Legal Associations: Modern United States Indian Policies and their Seventeenth-Century Antecedents

After establishing its first permanent colony in North America, the English government in the seventeenth-century began creating a legal context for their relationship with the Native Americans living in close proximity to the colonists. In a similar fashion, the United States government, immediately following independence from Great Britain, focused on developing policies to address its legal relationship with the Native American nations that resided within and on the borders of the United States. By examining the statutes, treaties, and court rulings regarding North American Indians used by both the United States and England, this thesis will highlight the close similarities that exist between modern federal policies and seventeenth-century English policies. Each chapter focuses on an important modern United States Indian policy and then presents corresponding evidence from seventeenth-century legal sources.