[The Cherokee Nation vs. The State of Georgia.]

been enacted in the spirit of these treaties. The acts of our government plainly recognize the Cherokee nation as a state; and the courts are bound by those acts.

The condition of the Indians in relation to the United States, is perhaps unlike that of any other two people in existence. In general, nations not owing a common allegiance are foreign to each other. The term foreign nation is with strict propriety applicable by either to the other. But the relation of the Indians to the United States is marked by peculiar and cardinal distinctions which exist no where else.

The Indians are acknowledged to have an unquestionable, and heretofore an unquestioned right to the lands they occupy; until that right shall be extinguished by a voluntary cession to our government. It may well be doubted whether those tribes which reside within the acknowledged boundaries of the United States can with strict accuracy be denominated foreign nations. They may more correctly perhaps be denominated domestic dependent nations. They occupy a territory to which we assert a title independent of their will, which must take effect in point of possession when their right of possession ceases-meanwhile they are in a state of pupilage. Their relations to the United States resemble that of a ward to his guardian. They look to our government for protection; rely upon its kindness and its power; appeal to it for relief to their wants; and address the President as their great father. The bill filed on behalf of the Cherokees seeks to restrain a state from the forcible exercise of legislative power over a neighbouring people asserting their independence; their right to which the state denies. On several of the matters alleged in the bill, for example on the laws making it criminal to exercise the usual powers of self government in their own country by the Cherokee nation, this court cannot interpose, at least in the form in which those matters are presented. That part of the bill which respects the land occupied by the Indians, and prays the aid of the court to protect their possessions, may be more doubtful. The mere question of right might perhaps be decided by this court, in a proper case, with proper parties. But the court is asked to do more than decide on the title. The bill requires us to control the legislature of Georgia, and to restrain the exertion of its physical force. The propriety of such an interposition by the court may well be questioned. It savours too much of the exercise of political power, to be within the proper province of the judicial department.

ON the 27th of December 1830 and 1st of January 1831, a notice was served on the governor and attorney general of the state of Georgia, signed by John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokee nation, stating that on Saturday the 5th day of March 1831, at the city of Washington, in the district of Columbia, the Cherokee nation would, by their counsel, move the supreme court of the United States, expected to be then in session, for an injunction to restrain the state of Georgia, the governor, attorney general, judges, justices of the peace, sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, constables, and all other the officers, agents and servants of that state, from executing and enforcing

[The Cherokee Nation vs. The State of Georgia.]

the laws of Georgia or any of those laws, or serving process, or doing any thing towards the execution and enforcement of those laws within the Cherokee territory, as designated by treaty between the United States and the Cherokee nation.

The notice also stated, that the motion would be made on the grounds set forth in a bill, a copy of which was handed to the governor and attorney general of the state of Georgia, with the notice; which bill would be supported by the necessary affidavits and documents.

On the day named in the notice, Mr Sergeant and Mr Wirt appeared as counsel, on behalf of the Cherokee nationand moved the court for an injunction, as stated in the notice. The state of Georgia did not appear.

The bill and a supplement to the bill were as follow:

To the Honourable the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, sitting in chancery.

Respectfully complaining, show unto your honours, the Cherokee nation of Indians, a foreign state, not owing allegiance to the United States, nor to any state of this union, nor to any other prince, potentate, or state, other than their own:

That, from time immemorial, the Cherokee nation have composed a sovereign and independent state, and in this character have been repeatedly recognized, and still stand recognized by the United States, in the various treaties subsisting between their nation and the United States.

That, long before the first approach of the white men of Europe to the western continent, the Cherokee nation were the occupants and owners of the territory on which they now reside; deriving their title from the Great Spirit, who is the common father of the human family, and to whom the earth belongs.

That on this territory they and their ancestors, composing the Cherokee nation, have ever been, and still are, the sole and exclusive masters, and governed, of right, by no other laws, usages and customs, but such as they have themselves thought proper to ordain and appoint.

That, in the year of the Christian era one thousand seven hundred and thirty-two, the monarch of several islands on the eastern coast of the Atlantic ocean, under the name and style of George II. king of Great Britain and Ireland, by a charter

[The Cherokee Nation vs. The State of Georgia.]

to a company of his own subjects there residing, affected to grant to them all the country on this continent lying between the Savannah and Alatamaha rivers. That this country was, at that time, occupied and owned by several distinct sovereign and independent nations of Indians, and, among others, by the Cherokee nation; and that the monarch who affected to grant it had no title to it whatever. These complainants are informed, and believe, that the only title to which he pretended was derived from the circumstance, that a ship manned by his subjects had, about two centuries and a half before, sailed along the coast of the western hemisphere, from the fifty-sixth to the thirty-eighth degree of north latitude, and looked upon the face of that coast without even landing upon any part of it. This, they are informed and believe, has been called a title by first discovery; which is not true, even in point of fact, as against the Cherokee nation and other Indian nations for they had discovered and occupied it long before the first European ship had ventured to cross the Atlantic ocean; the time of their original discovery and settlement of it being buried in the night of ages beyond the era of Christianity, and probably far beyond the period when the British islands, themselves the residence of heathen savages and barbarians, became a prey to a heathen conqueror from Rome.

