Johnson v. M'Intosh
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| Johnson v. M'Intosh | ||||||||||||||
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| Argued February 15 – 19, 1823 Decided February 28, 1823 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||||||
| Native Americans had the right of occupancy but not ultimate title to their lands, and so could not sell land to private U.S. citizens. | ||||||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: John Marshall Associate Justices: Bushrod Washington, William Johnson, Henry Brockholst Livingston, Thomas Todd, Gabriel Duvall, Joseph Story |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||||
| Majority by: Hall Joined by: unanimous |
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| Laws applied | ||||||||||||||
| Ius gentium | ||||||||||||||
Johnson v. M'Intosh, 21 U.S. (8 Wheat.) 543 (1823)[1], was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that private citizens could not purchase lands directly from Native Americans. The Court determined that the United States government had acquired fee title to the land based on the longstanding practices of European colonization, and therefore Native Americans could sell their land only to the U.S. government.
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[edit] Facts
Thomas Johnson bought land from Piankeshaw Indian tribes in 1773 and 1775. The Defendant, William M'Intosh (pronounced "McIntosh"), subsequently obtained a land patent to this same land from the United States federal government. The Plaintiffs were lessees of Thomas Johnson's descendants, who had inherited the land. The Plaintiffs brought an action for Ejectment against Defendant M'Intosh in the Illinois District Court, contending that it the land belonged to them by virtue of Thomas Johnson's purchases in 1773 and 1775. Plaintiffs further contended that their title was superior to the Defendants' title because Plaintiff's title ran directly from Native Americans. The district court held that defendant M’Intosh’s claim was superior on the grounds that the Piankeshaw were not able to actually convey the land because they never “owned” it in the traditional sense of the word.
[edit] Issue presented
The Supreme Court was called upon to consider whether United States Courts shall recognize the power of Native Americans to give or sell land to private individuals.
[edit] Opinion of the Court
The Supreme Court upheld the finding for M'Intosh, ruling that individuals could not buy land directly from Native Americans, since the United States government had acquired ultimate title to Native American lands.
In a long and philosophical opinion, the Court outlined the history of European land acquisition in North America, laying the groundwork for its rationale behind creation of the "Discovery Doctrine". The Discovery Doctrine consisted of two key elements: First, European nations assumed free title to lands they "discovered"; Native Americans on those lands, according to this doctrine, retained the right of occupancy (like tenants in an apartment building), but had never really been considered "owners" of the land. ("Discovery is the foundation of title, in European nations, and this overlooks all proprietary rights in the natives.") Second, the doctrine established a restriction on alienability of the tribes' occupancy rights, which meant that tribes could sell their limited rights of occupancy only to the discovering sovereign.
The Court frankly acknowledged that this longstanding European and U.S. practice treated Native Americans "as an inferior race of people, without the privileges of citizens, and under the perpetual protection and pupilage of the government." This ruling later supported decisions of the Court upholding lesser rights afforded to residents of U.S. territories in the Insular Cases.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall: Definer Of A Nation, New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1996.
- Lindsay G. Robertson, Conquest by Law: How the Discovery of America Dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of Their Lands, Oxford University Press, USA, 2005.
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] External links
- Text of the Opinion from the University of Tulsa
- History and Interpretation of the Great Case of Johnson v. M'Intosh, by Eric Kades, Law and History Review, Spring 2001
- The Discovery Doctrine, Aboriginal Title, Tribal Sovereignty, and Their Significance to Treaty-Making in the United States by Michael C. Blumm
