Royal charters simultaneously granted both soil title and governmental power over the land.
Evidence
The very grant of a charter is an assertion of the title of the Crown, and its words convey the same idea. The country granted is said to be “our island called Rhode Island,” and the charter contains an actual grant of the soil as well as of the powers of government. — Supreme Court of the United States (Marshall Court, 1823), Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh,…, 308
Categorization
- XREF: The fusion of soil title and governmental authority in a single charter is the legal root that Reading the Landscape’s land-use history and Legal Systems’ institutions thread trace. — connects to: Royal charters expressly conveying soil prove the Crown claimed land rights over Indian territory. — Supreme Court of the United States (Marshall Court, 1823), Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh,…, 197
- SEED: Angle: how the colonial charter collapses property into sovereignty — the moment landownership and government become the same grant — as the deep origin of American treating land as state-licensed.