Abstract
The western legal system has historically forced tribes to fight for their sovereignty in legal frameworks that can be antithetical and outright hostile to their value systems, in a court system that relies on conceptions of tribal land and property rights that are steeped in 15th century notions of racial inferiority. This study examines how one tribe, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in northern Idaho, pursued legal affirmation of its ownership of Coeur d’Alene Lake and its tributaries in multiple courts over a period of thirty years so that it could improve its standing in separate but concurrent suits against mining corporations that had polluted the Tribe’s waters. The overarching research question guiding this study was: How has settler-colonialism impacted the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in its battles to assert sovereignty over its land and water? An in-depth instrumental case study of the Tribe’s legal history related to Coeur d’Alene Lake was conducted using the Tribe’s extensive legal archives. Additionally, a document analysis was combined with thematic analysis to consider one of the Tribe’s multiple cases: Idaho v. U.S., 533 U.S. 262 (2001), a case that involved the United States as lead plaintiff with the Tribe as intervenor-plaintiff suing the State of Idaho to quiet title for the United States on the southern third of the lake with the Tribe as beneficiary. The major understandings from this study were 1) Doctrine of Discovery and the legal conceptions of plenary power and domestic dependent nationhood that derive from the doctrine constrain full recognition of the Tribe’s historic and contemporary relationship and ability to govern the lake, and 2) Federal Indian law is embedded in notions of White supremacy and racial inferiority that persists through both explicit concepts and the repetition of legal precedents that mask racist language that would be unacceptable in any other governmental setting. This research may inform future tribal efforts in environmental and legal battles.