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Native American and Indigenous Peoples

Government and general resources concerning Native Americans and Indigenous Peoples

Treaties between Native Americans and the U.S.

A listing of historical treaties (1778-1868) from Yale Law School's Avalon Project

The Indigenous Digital Archive’s Treaties Explorer, DigiTreaties.org, was created by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, New Mexico, in partnership with the US National Archives Office of Innovation and National Archives Foundation. Thanks to a generous anonymous donor, the US National Archives conserved and digitized the 374 Ratified Indian Treaties in its holdings.

An open-access paper containing a bibliography of treaties, congressional documents, war records, territorial records, and more. 

Available online in pdf form from the Library of Congress. 

From the government printing office. NOTE: Large pdf file (1,097 pages)

Codes and Legislation

The complete, official U.S. code regarding Native Americans. 

Available online at congress.gov. You can use the "advanced search" feature to search by "subject - policy area" (i.e., Native Americans), or search by keyword (i.e., Native American, Indigenous, etc.)

A listing of federal publications including public laws, congressional records, presidential documents, and documents on the Dakota Access Pipeline. Available from govinfo.gov

A webpage from the National Indian Law Library on to research and locate tribal codes and constitutions. 

An archived and digitized collection of various Native American legal materials from the Library of Congress. 

The Committee has jurisdiction to study the unique problems of American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native peoples and to propose legislation to alleviate these difficulties. These issues include, but are not limited to, Indian education, economic development, land management, trust responsibilities, health care, and claims against the United States.

Tribal Case Law

Webpage from the National Indian Law Library on finding tribal court opinions and relevant case law. 

The purpose of the Project is to strengthen tribal advocacy before the U.S. Supreme Court by developing new litigation strategies and coordinating tribal legal resources, and to ultimately improve the win-loss record of Indian tribes. A project in partnership between the National Congress of American Indians and the Native American Rights Fund

A libguide from the Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington School Law. The guide contains information on locating tribal courts and tribal court decisions. 

The Indian Resources Section litigates to protect almost 60 million acres of lands held in trust for tribes and individual Indian lands, as well as the rights and resources associated with those lands. The webpage contains cases involving Indian lands, hunting rights, water rights, and other legal issues. 

Reference Books

Law Journals and Reviews

The American Indian Law Journal (AILJ) is an academic collaboration among students, faculty, and practitioners from Seattle University School of Law. The AILJ is designed to fill a critical gap in the amount of current scholarship available to those interested in the rapidly developing field of Indian law. The journal is open access. 

The American Indian Law Review serves as a nationwide scholarly forum for analysis of developments in legal issues pertaining to Native Americans and indigenous peoples worldwide. Publishing two issues each year, AILR circulates in-depth articles by legal scholars, attorneys and other expert observers. In addition, the Review provides comments and notes written by student members and editors on a variety of Indian law-related topics. This review comes out of the University of Oklahoma College of Law. The review is open access. 

A subject area from the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) Legal Scholarship Network. Browse, read, and download thousands of articles on this topic. SSRN is a "preprint" repository for articles before going through the formal peer-review process.   

Gaming Law

The Office of Indian Gaming acts as the primary advisor to the Secretary and Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs on Indian gaming and the requirements of Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), P.L. 100-497, and other Federal law.

Access to the 2006, 2008, 2013, and 2019 Gaming Tax Law and Bank Secrecy Act for Indian Tribal Governments from the IRS.