Resulting from this principle was that of the sole right of the discoverer to acquire the soil from the natives and establish settlements, either by purchase or by conquest. Hence also the exclusive right can not exist in government and at the same time in private individuals ; and hence also The natives were recognized as rightful occupants, hut their power to dispose of the soil at their own will to whomsoever they pleased was denied by the original fundamental principle that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it. The ultimate dominion was asserted, and. as a consequence, a power to grant the soil while yet in the possession of the natives. Hence such dominion was incompatible with an absolute and complete title in the Indians. Consequently they had no right to sell to any other than the government of the first discoverer, nor to private citizens without the sanction of that government. Hence the Indians were to be considered mere occupants to be protected indeed while in peaceable possession of their lands, but with an incapacity of transferring the absolute title to others.1

In many of the old Indian title deeds various conditional clauses appear, the savages reserving to themselves certain special rights. For example, it was at times specified that they should retain the Avhitewood trees, from which they constructed their "dugout" canoes. They always remained on (he lands after sale, continuing their former habits of life until forced by the steady extension of white settlement to fall back farther into the wilderness. Having no conception of the principles of civilized law, and no idea of the binding effect of contracts, they seldom realized that the mere act of signing over their lands to t he whites was a necessarily permanent release of them. They were incapable of comprehending any other idea of ownership than actual physical possession, and in cases where lands were not occupied promptly after sale they assumed that no change had transpired, and thus frequently the same territory would be formally sold two or three times over.