The Marshall Trilogy demonstrates how the foreign status of Indigenous nations posed an existential (as well as material) threat to the United States, which had already proven its intentions for vast territorial, political, and economic expansion. Between 18 the US Supreme Court’s first Chief Justice, John Marshall, as Diné geographer Andrew Curley states, “defined the status and rights of Indigenous nations within the United States as ‘tribes,’ uncivilized peoples dependent on it and subject to its complete authority.” 4 Drawing from the Doctrine of Discovery to justify the domestication of Indigenous nations, the Marshall Trilogy fabricated laws to alienate aboriginal title and strip Indigenous nations of their independence.

The most belligerent of these laws, the Marshall Trilogy (1823–1832), unilaterally changed the status of Native nations from foreign nations-their status according to treaties-to colonized subjects of the United States. This time it was through legalized theft. The fledgling US government waited until another opportunity arose some thirty years later to attack these nations and gain control of their lands. These efforts failed, largely because Indigenous nations were more powerful than the thirteen states at the time. Looking westward from its original settler colonies to find this land, it created the first federal administration of Indian affairs office within the Department of War in 1789 to negotiate treaties with Indigenous peoples to take land in “fair trade.” However, when Indigenous peoples refused to sell their land, George Washington and the United States were ready to wage war, or in Washington’s words, to “extirpate” Indigenous people. In its early years of existence, the United States needed free land to repay war debts following its war of independence with Great Britain. Why does the United States invest so heavily in its military? The answer can be found in the creation of US settler sovereignty, forged through war against Indigenous nations. The US military also owns more international military bases than any other country. It invests more in its military than the next seven largest military powers combined. The United States owns the deadliest and most funded military power in the world. As The Red Nation summarizes: The choice is decolonization or extinction.

Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth, a new book by The Red Nation which connects the struggle to prevent ecological collapse to the struggles against imperialism, capitalism, and settler-colonialism, including in Palestine.

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