The following is a guest post by Abigail Starcher, an intern with the Digital Resources Division of the Law Library of Congress. She is an M.L.I.S. student at the University of South Florida.
Historically, Native American women of many North American tribes were active in their tribal governments. However, when the 13 original colonies were established on tribal land by the British in North America, all persons living under colonial rule were eventually subject to the English common law legal system. This legal system followed the Blackstone interpretation of common law, in which the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage and falls underneath the realm of the husband. It should be noted that Native American women retained their sovereignty but only within the jurisdictions where tribal law governed. In 1872, Charlotte E. Ray, a Howard University School of Law graduate, was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar, becoming the first woman of any race to practice law in the United States. It would take 30 more years for the first Native American woman to be admitted to law practice in the United States as outlined below.
Eliza “Lyda” Burton Conley— The First Native American Woman Lawyer and the First to Argue a Case Before the Supreme Court
Eliza “Lyda” Burton Conley, of the Wyandotte Nation, was born in Kansas in 1869. She graduated from the Kansas City School of Law in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1902, making her the first Native American woman to obtain a law degree. Upon completion of her degree, she was admitted to the Missouri Bar in 1902, and the Kansas Bar in 1910. In 1910, she became the first Native American woman to practice law before the Supreme Court. (Evening Capitol, p. 4, para. 4). There she defended her case in Conley v. Ballinger, arguing that the Huron Cemetery in Kansas City (now known as the Wyandot National Burying Ground), where her family was buried, was protected by the Treaty of Washington with the Wyandotte in 1855 and never ceded to the United States government and, therefore, could not be sold to commercial developers. The Supreme Court did not rule in her favor. Following the Court’s decision, she and her sisters continued to protect the cemetery and built a watch tower in which they took turns guarding the site day and night, because as Eliza Conley stated in her argument before the court,
“Like Jacob of old I too, when I shall be gathered unto my people, desire that they bury me with my fathers in Huron Cemetery, the most sacred and hallowed spot on earth to me, and I cannot believe that this is superstitious reverence any more than I can believe that the reverence every American has for the grave of Washington at Mount Vernon is superstitious reverence.”
She died on May 28, 1946, and resides in the Wyandot National Burying Ground (Eliza Burton Conley Burial Site), the cemetery she fought tirelessly to preserve. In 2016, the burial site was designated a National Historic Landmark.
Margaret Seelye Treuer— The First Native American Woman Judge
Judge Margaret Seelye Treuer, also known as Giiwedinookwe (North Wind Woman) & Aazhideyaashiikwe (Crossing Flight Woman), of the Turtle Clan of the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe (Ojibwe), was born in Cass Lake, Minnesota, in 1943, on the Leech Lake Reservation. She enrolled in nursing school in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1961 (Treuer, p. 83). Upon graduation, she instituted her tribe’s first community health program. While working as a nurse, she petitioned the United States government for the Wisconsin Menominee Tribe’s reinstatement as a recognized tribe. This experience led her to enroll in law school; as she later wrote, “I was so excited about sovereignty, tribal rights, and the law that I applied to Catholic University Law School (now the Columbus School of Law) after that.” (Treuer, pg. 83). She graduated in 1977 with her law degree and became the first Native American attorney in Minnesota. In 1978, she became a staff attorney at the Indian Resource Center in Washington D.C. and went on to become an advocate for Native American housing at the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Five years later in 1983, she became the first Native American woman judge acting as United States Magistrate (part-time) for the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. Upon her resignation as United States Magistrate, she served as chief judge of the Red Lake Nation Tribal Court for a year from 1989 to 1990, and chief judge of both the Bois Forte Tribal Court and Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court in the 1990s. She testified before the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in 1995, concerning the unimplemented Indian Tribal Justice Act, Public Law 103-176 signed by President Bill Clinton, in which $50 million was authorized, but never mobilized, to financially assist tribal courts and establish a new Office of Tribal Justice Support. In 2012, she was awarded the National Association of Judges’ Lifetime Achievement Award for her advocacy for Native American tribal sovereignty. She reflected on her career, in 2009, stating, “I never dreamed growing up that I would spawn writers, professors, doctors, and lawyers, much less that I would become a lawyer… Nothing can stop an Indian who knows who he is.” (Treuer, 2010, p. 84).
Anne K. McKeig— The First Native American Woman State Supreme Court Justice
Justice Anne K. McKeig of the White Earth Nation (Ojibwe), was born in Minnesota in 1967. (Dennis et al., pg. 207). She graduated in 1992 from the Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. Upon graduation, she became Assistant Hennepin County Attorney with the Child Protection Division, specializing in Indian Child Welfare Act cases from 1992 to 2008. In 2007, she became a part-time American Prosecutors Research Institute staff attorney. A year later, Governor Tim Pawlenty appointed her to the 4th Judicial District bench and developed state and national protocols and programs for child protection and Indian Child Welfare. On September 1, 2016, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Minnesota and became the first Native American woman State Supreme Court justice. She was elected to remain on the bench in 2018. Shortly after being elected, she remarked, “My Native American background has profoundly influenced the way that I look at justice and has always influenced the role I see for myself in the justice system.” In 2020, she was awarded the Child Welfare Leadership Award by the University of Minnesota’s School of Social Work Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare, awarded to Minnesotans who have significantly contributed to improving the state’s child welfare practices.
Diane Humetewa— The First Native American Woman United States Attorney and Native American Woman Federal Judge Confirmed by the Senate
Judge Diane Humetewa, of the Hopi Tribe, was born in 1964 in Phoenix, Arizona. She attended Arizona State University and earned a B.S. in justice studies in 1987. Upon graduation, she worked as a crime victim advocate. Six years later, in 1993, she earned a J.D. from Arizona State University College of Law (now Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law) with a concentration in (Native American) Indian Law. Upon graduation, she served as deputy counsel for the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs from 1993 to 1996. She then worked, from 1996 to 1998, as counsel to the deputy attorney general at the Office of Tribal Justice (OTJ) for the United States Department of Justice (D.O.J.), while also serving as a special assistant to the United States Attorney for the District of Arizona. She later became assistant United States Attorney for the District of Arizona from 1998 to 2007, senior litigation counsel from 2001 to 2007, and a member of the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (on detail) from 2005 to 2006. Additionally, she served as an appellate court judge for the Hopi Tribe from 2002 to 2007, and later as acting chief prosecutor for the tribe. As tribal court judge, she strove to codify numerous Hopi customs and traditions into the Hopi code. In 2007, she was appointed by President George W. Bush as United States Attorney for the District of Arizona, making her the first Native American woman United States Attorney. Five years later in 2013, she was nominated by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the Senate on May 14, 2014, to serve as a federal judge for the United States District Court for the District of Arizona, making her the first Native American woman confirmed to the federal bench. In 2022, she reflected on her career, stating, “If I can achieve this, I feel like anyone who comes from a diverse background or has had obstacles put in their way can achieve it.”
Sources
- U.S. Reports: Conley v. Ballinger, 216 U.S. 84. (1909).
- Evening capital and Maryland gazette (October 28, 1915.)
- Treuer, Anton., Ojibwe in Minnesota (2010).
- Dennis, Yvonne Wakim., Indigenous Firsts: a History of Native American Achievements and Events (2023).
For more Law Library collection items about Tribal Law, visit: Modern Tribal Law on the Shelf.
