The Supreme Court gave Indians only occupancy rights, not land title.

Evidence

BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 75 See Johnson v. McIntosh, 21 U.S. (8 Wheat.) 543 (1823). Here the Supreme Court held that American Indians had no right to sell land, just the right of occupancy. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 746

Categorization

• XREF: Key precedent in the comparison of Native land claims vs. Black reparations claims. — connects to: Courts voided private purchases of Indian land as unmarketable title. — Supreme Court of the United States (Marshall Court, 1823), Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh,…, 5; The Constitution protected only individual property, not Indigenous common land — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 71
• DEFINE: Defines the ‘doctrine of discovery’ / occupancy-only holding that undergirds the Indian claims context.