Books>Review

White Justice In Arizona: Apache Murder Trials in the Nineteenth Century
Texas Tech University Press

Simone Weil called repressive justice the only thing more hideous than crime. Weil understood the peril that arises when justice is perverted by the state. For those not treated fairly in the courts, there is no recourse. 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.

That the trials of Captain Jack, Gonshayee, the “Carlisle Kid,” and Batdish all ended in conviction, 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.

White Justice In Arizona examines the nineteenth-century criminal justice system in Arizona. It begins with a prologue that discusses the development and use of  racial stereotypes by whites to portray Apaches as “ruthless savages” who enjoyed raping and killing white victims. This type of rhetoric stripped them of any humanity, consequently, they deserved to be convicted and executed. Ironically, by ordering his scouts to bring in the heads of any “renegade” Apaches in a sack, General George Crook reveals whites may have been more barbarous.

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. By focusing on four Apache homicide cases appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, White Justice offers a unique approach to the study of western legal history. It is the first manuscript to explain how the nineteenth-century Arizona criminal justice system operated when dealing with Apache defendants accused of murder. There are no other books that offer this perspective on the history of the American West. The narrative style and case study approach make it very adaptable to the general public and faculty who teach Native American history, ethnic studies, criminal justice, western and legal history classes.

“Clare V. McKanna, Jr. analyzes the matrix of race, criminal law, with 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

“In this detailed and rather scholarly study, McKanna . . . takes to task Arizona Territory’s justice system during the 1880–90s. McKanna examines four cases, all of them involving white judges, juries, prosecutors and court-appointed defense attorneys; all of them ignorant of the Apache language and culture (interpreters were of limited use). The courts operated in a climate of hatred in regard to the [Apache] tribe because of the long history of atrocities. Guilty verdicts were appealed, at least, but were restored in re-trials. In one case, the accused were almost surely innocent. Al Sieber and his Apache scouts tracked the murderers of a settler but lost the trail. Sieber ended up defending the men accused of the crime, insisting that the law had the wrong [Apaches] . . . . But circumstantial evidence won over his protests, and the hapless defendants were sentenced to life in Yuma’s Territorial Prison.”  Richard H. Dillion, True West

“The most interesting aspect of the stories [in this manuscript] is the use of extensive court proceedings. Little or nothing has been written taking this approach. This is the greatest strength of [McKanna’s] approach to telling the story of injustice. This account presents an action filled ‘storyline,’ with real names and places based on real facts. This approach keeps the interest of the reader. This approach does more to convince the reader that there was indeed a miscarriage of justice for Apache defendants.” Anonymous reviewer

“Clare McKanna’s compact case study of four murder trials of Apache defendants in the late 19th century is not only readable, but is a concise introduction to the flaws of the territorial and federal legal systems of the period. In addition to profiling the cases, McKanna . . . provides a solid introduction to the cultural clash between the Apache and the westward moving white America. This clash, combined with a less than perfect British-American legal tradition, produced a ‘distorted legal culture’ whose impact on Native American defendants was almost always detrimental.”  Richard Vaughan, Book Review Editor, Journal of the West