Wikipedia contributors — Johnson v. McIntosh

11 published claims from this book.

• Colonial sovereignty over North America was asserted without regard to actual Indigenous presence.
• Granting the federal government a purchasing monopoly drove Native land prices down
• Johnson remains binding law while other discredited canonical cases were overruled
• M’Intosh rests on asserted custom, not on any codified legal rule
• Marshall’s opinion governs aboriginal title mainly through dicta, not binding holding
• Only sales to the federal government can convey valid Native American land title
• Some canonical Supreme Court land rulings were staged friendly suits, not real disputes
• The doctrine of discovery originated in nineteenth-century US Supreme Court rulings.
• The rule against private land purchases let the US buy tribal land cheaply
• The Vatican formally rejected the doctrine of discovery in 2023.
• Treaties transferred sovereignty over regions their signatories did not physically occupy.