Indian Heirship Lands: The Lake Traverse Experience Michael L. Lawson. eBook Price: $0.99 Format: epub Tweet EBook 15 pages 6 x 9 inches ISBN: 9780984650590 In 1983, Michael L. Lawson won a Ray Allen Billington Award from the Western History Association for his essay "Indian Heirship Lands." Lawson's work opened the discussion of what government policies and bureaucracy have done to heirship of lands on American Indian reservations in South Dakota, illuminating for the first time the harsh truths of this problematic topic. Stark descriptions of what ownership of land really means make this essay a compelling and ominous read. Lawson later expanded his work into other essays and then into Dammed Indians Revisited: The Continuing History of the Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux, which has been named the One Book South Dakota for 2012.