Territorial Politics: Mass Incarceration and the Punitive Legacies of the Indian Territory
Sara M. Benson
Chapter from the book: Benson, S. 2019. The Prison of Democracy: Race, Leavenworth, and the Culture of Law.
Part of
Chapter from the book: Benson, S. 2019. The Prison of Democracy: Race, Leavenworth, and the Culture of Law.
Chapter 2 examines the relationship between Leavenworth and the idea of mass incarceration of Native people in the Indian Territory. This chapter suggests that prior to the emergence of the Major Crimes Act of 1885, Leavenworth was already imagined as an institution designed for punishing criminalized “Indians.” This chapter works to historicize the prison as a means to “bring in” resistant Indians to the reservation system and subsequently to build a class of federal prisoners without federal prisons. Chapter 2 ultimately asks what the mass incarceration of Native people through this system means for the concept of American punishment.
Benson, S. 2019. Territorial Politics: Mass Incarceration and the Punitive Legacies of the Indian Territory. In: Benson, S, The Prison of Democracy. California: University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.66.c
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Published on April 16, 2019