From Legal History Blog:

On Friday, January 23, Professor Christian McMillen, Department of History, University of Virginia, will be discussing two papers. First, he will talk about the Historians’ Brief in Carcieri v Kempthorne, an Indian law case from the Supreme Court’s current term which considers whether the Narrangansett Tribe may receive benefits under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, if the Tribe was not federally recognized on the date of enactment, and whether the Rhode Island Indian Claims Settlement Act foreclosed the Tribe’s right to exercise sovereignty over land in the state. Next, McMillen will discuss “Proof, Evidence and History in Indigenous Land Claims,” a paper blending history with the law in the early years of Indian claims.

Professor McMillen is Assistant Professor of Native American Studies and the U.S. West in the Corcoran Department of History at U.Va. He received his BA in history from Earlham College, his MA in history from the University of Montana, and his PhD in history from Yale University. McMillen’s book, Making Indian Law: The Hualapai Land Case and the Birth of Ethnohistory (Yale University Press, 2007) won the 2008 William Nelson Cromwell Book Award, the 2008 John Phillip Reid Book Award, and the 2008 Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Prize, and garnered a nomination for the Bancroft Prize. The book examines a watershed Indian property rights case that continues to impact the outcome of indigenous land claim cases throughout the world.
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