Conquest by law : how the discovery of America dispossessed indigenous peoples of their lands

Summary: John Marshall's landmark 1823 decision in Johnson v. M'Intosh gave the European sovereigns who "discovered" North America rights to the land, converting Native Americans in one stroke into mere tenants. Drawing on records found in the basement of a Pennsylvania furniture-maker-the complete corporate records of the Illinois and Wabash Land Companies, the plaintiffs in the case-this book provides, for the first time, a complete and troubling account of collusion, detailing how a spurious claim gave rise to a doctrine-intended to be of limited application-which itself gave rise to the massive displacement of Native Americans and the creation of a law that governs indigenous people and their lands to this day. --From publisher's description.

Record details

ISBN: 019514869X
ISBN: 9780195148695
ISBN: 9780195314892
ISBN: 0195314891
Physical Description: print
xiii, 239 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Publisher: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-228) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	The Illinois and Wabash land companies : purchases and petitions -- Harper -- Before the court -- Unforeseen complication : the complex politics of early republican federalism -- The opinion -- Legacies -- Afterword -- Appendix 1: the 1810 memorial -- Appendix 2: the agreed statement of facts and federal objections to the claims.