domestic dependent nations

What happened

The Cherokee Nation sued Georgia in the Supreme Court in 1831. Georgia had passed laws extending its authority over Cherokee territory, and the Cherokees asked for an injunction to stop their enforcement. They described themselves as "a foreign state, not owing allegiance to the United States."

Chief Justice Marshall's opinion did not accept that description. It said tribes within the United States could not, "with strict accuracy, be denominated foreign nations." "They may, more correctly, perhaps, be denominated domestic dependent nations." He added that they occupy territory "to which we assert a title independent of their will," and that their relation to the United States "resembles that of a ward to his guardian." The majority held that a tribe "is not a foreign state in the sense of the constitution, and cannot maintain an action in the courts of the United States," and denied the injunction, writing: "If it be true that the Cherokee nation have rights, this is not the tribunal in which those rights are to be asserted."

A year later, in Worcester v. Georgia, Marshall wrote that "The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory, with boundaries accurately described, in which the laws of Georgia can have no force." Worcester held the Georgia law under which Samuel Worcester was imprisoned to be void as repugnant to the Constitution, treaties and laws of the United States.

The phrase "domestic dependent nations" is still cited. Its second half, dependence, has been used both to protect tribes and to justify federal control, a tension other records on guardianship and plenary power address.

Summarized with AI assistance from 4 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error