White Justice in Arizona: Apache Murder Trials in the Nineteenth Century [Hardcover]

Clare V. McKanna Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2005

"McKanna takes to task Arizona Territory's justice system during the 1880–90s." —True West "A stark, sharply critical, and edifying look at the iniquities of false justice." —Midwest Book Review Though trials in open court suggest impartiality, White Justice in Arizona reveals how, time and again, the judicial system of nineteenth-century Arizona denied Apaches justice. The Captain Jack, Gonshayee, Apache Kid, “Carlisle Kid,” and Batdish murder cases offer a sad, compelling commentary on injustice for Native Americans. That these trials all ended in Apache convictions, Clare V. McKanna Jr. argues, proves the unfairness of applying the American legal tradition to a culture that lived by very different social and legal codes. Conquered and forced from their lands by white outsiders, Apaches found their customs and methods of maintaining social control dramatically at odds with a new and completely alien legal system, a system that would not bend to integrate Apache or any other Native American culture. Through case studies of these very different murder trials, White Justice in Arizona probes the federal and state governments’ treatment of America’s indigenous populations and the cultural clashes that left justice the greatest casualty. “Clare V. McKanna Jr. analyzes the matrix of race, criminal law, and justice in nineteenth-century Arizona and finds fair trial for Indians absent. This is an important book advancing our understanding of race and justice in the American West by one of our most insightful historians.” —Gordon Morris Bakken, editor of Racial Encounters in the Multi-Cultural West

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Clare V. McKanna, Jr., teaches history at San Diego State University, specializes in Native American history, and is the author of Race and Homicide in Nineteenth-Century California and The Trial of “Indian Joe.”

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Texas Tech University Press; 1St Edition edition (May 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0896725545
• ISBN-13: 978-0896725546
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,849,759 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars analysis of stacked cases against Apaches in the Southwest, July 5, 2005

By 

Henry Berry "Henry Berry" (Southport, CT) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: White Justice in Arizona: Apache Murder Trials in the Nineteenth Century (Hardcover)

Murder cases against Apache Indians in the territory of Arizona in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century are recounted much as cases against blacks in the South have been done in other books and media. McKanna goes beyond the by-now familiar charge that the Apaches, as a minority ethnic group in lands taken over by white settlers, got no justice to speak of. His main concern is how the system worked against the defendants, even when circumstances and in some cases physical evidence raised questions about the murder charges. The author also views the acts of the Native Americans against the backdrop of ill-defined laws and jurisdiction in the recently-formed territory and age-old Apache culture, which was undergoing a combination of forced and voluntary transition. McKanna's accounts are like popular case-book studies of the cases against the Indians with a sociological factor brought in. He teaches American Indian history at San Diego State U. and has written previous books on the inter-related subjects of crime and race.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stark, sharply critical, and edifying look at the iniquities of false justice, December 11, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: White Justice in Arizona: Apache Murder Trials in the Nineteenth Century (Hardcover)

Clare V. McKanna Jr. has been teaching Native American history at San Diego State University since 1987. In White Justice In Arizona: Apache Murder Trials In The Nineteenth Century, McKanne Jr. focuses upon how the judicial system of nineteenth-century Arizona denied Apaches justice. Apaches learned the hard way that their customs and methods for maintaining social control were drastically at odds with a new, alien, and mystifying legal system. Many did not know English, and the public defenders appointed to them were largely inexperienced or neglectful, as there was no money to be made representing indigent clients. White settlers and juries had been conditions to believe, through popular culture, word of mouth, and sensationalized newspaper headlines, that Apaches were the most dangerous and bloodthirsty of Native Americans; and so any Apache accused of killing a white person was likely to be treated as a blood enemy to be destroyed in the all-white courts, rather than innocent until proven guilty. A stark, sharply critical, and edifying look at the iniquities of false justice.