JOHNSON V. M'INTOSH

'''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 ultimate 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.

Contents

Facts

Question presented

Opinion of the Court

References

Footnotes

External links

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 by the United States government. The plaintiffs, lessees of the son and grandson of Thomas Johnson who had inherited the land in the interim, brought an action for Ejectment against Mr. M'Intosh in the Illinois District Court, claiming that it was theirs by virtue of their grandfather's purchases in 1773 and 1775. Plaintiffs contended that their title ran directly from the Native Americans who owned the property and therefore it was superior to defendants’ title. Defendant M’Intosh, on the other hand, maintained that the land belonged to him by virtue of the United States’ land patent. 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. The Plaintiffs requested review of the decision which granted title to the property in that state to defendant M’Intosh on the basis of the land grant from the United States.

Question presented

The Supreme Court was called upon to consider whether US Courts recognize the power of Native Americans to give or sell land to private individuals.

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''.

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.

Footnotes

★ 1.

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