Description

Indian Reserved Water Rights
By John Shurts

New, Hardbound, 333 pages

The 1908 supreme court decision on the Belknap Indian Reservation rights to water from the Milk River in northern Montana changed the complexion of water rights for not only Indian reservations, but also U.S. government parks, forests, & military installations. John Shurts claims that although this was not inevitable, it was reasonable, and for many strange reasons solved problems never anticipated at the time. Now, over 110 years later, the details are still being hammered out.

Contents

Part I Winters v. United States: Litigation, Decisions, and Context

Chapter 1. Prelude to the Winters Litigation: Land Cession and Reservation Agreements,
Non-Indian Settlement, and Irrigation

Chapter 2. Legal Context of the Litigation: The Prior Appropriation System and
Possibilities in the Law of Water in Montana in 1905

Chapter 3. Commencement of the Winters Case: A Federal Court Decision for Fort Belknap
and Its Place in the Water Issues of the Milk River Valley

Chapter 4. Winters in the Federal Court of Appeals: Reclamation Anxiety, Kansas v. Colorado,
and Affirmation by the Court of Appeals

Chapter 5. Back in the Milk River Valley, 1905-1907: Reclamation, Reservation Rusting,
and Sugar Beet Production

Chapter 6. Winters and Allotment: The Blackfeet Reservation Allotment Legislation and Water Rights

Chapter 7. The Supreme Court’s Decision in Winters: Anticlimax in the Milk River Valley, 1907-1908

Chapter 8. The People of Winters and the Natural Law of the West

Part II The Work of Winters, 1905-1930s: A Case Study from the Uintah Reservation

Chapter 9. Prelude to the Water Rights Litigation at the Uintah Indian Reservation, Late 1800s to 1914:
Allotment, Irrigation, State Water Law, and Water Problems
Chapter 10. National Context of the Uintah Litigation: Growing Interest in the
Potential of Winters, 1909-1915

Chapter 11. Back at the Uintah Reservation: The Switch to a Winters-Based Approach and Litigation

Chapter 12. Lessons from the Uintah Reservation Litigation