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29 Ariz. L. Rev. 165 (1987)
Jefferson, the Norman Yoke, and American Indian Lands

handle is hein.journals/arz29 and id is 179 raw text is: ARIZONA LAW REVIEW VOLUME 29 1987 NUMBER 2 Essay JEFFERSON, THE NORMAN YOKE, AND AMERICAN INDLAN LANDS Robert A. Williams, Jr.* INTRODUCTION During the 60 year period between King George III's Proclamation of 1763 closing off the trans-Appalachian American frontier to white settle- ment, and Chief Justice John Marshall's 1823 opinion in Johnson v. McIn- tosh1 holding that the United States exercised a superior sovereignty over the territory occupied by American Indian Nations, the status and rights of Indians in their lands represented one of the most intensely contested issues in the life of the early Republic.2 In this Essay, I examine the principal competing modes of legal discourse involved in this important debate that contemporary American legal scholarship has largely ignored.3 A deeper * Professor of Law, University of Arizona College of Law. B.A. 1977, Loyola College; J.D. 1980, Harvard University. Member, Lumbee Indian Tribe. I would like to express my special gratitude to Dean Paul Marcus and the faculty of the Univer- sity of Arizona College of Law for the opportunity to serve as Marks Visiting Professor at the Law School. I would also like to thank the American Council of Learned Societies and Ford Foundation for their invaluable support of my research in the field of American Indian legal history. 1. 21 U.S. (8 Wheat.) 543 (1823). 2. See generally M. JENSEN: THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION: AN INTERPRETATION OF THE SOCIAL-CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1774-1778, 107-238 (1940); see also T. ABERNATHY, WESTERN LANDS AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1959). 3. For instance, the Revolutionary-era legal debate concerning the status and rights of frontier Indian Nations in their lands is not even touched upon in the only treatise for the field, F. COHEN, HANDBOOK OF FEDERAL INDIAN LAW (1982). Historians writing from a primarily non-legal per- spective, however, have provided extended treatment of the topic as part of their general narrative of the major events and forces of the era. See sources cited supra note 2. See also 3. SOSIN, WHITE- HALL AND THE WILDERNESS: THE MIDDLE WEST IN BRITISH COLONIAL POLICY 1760-1775

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