The “Legal Codes and Talking Trees” Book by Jagodinsky

Author

Katrina Jagodinsky is a historian whose academic interests concentrate on American Indian studies and history, and the writer expresses her appreciation of Native authors’ nonfiction and fictional works.¹ Jagodinsky’s scholarly contributions include her reports in such journals as American Indian Quarterly and Western Legal History.²

Thesis

Katrina Jagodinsky’s Legal Codes and Talking Trees focuses on the experiences of Indigenous women concerning the legal systems of colonial times. Jagodinsky states that her goal is to explore the role of the American Native female population in the battle of maintaining cultural and political autonomy at the period when American settler-colonialism reached its peak.³ The author’s thesis is that Indigenous women were integral players in the struggle for sovereignty in the face of colonial legal procedures.

Context and Scope

The book has a relatively narrow regional alongside moderately comprehensive chronological and thematic scope. The analysis examines the experiences of six women during the period between 1854 and 1946.⁴ Geographically, the content travels between Arizona and Washington, with both areas presenting the Indigenous female population with challenges to their corporeal independence. Finally, the text follows three distinct topics: the first one being sex and servitude, the second one focusing on gender and family property, and the latter concerning space alongside race and gender.⁵ Consequently, the book’s regional scope is limited by the US, but it covers nearly a century chronologically and explores several themes.

Methodology

The author uses an engaging approach to explain the role of Native American women in settler-colonialism by illustrating each individual’s story in a separate chapter. The analysis relies on a variety of sources, including legal records maintained in archives, articles from historical journals, and diverse books.⁶ The writer’s interpretive techniques are represented by microhistories meant to illuminate formerly neglected experiences of the Indian female population regarding their individual, tribal, and regional distinctions.⁷ The author has analyzed and referred to many sources to describe the narratives of Native American women.

Historiographic Contribution

Jagodinsky’s work is valuable in moving the accounts of the Indigenous female population toward the epicenter of settler colonialism. The book significantly contributes to gender and women’s studies by investigating the efforts of Native American women to obtain control over their bodies and children.⁸ Moreover, the author’s analysis adds to racial-ethnic research by considering how the Indian people were viewed in the judicial system.⁹ Consequently, the book can be utilized within a broader academic context by offering a basis for future scholars interested in exploring the legal history of the Native American female population.¹⁰ Furthermore, the text can be related to the writings of other authors noted by Jagodinsky. For example, the reviewed book’s findings concerning women’s vulnerability correspond with analysis in Jennifer Morgan’s Laboring Women.¹¹ Accordingly, Jagodinsky’s work has a notable historiographical contribution to studies of female individuals, gender, race, and ethnicity.

Critique

Jagodinsky’s book is a helpful source in understanding the period of settler colonialism and the accounts of the Indigenous female population. The author’s strategy of organizing the text in thematical and chronological sections appears quite useful in gaining a deeper comprehension of the presented reports. Moreover, the writer offers well-crafted arguments, such as that Dinah Hood’s narrative differs from other stories but enlightens the experiences of regular Indian women. The book does not seem to have substantial weak or flimsy aspects and is rather captivating and engaging.

Keywords or Phrases

Some keywords that are of special significance are corporeal sovereignty and borderland. In the book’s context, the former refers to women’s control over their bodies and descendants, and the latter represents places where several cultural, social, and legal elements coexist. The identified words reflect the text’s purpose and illustrate important historical contributions in describing the struggles of the female population and the diversity of their surroundings.

Bibliography

Jagodinsky, Katrina. Legal Codes and Talking Trees: Indigenous Women’s Sovereignty in the Sonoran and Puget Sound Borderlands, 1854-1946. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.

Footnotes

1. Katrina Jagodinsky, Legal Codes and Talking Trees: Indigenous Women’s Sovereignty in the Sonoran and Puget Sound Borderlands, 1854-1946 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 256.
2. Jagodinsky, Legal Codes and Talking Trees, 271.
3. Jagodinsky, 18.
4. Jagodinsky, 5.
5. Jagodinsky, 6.
6. Jagodinsky, 271.
7. Jagodinsky, 9.
8. Jagodinsky, 3.
9. Jagodinsky, 85.
10. Jagodinsky, 272.
11. Jagodinsky, 287.