The Chief Justice Wants YOU to attend this webinar.
We try to remember anniversaries and birthdays. Some welcome, like the recent 100th of Pennsylvania Coal v. Mahon. Some maybe not so welcome, like this, the 200th anniversary of Johnson and Graham's Lessee v. M'Intosh, 21 U.S. (7 Wheat.) 543 (Feb. 28, 1823).
That's the decision in which the Supreme Court, in an opinion authored by Chief Justice John Marshall (noted above, giving us the finger), held:
Upon this principle the North American Indians could have acquired no proprietary interest in the vast tracts of territory which they wandered over; and their right to the lands on which they hunted, could not be considered as superior to that which is acquired to the sea by fishing in it. The use in the one case, as well as the other, is not exclusive. According to every theory of property, the Indians had not individual rights to land; nor had they any collectively, or in their national capacity; for the lands occupied by each tribe were not used by them in such a manner as to prevent their being appropriated by a people of cultivators. All the proprietary rights of civilized nations on this continent are founded on this principle. The right derived from discovery and conquest, can rest on no other basis; and all existing titles depend on the fundamental title of the crown by discovery.
Id. at 569-570 (footnote omitted).
Now, we're not experts in this topic. But we know some who are. And tomorrow at 12 noon ET, they are putting on a webinar: "Johnson v. M'Intosh: Reflections on the 200th Anniversary of a Foundational Case on Property Law and Indigenous Rights in the United States."
Here's the description:
Johnson v. M'Intosh, decided in 1823, dealt with so-called acquisition by discovery and conquest and the need to choose between competing claims to property ownership from divergent chains of title, consequently affecting the rights of indigenous peoples and the rules governing transfer of property in the early days of the United States. It remains a controversial and influential decision, shaping the legal framework around indigenous land rights to this day. Join the Tribal Law & Economics Program and its panel of experts for a discussion of the case.
Thank you to the speakers (lawprofs Bethany Berger, Eric Claeys, Adam Crepelle, and Robert Miller), and to George Mason's Law & Economics Center for putting this on.
We've already registered, and suggest you do as well.
Johnson and Graham's Lessee v. M'Intosh, 21 U.S. (7 Wheat.) 543 (1823)
