“Wife and Child of Bull Plume” by Kathryn Woodman Leighton (Wikimedia PD-US) This article is part of our “200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Law, Religion, and Native American Lands” series. If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. In Johnson v. M’Intosh, Chief Justice John Marshall articulated the doctrine of discovery as…
The George Washington Belt, the Two Row Wampum, and the Hiawatha Belt. The Canandaigua, Two Row, and Haudenosaunee Confederacy Wampum Belts. Image by Lindsay Speer, 2008. This article is part of our “200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Law, Religion, and Native American Lands” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. “Democracy…
Archbishop Adrian Tync. Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0 This article is part of our “200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Law, Religion, and Native American Lands” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Shortly before Thanksgiving 2016, Episcopalian priest John Floberg held up a copy of Pope Alexander VI’s 1493 papal bull Inter…
Old Supreme Court Chamber by Michael Savidge (CC BY-SA 4.0). This article is part of our “200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Law, Religion, and Native American Lands” series. If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. In 1823, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in Johnson v M’Intosh, the first…
“First Nations dancers watch the Canada Day celebrations in Calgary, Alberta – 2022” by Dwayne Reilander / Wikimedia CC-BYSA-4.0. This article is part of our “200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Law, Religion, and Native American Lands” series. If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Many groups and organizations have taken actions…
Indian Creek in Bears Ears National Monument by US Bureau of Land Management. This article is part of our “200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Law, Religion, and Native American Lands” series. If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Mother Earth is the wellspring of indigenous culture, religion, and economic life.It forms…
Introduction As historians of religions, we are interested in myths, history, and creation narratives. The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Johnson v. M’Intosh (1823) includes all these elements. The Johnson decision illustrates one of the powerful ways in which Christianity has played a hegemonic role within American law and culture at the expense of…
Federal Anti-Indian Law: The Legal Entrapment of Indigenous PeoplesPeter d’Errico The following is an excerpt from Peter d’Errico’s Federal Anti-Indian Law: The Legal Entrapment of Indigenous Peoples (Bloomsbury, September 2022). 2023 is the bi-centennial year of Johnson v. McIntosh, the case that put ‘Christian discovery’ into US property law in a way that simultaneously created…
“Towers of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) after fifth extension” by Laurent Verdier / Wikimedia (CC0 1.0). This article is part of our “Clothed in Religion: Law and Religious Attire/Garb” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. There are two major judicial systems currently operating within the…
This article is part of our “Clothed in Religion: Law and Religious Attire/Garb” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Introduction In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius famously muses that “the apparel oft proclaims the man.” Yet, in today’s increasingly religiously diverse (and religiously unaffiliated) American society wherein about 30% are religiously…