Johnson v. McIntosh

Johnson v. McIntosh, 21 U. S. (8 Wheat.) 543 (1823), also written M‘Intosh, is a landmark decision of the U. S. Supreme Court that held that private citizens could not purchase lands from Native Americans. As the facts were recited by Chief Justice John Marshall, the successor in interest to a private purchase from the Piankeshaw attempted to maintain an action of ejectment against the holder of a federal land patent. The case is one of the most influential and well known decisions of the Marshall Court, a fixture of the first year curriculum in nearly all U. S. law schools. Marshall's opinion lays down the foundations of the doctrine of aboriginal title in the United States, and the related doctrine of discovery. However, the vast majority of the opinion is dicta; as valid title is a basic element of the cause of action for ejectment, the holding does not extend to the validity of McIntosh's title, much less the property rights of the Piankeshaw. Thus, all that the opinion holds with respect to aboriginal title is that it is inalienable, a principle that remains well established law in nearly all common law jurisdictions. Citation to Johnson has been a staple of federal and state cases related to Native American land title for 200 years. Like Johnson, nearly all of those cases involve land disputes between two non Native parties, typically one with a chain of title tracing to a federal or state government and the other with a chain of title predating U. S. sovereignty. A similar trend can be seen in the early case law of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The first land dispute involving an indigenous party to reach to the Supreme Court was Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831). The ruling essentially enforces the Royal Proclamation of 1763 that was issued by King George III.

Thomas Johnson, one of the first Supreme Court justices, bought land from Piankeshaw Native American tribes in 1773 and 1775. The plaintiffs were lessees of Thomas Johnson's descendants, who had inherited the land. The defendant, William McIntosh, subsequently obtained a land patent, according to the facts as Marshall accepted them, to this same land from the United States. In fact, the two parcels did not overlap at all. Further, there is evidence that the parties were aware the tracts did not overlap and purposely misrepresented the facts to the court to obtain a ruling.

The plaintiffs brought an action for ejectment against McIntosh in the United States District Court for the District of Illinois, contending that their chain of title was superior by virtue of Johnson's purchases. The District Court dismissed the claim on the grounds that the Piankeshaw were not able to convey the land.

Marshall, writing for a unanimous court, affirmed the dismissal. Marshall begins with a lengthy discussion of the history of the European colonization of the Americas and the legal foundations of the American Colonies. In particular, Marshall focuses on the manner in which each European power took land from the indigenous occupants. Synthesizing the law of colonizing powers, Marshall traces the outlines of the "discovery doctrine"—namely, that a European power gains radical title (also known as sovereignty) to the land it discovers. As a corollary, the "discovering" power gains the exclusive right to extinguish the "right of occupancy" of the Indigenous occupants, which otherwise survived the assumption of sovereignty. Marshall further opined that when it declared independence from the Crown, the United States government inherited the right of preemption over Native American lands. The legal result is that the only Native American conveyances of land that can create valid title are sales of land to the federal government.