Historicizing Violence against Native Women

“Historicizing Violence Against Native Women” unveils a new project designed to historicize the law, policies, and prosecutions of violent crimes, and to interrogate the general statement that Indigenous women are the victims of a disproportionately high rate of criminal violence as a legacy of conquestion. The project is centered in nineteenth and twentieth-century Mississippi, where the Mississippi Choctaws reside in eight towns located in four counties.  The Mississippi Choctaws are the descendents of Choctaws who refused to remove to Indian Territory in the 1830s. The unique political, social, and cultural histories of the Mississippi Choctaws will allow me to pursue a line of inquiry in distinct, but interrelated, local and political contexts:  post-removal Mississippi (which achieved statehood in 1817), the federal trust relationship that ensued following federal recognition of the tribe, and tribal government under the democratically elected Choctaw Miko Phillip Martin (1975-2007). This paper will focus on the laws and prosecutorial practices surrounding violent crimes against Mississippi Choctaw women prior to and following federal recognition.