that Indians need not accept their position of disenfranchisement, and, even more radical, that simply “being Indian”—choosing to be Indian—constituted a social good.

Native Americans were living in the delta even as it was being created. Their strategy for dealing with the river’s vagaries, as far as archaeologists have been able to determine, was one of accommodation. When the Mississippi flooded, they sought higher ground. When it shifted quarters, they did, too.

the “noncitizen national” status that was outlined in the Nuremberg Laws was based on the noncitizen status of American Indians that was outlined by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Marshall Trilogy.