DATE: Sunday, September 14, 1997            TAG: 9709110858

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review

SOURCE: BY ROSS C. REEVES 

                                            LENGTH:   84 lines

TRYING TO BE FAIR ``WILD JUSTICE'' RECOUNTS THE EFFORTS AND THE FAILURES OF THE INDIAN CLAIMS COMMISSION

WILD JUSTICE

The People of Geronimo v. The United States

MICHAEL LIEDER AND JAKE PAGE

Random House. 318 pp. $25.95.

Wild Justice recounts the history of the Indian Claims Commission, which Congress established in 1946 as a forum for Native American tribes to pursue lawsuits against the United States for deprivations of lands, treaty violations and other ``unfair'' or ``dishonorable'' conduct. Over its lifetime the Commission and its successor awarded roughly $1.5 billion to the tribes, or approximately $1,000 for each of the 1.5 million Indians in the 1980 population. Although authors Michael Lieder and Jake Page credit the nation for even creating this unique legal institution, by their final reckoning it failed to live up to its mandate.

The best of Wild Justice lies in the early chapters, which chronicle the plight of the tribes in the 19th century. Of particular poignance is the history of the Chiricahuas Apaches, perhaps the most fierce and resilient of the western tribes until Cochise's surrender in 1872.

In 1881 a small band under Geronimo broke out of the reservation and, for the next two-and-a-half years, launched vengeful raids in Mexico and the United States. Captured and returned to the reservation, Geronimo and his followers escaped again in 1885 until, outnumbered and outgunned, they finally surrendered on the promise of resettlement in the Southwest. Swayed by the outcries of the local population, the government instead relocated the entire tribe - not just the renegades - to forts in Florida. Included were scouts who had worked for the government, women and children, and peaceful residents of the reservations.

The Chiricahuas were held as prisoners of war (the government had no other authority to hold or house them); their children were forced into boarding schools to break down their tribal ties, and the remaining population was decimated by overcrowded conditions and unsuitable climate. After decades - by which time over half had been born as ``prisoners of war'' - they were finally relocated to Oklahoma and to Arizona.

Wild Justice then describes the legal odyssey of the Chiricahuas and other tribes through the Commission. With virtually no legal precedent on which to base its awards, the Commission could turn only to traditional Anglo-American concepts of private property and individual rights, which had little relevance to the tribes' grievances. The imprisonment and cultural destruction claims received virtually no support from the Commission, which considered them to be outside its jurisdiction because they were deemed injuries to individuals and not to the tribes as ``nations.'' The enabling legislation did not allow the Commission to return land, only to order monetary awards, which in turn were limited to property values at the time of loss, when land could not even be given away in much of the West. The legislative authorization to sue for ``unfair'' or ``dishonest'' dealings also proved toothless under Commission interpretations.

In fact the tribes did far better when they escaped the Commission altogether. By an early act of Congress, no person or state could acquire title to Indian lands without federal participation. Purchases or grabs by private citizens or states acting alone were void, and tribes could thus successfully assert ownership of the land itself rather than be bought off with 19th century valuations. The City of Takoma, Wash., had to buy its port back for hundreds of millions of dollars, and Maine and New Hampshire ended up resolving aboriginal land claims for fair values.

Wild Justice is credible because of the thoroughness and objectivity of Lieder and Page, a lawyer and a writer, respectively. They are not so naive as to believe that Native American cultures and western civilization could do much else but collide, with unhappy results for the tribes. Although their sympathies are clearly with the Indians, they take pains to point out that not all the villains were whites and to acknowledge that complete fairness has never been practically attainable.

But this dispassionate treatment is perhaps carried a step too far. The authors fail to flesh out the protagonists in the legal battles they describe. Although it is apparent that the Commission's work was slow, tedious and mired in bureaucracy, there certainly had to be more life and passion in the legal battles than are revealed by Wild Justice. This is a pity. A little more color would make this excellent history enjoyable as well as immensely informative. MEMO: Ross C. Reeves is a corporate attorney with Willcox & Savage,

P.C., in Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Geronimo twice broke out of the reservation...

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