David Baker has writ­ten a thor­ough and insight­ful analy­sis of how the death penal­ty in the U.S. has been used against Native Americans. In ​“American Indian Executions in Historical Context,” Baker places the exe­cu­tion of Native Americans with­in the his­to­ry of colo­nial­ism, slav­ery and the con­quer­ing of indige­nous tribes in ear­ly America. The arti­cle traces these devel­op­ments to the cur­rent era, about which the author concludes:

The trend in American Indian exe­cu­tions dur­ing the present his­tor­i­cal peri­od of self deter­mi­na­tion shows a sig­nif­i­cant increase in Indian exe­cu­tions dur­ing the 1990s. The 15 American Indian exe­cu­tions since 1973, in many cas­es, accent the prob­lems endem­ic to con­tem­po­rary cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment schemes — increas­ing rates of vol­un­tary exe­cu­tions, botched exe­cu­tions, racist pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al dis­cre­tion, and inef­fec­tive cap­i­tal defense coun­sel. In these cas­es, all the vic­tims were white and the American Indian defen­dants large­ly suf­fered from severe alco­holism, drug abuse, and men­tal ill­ness. In most cas­es, defen­dants came from pre­dictable back­grounds of abject pover­ty, alco­holic and abu­sive par­ents, and vio­lent family histories.
David Baker is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Riverside Community College in California. He has also col­lect­ed a com­pre­hen­sive list of all exe­cu­tions of Native Americans in U.S. his­to­ry.
(20 Criminal Justice Studies 315 – 373 (No. 4, December 2007)).  Read the article . See Race .
Citation Guide