The Mohegan Indians sued the colony of Connecticut in British
Court seeking remedy for the illegal invasion of their land by
colonial settlers. click here for more
The Mohegan tribal council petitioned the British Queen,
complaining that it had been deprived of parcels of land reserved
by them in a treaty with the colonists. A Royal Commission
was appointed to decide the matter. They sat in
deliberation on three separate occasions; in 1705, 1738, and
1743. The decision was written by Commissioner
Horfmander.
"The Indians,
though living among the king's subjects in these countries, are a
separate and distinct people from them, they are treated with as
such, they have a policy of their own, they make peace and war with
any nation of Indians, when they think fit, without control from
the English.
"It is apparent
the crown looks upon them not as subjects, but as a distinct
people, for they are mentioned as such throughout Queen Ann's and
his present majesty's commissions by which we now sit. And it
is as plain, in my conception, that the crown looks upon the
Indians as having the property and the soil of the countries, and
that their lands are not, by his majesty's grant of particular
limits of them for a colony, thereby impropriated in his subject
till they have made fair and honest purchases of the natives.
"So that from
hence I draw this consequence, that a matter of property in lands
in dispute between the Indians as a distinct people (for no act has
been shown whereby they became subjects) and the English subjects,
cannot be determined by the law of our land, but by a law equal to
both parties, which is the law of nature and nations; and upon this
foundation, as I take it, these commissions have most properly
issued.
And now to
maintain that the tenants in possession of the land in controversy
are not bound to answer the complaint before this court, is to
endeavor to defeat the very end and the design of our commission'
for surely it would be a very lame and defective execution of it,
to hear only the matter of complaint between the tribe of Indians
and this government."
The Royal
Commission found for the Mohegan Nation.
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