HomeAbout the Book

About the Book

Legal Codes & Talking Trees earned the Armitage Jameson prize for best book in Western Women's History from the Coalition for Western Women's History in 2017, and received honorable mention for the Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra prize from the Western Association of Women Historians. The book is available for $30 in hardcover and ebook from Yale University Press.

Praise from Scholars

“Legal Codes and Talking Trees is original and without comparison. I have yet to see a similar study that delves so deeply and widely in recovering the experiences of Native women in the U.S. legal system and broader society." —Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, University of California, Santa Barbara

“Using very original research, Jagodinsky’s book offers us a paradox. How could legal systems in the North American West empower and enrich White men, ensnare and enslave Native women, but also enable some women to cut the ties that bound them?” —Anne Hyde, University of Oklahoma 

“Jagodinsky's engrossing stories of indigenous women who sought justice in colonial forums vividly illustrate how such legal contests served to define racial identities, women's status, Indians' options, and social boundaries in the American West.” —Alexandra Harmon, author of Indians in the Making  

“Katrina Jagodinsky has done what I’ve long thought impossible: crafted a comparative history that is as much about people’s lives as it is about social forces and legal structures. Legal Codes and Talking Trees establishes a new method for casting our eyes across borders and nations.”—James F. Brooks, author of Mesa of Sorrows: A History of the Awat'ovi Massacre

"This is a beautifully written and remarkable book, ably researched and profoundly important.  Through six carefully chosen case studies, Legal Codes and Talking Trees inspires a new understanding of the meaning and nature of colonization and resistance." Lindsay G. Robertson, author of Conquest by Law: How the Discovery of America Dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of Their Lands

“With compassion, grace, and ethical rigor, Katrina Jagodinsky illuminates Indigenous women’s negotiations to control their sexuality, children, and property in the social and national borderlands of settler colonialism.   Placing Indigenous women’s reproductive rights at the historical center, this is an important and compelling book.”—Elizabeth Jameson, University of Calgary

“Jagodinsky’s important work will encourage more historians to pursue Indigenous women’s legal histories in the future.”—The Journal of Arizona History

"Legal Codes and Talking Trees is that rare and important book that tackles the dark realities of settler colonialism and patriarchy and renders a kind of justice to the women who courageously lived through that history."—Douglas Sackman, Pacific Historical Review

"Legal Codes and Talking Trees demonstrates the importance of moving the experiences of Indigenous women toward the center of the story of settler colonialism in the American West; it also provides a roadmap for future scholars seeking to recover such experiences."—John Gram, Native American and Indigenous Studies

Interviews

Katrina Jagodinsky spoke to Stephen Hausmann about the book for New Books Network in February, 2018. This one-hour interview offers an engaging summary of the book and its contributions to Indigenous women's legal histories.

Blog Entries

Legal Codes & Talking Trees

Duwamish Federal Recognition: Making Family Reunions Sovereign as Well as Sweet

Living on the Borders of Citizenship: Akimel O'odham in 19th-Century Arizona

Recent Book Reviews

Doug Sackman in Pacific Historical Review, Spring 2018

Katrine Barber in Oregon Historical Quarterly, Spring 2018

John Gram in Native American & Indigenous Studies, Spring 2018

Chandra Murdoch in Law & History Review, May 2018

Tisa Wenger in Journal of Law & Religion, April 2018

M. Marie Jette in Western Historical Quarterly, October 2017

Colleen O'Neill in Journal of American History, June 2017

Lisa Blee in American Historical Review, December 2016

Pawnee/Yakima artist Bunky Echo-Hawk painted this acrylic portrait after reading the Legal Codes & Talking Trees manuscript. Entitled "Lady Justice," the painting features symbols of the American legal system wielded by an Indigenous woman donning ceremonial regalia to give her strength as she confronts colonial legal regimes and crushes exploitative statutes beneath her feet. 

The artist Bunky Echo-Hawk explains his painting this way: “Lady Justice” portrays Lady Justice as a Native woman, which is a statement in itself. Lady Justice is repeatedly portrayed as a white woman, and although blindfolded, can’t truly be blind when it comes to justice. The notion that she is portrayed as a white woman in public art speaks volumes to the disparaging racial inequalities in the judicial system. In “Lady Justice”, the blindfold is replaced by red warpaint, which is symbolic of the ongoing fight for justice. She is wearing a ghostdance dress, which is symbolic of an intertribal religious movement united under the same premise; we will survive through the strength of our ancestors."