ABSTRACT
AS ANYONE WHO HAS EVER DEBATED OR NEGOTIATED WITH U.S. OFFICIALS ON matters concerning American Indian land rights can attest, the federal government’s first position is invariably that its title to/authority over its territoriality was acquired incrementally, mostly through provisions of cession contained in some 400 treaties with Indians ratified by the Senate between 1778 and 1871.1 When it is pointed out that the U.S. has violated the terms of every one of the treaties at issue, thus voiding whatever title might otherwise have accrued therefrom, there are usually a few moments of thundering silence.2 The official position, publicly framed by perennial “federal Indian expert” Leonard Garment as recently as 1999, is then shifted onto different grounds: “If you don’t accept the treaties as valid, we’ll have to fall back on the Doctrine of Discovery and Rights of Conquest.”3 This rejoinder, to all appearances, is meant to be crushing, forestalling further discussion of a topic so obviously inconvenient to the status quo.
