Johnson v. M'Intosh asserts Catholic doctrine to prevent Indigenous land access.
Date: 1823
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in a dispute over Piankeshaw land, in what is now Illinois, that Indigenous people have no right to land because of the 16th-century papal bull that opened all lands west of Spain to colonization. "The religion and character of 'Native Americans,' Chief Justice John Marshall wrote, was inferior to Europeans’ 'superior genius'" (Blakemore, 2022).