Treaty Justice: Charles Wilkinson's Homage to the Boldt Decision
Document Type
Book Review
Publication Title
Public Land & Resources Law Review
Version
Prepublication
Journal Abbreviation
Pub. Land & Res. L. Rev.
Abstract
Charles Wilkinson, a beloved teacher, author, and advisor, gave his readers perhaps his most personal gift in Treaty Justice: The Northwest Tribes, the Boldt Decision, and the Recognition of Fishing Rights (U. Washington Press, 2024). Wilkinson finished the manuscript just a week before his unexpected death, at age 81, in 2023. The book is a blend of personal memoirs of countless encounters of people involved in the seminal Boldt decision–which revolutionized treaty fishing rights– and its aftermath, and part of legal history by an analyst who was acutely sensitive to the vagaries of both law and history. We are fortunate that he was able to finish this splendid work before the fiftieth anniversary of the historic Boldt decision.
Wilkinson tells the story of the Boldt decision in part through the eyes of his good friend, Billy Frank, Jr., the legendary tribal activist and long-time chair of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. Frank, who died in 2014, was a child of the forced assimilation policies of the early 20th century. In 2013, Frank asked Wilkinson to write a readable and accessible book on the Boldt decision to educate tribal members and non- members alike on the historic significance of the case. Treaty Justice was his “straightforward and non-legalistic” response a decade later: a compassionate explanation of “treaties, constitutional authority, state police power, tribal sovereignty, and the supreme law of the land”.
First Page
172
Last Page
192
Publication Date
2025
Recommended Citation
Michael C. Blumm,
Treaty Justice: Charles Wilkinson's Homage to the Boldt Decision,
48
Pub. Land & Res. L. Rev.
172
(2025).
Available at:
https://lawcommons.lclark.edu/faculty_articles/5003804