Stealing the Last Arrow: The Department of Interior Indian Probate Proceedings (Softcover)

by Roberta Carol Harvey

Overview

The American Indian Probate Act was enacted in 2004 and became effective in 2006. The Act applies to all individually owned trust lands, unless a tribe has its own probate code. State laws no longer apply. Its purposes include preserving the trust status of Indian lands by restricting non-Indian inheritance, reducing fractionation by earmarking federal funds for consolidation, and authorizing Indian co-owner and tribal purchase and sale of ownership interests. The Bureau of Indian Affairs estimated that heading into fiscal year 2024, it had a probate case backlog of more than 32,000 cases. Its ability to prepare cases for probate is limited due to understaffing and underfunding. In 2022-2023, the Interior Board of Indian Appeals docketed 31 Indian probate cases and reached the merits only four times. It dismissed most of those cases for procedural errors, for problems with service and missed deadlines, or for failure to prosecute. To families struggling to put bread on the table, the cost of legal counsel is simply out of reach. The digital divide in Indian Country only makes communication more difficult, if not, impossible, for the geographically isolated, disabled and elderly who may lack transportation in rural areas, telephones or postal service. This book is to sound an alarm.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632936820
Publisher:	Sunstone Press
Publication date:	07/18/2024
Pages:	146
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.37(d)

About the Author

The author, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is an attorney and historian. She holds BA, MBA and JD degrees from the University of Denver and is a lecturer on Indian law related to policy, land, water and natural resources. She is also the author of The Earth Is Red: The Imperialism of the Doctrine of Discovery; The Eclipse of the Sun: The Need for American Indian Curriculum in High Schools; The Iron Triangle: Business, Government, and Colonial Settlers' Dispossession of Indian Timberlands and Timber; All that Glitters Is Ours: The Theft of Indian Mineral Resources; Social Contributions of Colorado's American Indian Leaders for the Seven Generations to Come; Warrior Societies, A Manifesto; and A Brief Colorado Indian History of the 1800s, Through A Factual Lens, all from Sunstone Press.