Johnson v. M'Intosh

• Between 1773 & 1775 (when "Native Americans") owned lands without titles, "Johnson" purchased large tracts of land from a number of tribes in southern Illinois.
• In 1819, Johnson died.
• His son "Johnson" & grandson "Graham" inherited the land.
• In 1818, the US government deeded 12,000 acres to M'Intosh which also included the land Johnson had bought from Amerindians

• Johnson & Graham sought an ejectment order against M'Intosh in the federal district of Illinois court.
• M'Intosh won in the district court.
• Johnson appealed directly to SCOTUS.

Is a land grant by the United States government superior to an Amerindian land grant?

John Marshall : Yes. The title granted by the United States government is superior to a previously granted Native American title.

Affirmed

• The land sold to Johnson by the Native Americans were within the lands claimed by the English crown by the Rule of Discovery which had been granted to the Virginia Colony (in those times "Virginia" encompassed many states of today including Illinois).
• In 1779, Virginia annulled all land grants from Native Americans to individuals.
• The Treaty of Paris (1783), which formally ended the war of the American Revolution, granted English lands in America--including those in Virginia (Illinois today)--to the American government.
• John Marshall: If a Native American tribe annulled the land grant to Johnson or others, the U.S. courts wouldn't be able to step in to protect the buyer's title.
• Some Native American tribes would later sell to the U.S. government the same lands that they had previously sold to individuals!

Rule of Discovery in the early 1800s