America’s Shame: The Silent Tragedy of Indigenous Women (Part Two)

By Brooke Manuel, Skyline Editor

ALPINE – What began as a fun filled night at the casino ended in tragedy for Georginda Pierce, a 38-year-old Navajo woman who lives in Farmington, New Mexico, when her boyfriend stabbed her with a broken beer bottle leaving her with a gaping hole and paralyzing a section of her face.  

Pierce recalled the night of the incident.  

“At that moment, I didn’t know that happened. I didn’t feel it. All I knew is that it happened so quick. And then all of a sudden, I was still buckled in, and he was grabbing me by my hair and hitting me in my head,” Pierce said.  

After the stabbing occurred, Pierce’s abuser fled Aztec, New Mexico, and went to the Navajo Nation reservation in Arizona.  

Pierce faced jurisdictional challenges getting her abuser prosecuted. Tribal law enforcement had no jurisdiction over the crime, since it occurred off the reservation, and the Aztec police department, who did have jurisdiction, could do nothing but wait until the alleged perpetrator left tribal land. Jurisdictional issues like these are faced by many across the nation. 

This second installment of the Skyline series on violence against Indigenous women examines jurisdictional issues that often complicate investigations, and ultimately, justice. 

Over the last few hundred years, jurisdiction has slowly been taken away from tribal law enforcement agencies and given to federal law enforcement. The undefined line drawn between tribal and non-tribal jurisdiction has been further blurred by cases and laws such as the General Crimes Act of 1817, the Crow Dog case of 1883, and the Major Crimes Act of 1885 just to name a few. 

The General Crimes Act of 1817 created federal jurisdiction for crimes committed by non-Natives against Natives and crimes committed by Natives against non-Natives on tribal land.

The Crow Dog case was a landmark legal case that dealt with the jurisdiction of crimes committed by Natives on tribal land. Crow Dog, a Native American man shot and killed another Native American man on the Great Sioux Reservation, which is now known as South Dakota. Crow Dog was convicted by the Sioux tribal government and ordered to pay restitution to the victim’s family, traditional under Sioux law. Crow Dog was subsequently convicted for the same crime by the Dakota Court and sentenced to death. Crow Dog filed a writ of habeas corpus arguing that the federal court had no jurisdiction over crimes committed by Natives against Natives on tribal land. The U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision that upheld the statute under which tribal nations are political sovereigns and have the right to be ruled by their own law in their own land.  

Two years after the Crow Dog case of 1883, the Major Crimes Act of 1885 was passed. The Major Crimes Act placed certain criminal offenses, namely murder, manslaughter, rape, assault with intent to kill, arson, burglary, and larceny, committed by Native Americans on tribal land under federal jurisdiction, thus, further limiting the authority of tribal law enforcement.  

The question of who has jurisdiction over criminal cases committed both on and off the reservation is one that is pondered by Native Americans and even law enforcement itself.  

“The police don’t even know what to do,” Sheena Roetman, the education manager of the Indigenous Journalists Association, said.  

These jurisdictional issues cause delays in investigations and a lack of accountability, and they impact tribal sovereignty.  

In addition to the issues surrounding jurisdiction, cases of violence against Indigenous women often go unsolved due to biases, a lack of news coverage and funding.  

A source, speaking under conditions of anonymity, mentioned two cases in which Indigenous women were domestically abused. Both women struggled with alcoholism and were intoxicated when their boyfriends beat them so violently that they fell into a coma. 

One of the two women never recovered from the beating, and although the other woke up from the coma, she did suffer major complications. 

“She can barely talk. She talks at a third-grade level...She can’t really remember well, and she’s barely learning how to walk again. It’s been a year, and I’m pretty sure there’s progress here and there, but that’s her life now,” a Navajo woman from New Mexico said of an old high school friend of hers.  

The perpetrator, an Indigenous man, served a few months in jail and is now walking the streets free.  

“There is a lot of domestic violence on the reservation, and sadly, it’s relationships of a girlfriend and a boyfriend who are alcoholics,” she said.  

The Skyline’s anonymous source attributed domestic violence and alcoholism as the cause of many MMIW cases both on and off the reservation. These cases are often written off and not given proper attention due to alcohol being involved. 

As we delve into the harrowing stories of Indigenous women like that of Pierce, the widespread impact of jurisdictional issues becomes all too evident. The shifts in tribal jurisdiction throughout history have left Indigenous communities across the nation combatting a maze of laws. These cases often go unsolved leaving survivors of abuse in states of vulnerability and the families of victims with unanswered questions.  

In the next installment of this series, the Skyline will explore ongoing efforts and offer potential solutions to these issues surrounding jurisdiction. 

Brooke Manuel is a McNair Scholar and the editor of the Skyline.