Title: Tribal Justice Systems
Headings: Tribal Justice Systems
Tribal Justice Systems
A Brief History of Tribal Courts
The Indian Country Law Enforcement Initiative
Indian Tribal Courts Program
National Tribal Justice Resource Center

Content: Tribal Justice Systems









































Tribal Justice Systems
A Brief History of Tribal Courts
Since time immemorial, Native American and Alaska Native tribes have been keeping the peace and administering justice in their homelands through the use of their own ancient laws, traditions and customs. Historically, the United States federal government has recognized the inherent sovereignty of Indian nations to �make their own laws and to be ruled by them. � (Williams v. Lee, 358 U.S. 217, 1958.) Traditionally, most tribes resolved disputes and addressed criminal activity by consensus, not by an adversarial system, as do Anglo-Americans. While each of the more than 560 federally recognized tribes in the U.S. possesses traditional methods of dispute resolution, formal court institutions are a relatively recent development in Indian Country. The development of tribal courts as they are now known can be traced to a case arising in the 1880�s on land that is now the Rosebud Sioux reservation in South Dakota, when a Lakota tribal member, Crow Dog, killed a fellow tribal member, Spotted Tail. At the time, there was no formal court system utilized by the Lakota people. Utilizing traditional methods of dispute resolution, the tribe required Crow Dog to provide restitution to Spotted Tail�s family in the form of goods and provisions. Although the victim�s family was satisfied with the resolution, in the eyes of the federal government, the tribal approach did not inflict what it thought was appropriate punishment. As a consequence, the Department of the Interior, the federal agency responsible for directing Indian affairs, set up �Court of Indian Offenses� to handle less serious criminal offenses and to resolve disputes between tribal members through the application of federal law and regulations-not tribal law or custom.