When European settlers arrived in the region in the 1600s, the Piankeshaw lived in an area along the south central Wabash River that now includes western Indiana and Illinois.

Sometime after the founding of the first Peeyankihšionki, a group split off and moved south following the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi to just above its confluence with the Embarras River.

After the Americans and French suffered setbacks in the Revolution, notably the disastrous LaBalme expedition, some Piankeshaw joined tribes aligned with the British.

[5] Others left during the economic depression caused by a depreciated United States currency and stagnated fur trade (due to unrest in the Northwest Indian Wars).

In 1805 the Piankeshaw conveyed much of the same land to William Henry Harrison, Governor of the Indiana Territory, which made conflicting title claims.

Chief Justice John Marshall had large real-estate holdings that would have been affected if the case were decided in favor of Johnson.

Rather than abstaining from the case due to conflicting interest, the Chief Justice wrote the decision for a unanimous Supreme Court.

Marshall found that ownership of the land is given to the ones that discovered it, which is a rule that had been repeated by all European countries with settlements in the New World.

Marshall ruled that legally, the United States was the true owner of the land because it inherited it from Britain, whom he considered the original discoverers.