programs along with the least important. American Indian kids living in poverty are paying a very high price for this misguided abandonment of Congressional decision-making.
Here are the materials in United States v. Washington subproceeding 09-1 (W.D. Wash.):
Here is the opening Fifth Circuit brief in Mc Allen Grace Brethren Church v. Dept. of Interior:
Update (8/11/13): Interior Appellee Brief
No lower court opinion is available, but here is the cross-motions motion for summary judgment below:
Interesting article on blankets and American history, homophobia, and Indian history. An excerpt:
In his 2001 installation “Deep Down, I Don’t Believe in Hymns” conceptual artist Dario Robleto turns a blanket back on itself. He infests a military-issued blanket from 1862 with vinyl record dust, specifically the particles of two songs: Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Cortez the Killer,” and Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” (which was originally recorded and performed by Gloria Jones in 1965 — Soft Cell, a UK band, covered it in 1981). Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Cortez the Killer” imagines the colonizer with galleons and guns, “dancing across the water” looking for the new world, while Montezuma basks on shore, surrounded by abundance: cocoa leaves, pearls, gold, beautiful women, strong men, and secrets. While the title itself critiques discovery (so-called) and conquest, Neil Young and Crazy Horse cannot resist falling back on the very colonial tropes they wish to send up. In the song “Cortez [was] the killer” — but there are also the beautiful Natives, and a beautiful Native woman, specifically, “who still loves me to this day.” The song is infected with tainted love.
This military-issued blanket is likely from the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, an intense six weeks of Dakota resistance against settler encroachment and the U.S. nation’s broken treaties. At the end of those six weeks, a military commission tried nearly 400 Dakota men accused of participating in the war. 303 of those were sentenced to death and 16 were given prison terms. President Lincoln (who was deeply embroiled in the Civil War) reviewed the trial transcripts and “anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other” he decided to execute those who had “been proved guilty of violating females.” But since only two men were found guilty of rape, he expanded his charge to include those who had participated in “massacres.” On December 26, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged in present-day Mankato, Minnesota — this remains the largest government-sanctioned execution in U.S. history.
Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, the Dakota people were removed to reservations where many of them starved because of scarce game, drought, and unsuitable soil. Others died of disease or exposure because, despite its promises, the U.S. government failed to supply clothing — and blankets. Blankets were a matter of life and death on the Plains. The blanket meant survival, but also communicated a sense of dependency on the U.S. People died without blankets. And then blankets retroactively covered the dead.
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