Indigenous Space and the Landscape of Settlement: A Historian as Expert Witness

• Published in: The Public Historian
• Other Authors: Gray, Susan (ASU author), College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: anishina*
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2015.37.1.54; http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.29362

abstract: This essay examines my work as expert witness in the case of U.S. v. Michigan, a Indigenous use-rights case. I was charged with parsing the intention of a specific article of the 1836 Treaty of Washington compelling land cession by Anishinaabe peoples and with writing a history of land use in the area from that date to the present for the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority (my employer). The challenges were not only methodological (how do you estimate use from ownership?) and epistemological (what constitutes proof that will satisfy both historians and lawyers?), but also sociological and psychological: what happens when an associate professor puts her progress toward full professor on hold for the sake of a court case? Published as Gray, Susan E. (2015). Indigenous Space and the Landscape of Settlement: A Historian as Expert Witness. PUBLIC HISTORIAN, 37(1), 54-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/tph.2015.37.1.54. Copyright 2015 by The Regents of the University of California and the National Council on Public History. Copying and permissions notice: Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by The Regents of the University of California and the National Council on Public History for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink on [JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/r/ucal)] or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com.