Conquest by law : how the discovery of America dispossessed indigenous peoples of their lands / Lindsay G. Robertson.

New York : Oxford University Press, 2005.

27132

United States. -- Supreme Court. -- History.

United Illinois and Wabash Land Companies -- Trials, litigation, etc.

Indians of North America -- History.

Indian land transfers -- History.

Constitutional history -- United States.

1. The Illinois and Wabash land companies : purchases and petitions

2. Harper

3. Before the court

4. Unforeseen complication : the complex politics of early republican federalism

5. The opinion

6. Legacies.

In 1823, Chief Justice John Marshall handed down a Supreme Court decision of monumental importance in defining the rights of indigenous peoples throughout the English-speaking world. At the heart of the decision was a "discovery doctrine" that gave rights of ownership to the European sovereigns who "discovered" the land. In 1991, while investigating the discovery doctrine's historical origins Lindsay Robertson discovered a trunk with the complete corporate records of the Illinois and Wabash Land Companies, the plaintiffs in Johnson v. M'Intosh.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

9780195148695

019514869X

239 p. : ill. ; 24 cm