In Defense of Sovereignty: Protecting the Oneida Nation’s Inherent Right to Self-Determination

In Defense of Sovereignty tells the story of the Oneida Nation’s struggles for self-determination. Since the removal of the Oneida people from New York in the 1820s to what would become Wisconsin, the Nation has been engaged in legal conflicts to retain its sovereignty and its lands. Legal scholar and former Oneida Nation senior staff attorney Rebecca M. Webster traces this history, including the Nation’s treaties with the US but focusing especially on its relationship with the village of Hobart, Wisconsin. Since 2003, six disputes have led to litigation between the local government and the Nation. Central to these disputes are Hobart’s attempts to regulate the Nation and relegate its government to the position of a common landowner, subject to municipal authority.

As in so many conflicts between Indigenous nations and local municipalities, the media narrative about the Oneida Nation’s battle for sovereignty has been dominated by the local government’s standpoint. In Defense of Sovereignty offers another perspective, that of a citizen directly involved in the litigation, augmented by contributions from historians, attorneys, and a retired Nation employee. It makes an important contribution to public debates about the inherent right of Indigenous nations to continue to exist and exercise self-governance within their territories without being challenged at every turn.

Rebecca M. Webster, an associate professor in the American Indian studies department at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, is a former senior staff attorney for the Oneida Nation. She is the author of Our Precious Corn: Yukwanénste and the coeditor of Tribal Administration Handbook, and her articles can be found in American Indian Quarterly, Planning Theory & Practice, Wisconsin Lawyer, Ethnohistory, and the Journal of American Indian Education.