Johnson vs. M'Intosh

 

                 The Johnson vs. M'Intosh, about  two non Native American groups claimed title to land in Illinois. Johnson argueing that the land was legualy his becuase he had inherited a tract of land from his father, who bought the land from the Piankeshaw Indians. Making the arguement that Johnsons ansestors had boughten the land and the legually he was inherted it and that for that matter the land was rightfully his. That no random person can just come and take possesion of the land when clearly the land was rightfully owned by himself. Fact being that Johnson did not know that M'Intosh had a legual paper saying that the land was owned by William M'Intosh making him the rightful owner.

 

                  The argument that was present by M'Intosh that  private citizens could not purchase lands from Native American. Therefore the land title that was legaul and had every document present correctly was M'Intosh, so he believed. When in In fact, the two parcels did not overlap at all. Therefore, there was evidence that the parties were aware the tracts did not overlap and purposely misrepresented the facts to the court in order to obtain a ruling.

 

              This was a very important and eye opening case for the Marshall Court. Reason being that  Marshall's prosaic and eminently quotable opinion lays down the foundations of the doctrine of aboriginal title in the United States, and the related discovery doctrine. 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. Johnson has been a staple of federal and state cases related to Native American land title.