1820s - Federal trust doctrine

Forced removals of Indians from treaty-protected lands - a disastrous and often barbaric policy - was an unlawful abdication of federal trust responsibility under the Indian trust doctrine.

        This is the legal principle, still in place to day, which names the federal government as guarantor for Indian rights, lands, and resources.  This trust arrangement often puts the federal government in conflict with states rights advocates who are chronically jealous of native sovereignty and native owned resources.


      A map of Indian lands the federal government held in trust for western tribes that signed the treaty at Horse Creek in 1851.   U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the early 1830s designated the federal government as the trustee for all Indian lands and resources.