Native American Land Summary: Johnson V. Mcintosh

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In Johnson v. McIntosh, Chief Justice Marshall invokes the rights of discovery and conquest to justify the United States right to Native American land. A land dispute, beginning with the sale of land by the Piankeshaw Tribe to a William Johnson and other investors on October 18, 1775, spiraled into a Supreme Court case after the United States sold the same land to William McIntosh on July 20, 1818. McIntosh, in the federal court of Illinois, claimed that Native Americans lacked the inherent rights to be of legal ownership of the land, which would then nullify their sale to Johnson. After the enactment of the Bill of Rights, the United States took a clear stance that Native Americans were not to be included in the protections it offered. Many statutes were immediately introduced and passed by Congress which included guarantees against Native Americans gaining those rights. Among the statutes many included “…that Native Americans accused of crimes could be convicted by trials that did not meet the standards of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments,” as well as an overall crackdown against free speech.…show more content…
McIntosh, the citing of the right of conquest and the inability of Native Americans to govern their own land was used. This includes that rules and titles of property are governed only under the law of the nation in which it lies, thus granting the inherent right to the land to the federal authority of the United States. Furthermore, it is the duty of civilized and established nations to utilize their own independent law as a basis for decisions made. Upon the occupation of the current state of the United States, the land grab and imposition on Native American tribes in the newly discovered regions were overtaken as “necessary [to] avoid conflicting settlements, and consequent war with each other… which all should acknowledge as the law but which the right of acquisition… should be regulated between

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