Sioux Indian Courts

Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8
Word count
29K words
Chapters
3

Tags

English Originals World HistoryLaw Indigenous StudiesJudicial SystemLegal AnthropologySocial SystemSocial ObservationTribal GovernanceDocumentary NarrativeNative North AmericansCivilization ClashEthnography

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Sioux Indian Courts by Doane RobinsonAuthor: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946,Language: English, Class: KF: Law in general, Comparative and uniform law, Jurisprudence: United States, Release Date: Jul 10, 2008

Editor's review

This book is an important historical document on the judicial system of the Sioux Indians. The author, Doane Robinson, lived from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century and recorded, from a first-hand perspective, the operation of Sioux tribal courts, the rules of customary law, and their interaction with the federal legal system. Concise in length, the book is an interdisciplinary text of law and ethnography, valuable for preserving extensive original descriptions of oral tradition and institutional practice, offering irreplaceable primary material for understanding Native American legal culture. It should be noted that this is an English public-domain e-book, freely released by Project Gutenberg, set mainly in plain text without modern annotations or introduction. It should be read with background knowledge of Native American legal history, as a historical source rather than popular reading. It suits legal and anthropological researchers and readers with a specialised interest in Native American judicial traditions, for use in academic writing or thematic seminars.

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Reading tips

  1. Read an overview of Native American legal history first, then move on to the institutional details in this book.
  2. Note court procedures and customary-law rules as you read, to compare with federal legal provisions.
  3. Using the plain-text version from Project Gutenberg, read it chapter by chapter and take notes.
  4. For research, consult other Native American court documents from the same period for cross-verification.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English? It is an English-language public-domain e-book released by Project Gutenberg, in English, with no Chinese translation currently available. Readers need some English reading ability; it suits researchers who can read English historical sources directly.
Does the book include modern scholarly annotations or an introduction? No. As a public-domain text released by Project Gutenberg, it consists mainly of the original content, without modern editorial notes, updated references, or an introduction. Readers must supply the relevant scholarly background themselves.
Is it suitable as an introductory book on Sioux culture? Not really. The book focuses on the judicial system and court operation; it is specialised legal and ethnographic source material, not a general introduction to Sioux culture. Beginners should read comprehensive works on Native American culture first, then this book.
What background knowledge is needed to read this book? A basic knowledge of Native American history, tribal customary law, and nineteenth-century federal–Native American relations is recommended. Understanding the social structure of the Sioux tribes will help in grasping the specific context and significance of the court system described.

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About the author

Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946 Author · American · 1856–1946

Doane Robinson (1856–1946) was an American historian who served for many years as secretary of the South Dakota State Historical Society, devoting himself to collecting, organizing, and preserving local historical materials. One of his works is held in this collection, namely Sioux Indian Courts. The book examines the courts and dispute-resolution practices of the Sioux Indians, a subject at the intersection of ethnography and legal history, reflecting the author's interest in the social institutions of the state's Native peoples. Because public information is limited, details of his life and specific academic career are difficult to set out; the available evidence nevertheless shows that his writing drew on field investigation and documentary research, with a plain style and a emphasis on factual exposition, offering useful material for later study of South Dakota history and Indian customs.