Cherokee Nation v. Georgia

In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), however, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that because Indian nations were dependent entities, they had no standing before the judiciary. The Court, therefore, lacked jurisdiction to exempt the Cherokees from Georgia law. More promising was the case arising from Georgia’s…

In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), the court further opined that the political autonomy of Indigenous polities was inherently reliant on the federal government, defining them as domestic (dependent) nations rather than foreign (independent) nations. This status prevented tribes from invoking a number of privileges reserved…

In the meantime, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia had made its way to the United States Supreme Court. In 1831 the court decided that Indigenous peoples living within the United States were no longer independent nations and that, as a domestic sovereign nation—in other words, one that depended upon…