ABSTRACT
Frequent geographic mobility has been a tradition among many Indigenous societies dating back to their earliest origins. However, the coming of Europeans complicated those movements, and in many instances eliminated them altogether. For example, in the nineteenth century, nomadic North American Indians were confined to small areas of land reserved for their occupation. They did not win the right to leave these places until a United States Federal Court decided in the Standing Bear v. Crook case (1879) that such confinement was illegal. Over the years, American Indians, like many other Indigenous populations, have moved with ever-greater frequency between their reservation homes and urban areas. In modern times, the public policy implications attending the geographic movement of Native peoples have grown to a level of complexity unimaginable even in the late nineteenth century.
