Premium Members Get 10% Off and Earn Rewards Find Out More

Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes, and the Trial That Forged a Nation

Add to Wishlist

Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes, and the Trial That Forged a Nation

Hardcover(Large Print)

$30.00

View All Available Formats & Editions

Hardcover(Large Print)
$30.00

View All Available Formats & Editions

SHIP THIS ITEM

Qualifies for Free Shipping
PICK UP IN STORE
Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Available within 2 business hours

Want it Today?
Check Store Availability

Related collections and offers

Overview

A Civil Action meets Indian country, as one man takes on the federal government and the largest boondoggle in U.S. history — and wins.

Product Details

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316896894
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	08/25/2004
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.86(d)

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Editorial Reviews

Raymond Cross is a Yale-educated attorney and the youngest son of Martin Cross, an American Indian tribal chairman who spent the bulk of his life fighting a losing battle against the construction of a post-WWII dam near the upper Missouri River that would forcibly remove hundreds of families from their ancestral lands. VanDevelder's exhaustively researched book uses the Cross family story-and Raymond Cross's eventual transformation into Coyote Warrior, the term given to a growing group of Ivy League-trained lawyers working on American Indian rights issues-to help trace the century-long struggle of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes to protect their North Dakota homelands. The author, an investigative reporter and documentary filmmaker, provides a glimpse into the vagaries of federal Indian law and its effects that avoids preachiness, preferring to let research and recollections by the Cross family tell the story. "It doesn't take long with Indian law before you realize you're breathing a different kind of air," notes one attorney who oversaw legislation to terminate federal wardship over American Indian tribes. The book is at its most accessible when it chronicles the personal struggles of the Cross family, but its sometimes tedious descent into legal jargon and switchback chronology may put off general readers. Agent, Joseph Brendan Vallely of Flaming Star Literary Enterprises. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Coyote warriors are Native American leaders who use science, law, and tribal sovereignty to protect their heritage (including their culture and natural resources) against self-serving tribal authorities and federal "trustee" agencies. One such coyote is Raymond Cross, a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) in North Dakota. VanDevelder investigates the modern history of the tribes via the Cross family, starting with Martin, Raymond's father. As tribal chairman in the 1940s and 1950s, Martin played a pivotal role in advocating for the tribes' rights while vehemently opposing the Garrison Dam, whose construction necessitated taking and inundating ancestral land, relocating hundreds of families, and abrogating numerous treaties. Interviews with those who lived through the events plus testimony and minutes from meetings and congressional hearings create a gripping and vivid portrayal that is extensively researched and well documented. Decades later, Raymond argued and won a case in front of the Supreme Court for retaining the tribes' sovereign immunity (the trial is alluded to in the title). This fascinating book is highly recommended for all libraries.-Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Libs., IN Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A solid case study in an emerging trend: American Indian lawyers' use of the courts to extract rights and dollars hidden away in long-forgotten treaties. When William Clark saw the fall run of salmon on the Columbia River, writes freelance journalist VanDevelder, he exclaimed that he could cross from bank to bank on their backs without ever touching water. In 1991, only a single salmon made the journey to an Idaho lake; it was "stuffed, shellacked, and mounted on a pine board and hung in the governor's office in the Idaho statehouse in Boise." Its fate aptly describes a subtext of VanDevelder's narrative, for there was a time when Social Darwinists in the American government hoped that the Indians, dispossessed of their land and stripped of their traditions, would simply fade away. In 1945, that thinking seemed a factor in the US Army Corps of Engineers' plan to create a vast diversion dam across the Missouri River in North Dakota, one that would flood lands claimed by the Arikara, Hidatsa, and Mandan peoples, who had helped Lewis and Clark during the winter of 1804-5 and regretted it ever since. The dam was built, despite the protestations of Indian delegations to the US Congress, displacing thousands of Indians-including the family of Raymond Cross, who would grow up to attend Yale Law and who would take a vigorous interest in redressing the wrongs visited on his people. So he has done, battling the likes of Justices Rehnquist and Scalia, whom Cross characterizes as "an ideological tag team and throwback to another century." Despite setbacks, writes VanDevelder, Cross and other Indian attorneys have been hitting hard, reasserting Indian rights and throwing unschooled judges intoconfusion as "Federal courts are now routinely asked to sort through the myriad of conflicting conditions to divine what tribal leaders understood at the time [a given] treaty was made."A sturdy companion to Michael Lieder and Jake Page's Wild Justice (1997)-highly recommended for readers interested in Native American issues. Agent: Joe Vallely/Flaming Star Literary Enterprises

Kirkus Reviews

Related collections and offers

Overview

Product Details

Related Subjects

Customer Reviews