SPECIAL ISSUE INTRODUCTION The Many Faces of Habeas Corpus in the American West.

This introduction to a special issue examines the historical significance of habeas corpus as a legal mechanism used by marginalized people—including women, Indigenous families, Black minors, immigrants, and the institutionalized—to challenge wrongful confinement, coercive labor, and family separation in the American West from the early nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. It highlights how habeas petitions served as tools of resistance against racialized, gendered, and colonial legal regimes, with a particular focus on cases such as Lucía Martínez’s 1871 petition in Arizona Territory. The issue’s three articles explore women’s challenges to gendered violence, Indigenous families’ opposition to federal Indian boarding school confinement, and Black minors’ vulnerability to coercive labor, demonstrating the complex legal strategies employed by petitioners. The introduction also situates these histories within broader scholarship on habeas corpus, emphasizing the underrecognized role of marginalized petitioners and the value of the Petitioning for Freedom database in advancing research on these topics.