This is a major reassessment by a legal historian of how the Native Americans lost their land. Banner begins by arguing that the first British settlers in North America generally recognized the indigenous inhabitants' land ownership. There are many cases in the history of early white settlement where land was acquired from Native Americans in transactions that both parties regarded as legitimate. He notes that the nature of such transactions changed over time as the balance of power shifted from the Native Americans to the settlers. For example, the growth in fraud perpetrated by settlers against Native Americans was facilitated by the natives' dependence on the settlers' system of justice.

From the early 1790s there was a gradual erosion of the acceptance of Native American fee simple title. In 1823 Chief Justice Marshall decided in Johnston v. M'Intosh that Native Americans only had a right to occupy their land and that the government, not the occupants, had fee simple title to their land. Banner notes that Marshall, who was a speculator in western land, ignored legal precedent when he changed the law in this case. Marshall's decision validated the removal of Native Americans from the eastern United States. Although the removal policy is generally thought to have originated in the late 1820s as a reaction to the political crisis associated with the Cherokees, Banner observes that removals had actually been taking place since the 1790s.

Throughout the nineteenth century the Supreme Court issued rules for the humane treatment of Native Americans. Banner observes that its rulings were mostly disregarded on the frontier. The Native Americans were deprived of most of their remaining landholdings. However, he notes that Native Americans were able to take advantage of these rulings when better times came in the twentieth century.

Banner ends his book in 1934. He argues the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 marked the end of large transfers of land from Native Americans to non-natives. He overlooks the Termination policy of the Eisenhower Administration, which led to further significant transfers of land from the terminated tribes to non-natives. Although this policy was subsequently abandoned, many tribes have continued to experience an erosion of their land base.