Discovery doctrine gave colonizers exclusive land title and conquest rights solely by discovery

Evidence

From a sweeping survey of the practices of imperial states, from “the history of America, from its discovery to the present day,” and from the remarkable consistency of the claims of its various colonizers, Marshall derived the view that discovery by the British had conferred on them an “absolute” and “exclusive” title, one which not only “gave to the nation making the discovery the sole right of acquiring the soil from natives and establishing settlements upon it,” but one which also conferred on that nation the “right” of consequent conquest (Johnson v. M’Intosh, 1823:573, 586, 590-1, 595). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 227

Categorization

• DEFINE: Precisely defines the doctrine of discovery as it was adjudicated in Johnson v. M’Intosh.
• XREF: connects to: Discovery vested absolute title in Europeans subject only to Indian occupancy — Supreme Court of the United States (Marshall Court, 1823), Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh,…, 259