That this pretended title by prior discovery, whatever may be its effect on the equally pretended claims by discovery of other European sovereigns, can have no effect in divesting the prior title of the Indian occupants and settlers of this country; and, as they are informed and believe, has never been pretended, by the European sovereigns themselves, to give them a right to oust the Indian proprietors from their poss-⚫ ession. That the utmost length to which they have carried the unjust pretensions derived from their alleged discovery, is, that the first European discoverer has the prior and exclusive right to purchase these lands from the Indian proprietors, as against all other European sovereigns; a principle settled among themselves for their own convenience, in adjusting their mutual accounts of rapine on the western world; a principle to which the Indian proprietors have never given their assent, and which they deny to be a principle of the natural law of nations, or as in any manner obligatory on them.

[The Cherokee Nation vs. The State of Georgia.]

That, whatever may be the theory of this wild and chimerical title by discovery, as among the European sovereigns themselves, these complainants are informed and believe, that it was never alleged by George II. the king of Great Britain and Ireland, or by his aforesaid grantees, the Georgia company, in 1732, or at any time since, that the charter so granted gave to that company any right to disturb or to question the exclusive right of possession by the Indians, or to interfere in any manner with their own self government within their respective dominions. That, on the contrary, the first adventurers under that charter, on their landing at the present site of the city of Savannah, entered into a treaty with the Creek nation of Indians, who were admitted to be the proprietors of the lands in that quarter of the country covered by the aforesaid charter, and received from them a voluntary cession of a part of those lands for a valuable consideration; and the Creeks were left under the peaceable government of their own laws, no pretension having been then, or at any subsequent time, set up, that the charter conferred on the grantees any authority to introduce the system of British laws into the country owned by the Indians. That various treaties have been, from time to time, made between the British colony in Georgia, between the state of Georgia, before her confederation with the other states, between the confederated states afterwards, and, finally, between the United States under their present constitution, and the Cherokee nation, as well as other nations of Indians; in all of which the said Cherokee nation and other nations have been recognized as sovereign and independent states, possessing both the exclusive right to their territory and the exclusive right of self government within that territory. That the various proceedings from time to time had by the congress of the United States, under the articles of their confederation, as well as under the present constitution of the United States, in relation to the subject of the Indian nations, confirm the same view of the subject; in evidence of which these complainants refer to the printed journals of their proceedings, and pray that they may be taken and considered as part of this bill. These complainants also pray leave to refer, as part of this bill, to the following treaties between the United States and the Cherokee nation, as

[The Cherokee Nation vs. The State of Georgia.] published with the Laws of the United States, and forming, according to the constitution of the United States, a part of the supreme law of the land, to be administered by this honourable court, to wit: the treaty concluded at Hopewell, on the 28th of November 1785, between the commissioners of the United States, and the head men and warriors of all the Cherokees: the treaty concluded on the bank of the Holston, on the 22d of July 1791, between the president of the United States, by his duly authorised commissioner William Blount, and the chiefs and warriors of the Cherokee nation of Indians, together with the additional article thereto made at Philadelphia, on the 17th of February 1792, between Henry Knox, the secretary of war, acting in behalf of the United States, and the undersigned chiefs and warriors of the Cherokee nation; the treaty between the United States of America and the Cherokee nation of Indians, at Philadelphia, on the 26th day of June 1794; the treaty between the same parties at Tellico, on the 2d of October 1798; the treaty between the same parties at Tellico, on the 25th of October 1805; the treaty between. the same parties at Tellico, on the 24th of October 1804; another treaty, between the same parties, at the same place, on the 27th of October 1805; the treaty between the same parties, made at the city of Washington, on the 7th day of January 1806; together with the proclamation of that convention by the president of the United States, and the elucidation of that convention of the 11th of September 1807; the treaty between the United States and the Cherokee nation of Indians, made at the city of Washington, on the 22d day of March 1816; another convention between the same parties, at the same place, on the same day; a treaty between the same parties, made and done at the Chickasaw Council House, on the 14th of September 1816; another treaty between the same parties, made at the Cherokee agency, on the 8th day of July 1817; and a treaty between the same parties, made at the city of Washington, on the 27th day of February 1819: all which treaties and conventions were duly ratified and confirmed by the senate of the United States, and became, thenceforth, and still are, a part of the supreme law of this land.

That, by these treaties, the Cherokee nation of Indians are acknowledged and treated with as a sovereign and independent