4. Johnson v McIntosh Supreme Court Decision 1823
This case centered around the right of Native Americans to sell their land to private citizens. In 1775, Thomas Johnson and other private British citizens purchased land from the Piankeshaw tribe. When Johnson died his heirs inherited his land. Then, in 1818, William McIntosh purchased 11,000 acres of land from the U.S. government which was the same land that Johnson had bought from the Piankeshaw. This led to Johnson’s heirs suing McIntosh over ownership of the land.
Chief Justice John Marshall ultimately ruled that Native American tribes did not have “absolute title to their lands, but a lesser interest known as right of occupancy” The U.S. government “held exclusive right to obtain Indian land title either by purchase or conquest.” The Piankeshaw, therefore, had no right to sell land to private citizens and thus the sale to Johnson was illegal and invalid.
The case was the first of three Supreme Court rulings by Chief Justice John Marshall in a nine-year period known as the Marshall Trilogy. In the third case of the trilogy, i.e. Worcester v Georgia in 1832, Chief Justice Marshall recognized the Native American tribes as being “undisputed possessors of the land, from time immemorial.”
“The Indian nations had always been considered as distinct, independent, political communities, retaining their original natural rights, as the undisputed possessors of the land, from time immemorial. The settled doctrine of the law of nations is, that a weaker power does not surrender its independence—its right to self-government—by associating with a stronger, and taking its protection. A weak state, in order to provide for its safety, may place itself under the protection of one more powerful, without stripping itself of the right of government, and ceasing to be a state.”