The Connecting Documents
Each document below is publicly available. Each is in an official archive. Each is individually findable — but the colonial system depended on them never being found together, in order, with their connections made plain. Here they are. Connected. In order. What each one means, and how each one fits with the others.
Each document is a fact. The connection between them is the case.
A person looking for the Treaty of 1836 can find it. A person looking for the Virginia Slave Code can find it. A person looking for the ICJ 1952 ruling can find it. But no institution connected these documents and placed them in a sequence that showed what they proved together. The individual documents were public. The pattern they formed was hidden. The purpose of this page is to make the connections visible.
How to use this page: Read the documents in order. Each one links to the next. The sequence is the argument. If someone asks you to prove any part of this, the document is cited. If an institution tells you these documents don't say what they say, read the primary source text listed below each entry.
The legal foundation
Treaty of Peace and Friendship, 1786
The first formal treaty between the United States and the Empire of Morocco. Negotiated by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Established reciprocal protection for nationals of both parties. The operative basis for the treaty class.
US Statutes at Large — Treaty RecordsTreaty of Peace and Friendship, 1836 — 8 Stat. 484
The operative renewal of the 1786 treaty. Ratified by the US Senate July 16, 1836. Contains Article 25: the twelve-month notice exit requirement. The treaty that is still in force. Never lawfully terminated.
8 Stat. 484 — Senate Records, July 16, 1836H.Res.251 (2025)
US House of Representatives resolution stating that the Treaty of Peace and Friendship "remains the longest unbroken diplomatic relationship in United States history." Introduced March 25, 2025. Co-sponsored by the representative from South Carolina — the same state that recognized Moroccan subjects in 1790.
119th Congress, H.Res.251Official US government recognition of the treaty class
South Carolina Moors Sundry Act, 1790
State law freeing Moroccan subjects wrongly held in colonial enslavement in South Carolina. Describes the treaty class as "free born subjects of a Prince now in Alliance with the United States of America." The Prince is the Emperor of Morocco.
SC House Journal, 1790; SC ArchivesMassachusetts Act, 1788
Massachusetts state law writing "subjects of the Emperor of Morocco" into the statutory record as a recognized and protected class. Uses the treaty title — Emperor of Morocco — not a racial descriptor.
Massachusetts General Court records, 1788US State Department Correspondence, 1914
"The protection of native Moors rests on the Treaty of 1836." Official government legal correspondence identifying the treaty class by name and identifying the legal basis for their protection. On file in State Department archives.
US State Department, 1914 — NARA RG 59Guillaume / Celler, Congressional Record, 1957
Rep. Emanuel Celler — Chairman, House Judiciary Committee — reads General Guillaume's speech into the Congressional Record and states: "I believe Guillaume was eminently right." Guillaume: "The Moroccans are the Indians — the indigenous people."
Congressional Record, 1957Gay Head Act 1811 and 1861 One-Way Door — "Indian, Mulatto and Negro" as One Class
Massachusetts Laws, Act of June 25, 1811: "the governor was authorized to appoint three persons to be guardians of the Indian, Mulatto and Negro proprietors of Gay Head." In 1811, the Massachusetts legislature treated "Indian, Mulatto and Negro" as a single undifferentiated administrative class for land guardianship — three names, one population. The Massachusetts Acts of 1861 then legislated a one-way door: Indians and their descendants "should not return to the legal condition of an Indian" once absorbed into the general colored population. The state knew people could claim Indian status (they were receiving Indian land pensions) and it specifically prohibited them from restoring it. The return path was not forgotten — it was closed by statute. (Source: C.G. Woodson, "The Relations of Negroes and Indians in Massachusetts," Journal of Negro History, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 1920; Massachusetts Legislative Documents, 1861, No. 96.)
Massachusetts Laws 1811, Act of June 25, 1811; Massachusetts Acts of 1861; Senate Documents No. 96Massachusetts AG Pension List (Woodson, 1920) — 14 Persons of Color as Indian Land-Right Holders
A list obtained directly from the Massachusetts Attorney General's office named fourteen persons of color receiving state pensions for Indian land dispossession — among them Negroes and persons of color recognized as members of the Wampanoag, Hassanamisco, Ponkapoag, Algonquin, and Oneida tribes, including two individuals (Teeweleema Mitchell and Wontonekamuske Mitchell) recorded as "Descendants of King Philip and Massasoit." The state simultaneously classified these individuals as "Negro" for civil status and as "Indian" for land compensation. The state's own chief legal officer confirmed both designations for the same persons. The dual classification — Indian for land rights, Negro for civil rights — is the name-chain reclassification mechanism documented in the state's own attorney general record. (Source: C.G. Woodson, Journal of Negro History, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 1920, pp. 45–57; Office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts.)
Office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts; C.G. Woodson, Journal of Negro History, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1920)The instruments that purported to remove the treaty class status — each without legal effect
Dudum Siquidem, 1493
Papal bull extending Spanish colonial authority to "all islands and mainlands whatever, found or to be found... toward the west and south." The Pope had no jurisdiction over Al-Maghrib al-Aqsa. Void from the moment of issuance.
Vatican Archives; US Library of Congress translationSublimis Deus, 1537
Pope Paul III declared that the original people of the Americas "are truly men" who cannot be deprived of their liberty or property. An effective self-revocation of the colonial authorization, issued 44 years after Dudum Siquidem and 130 years before the Virginia religious exemption statute of 1667.
Vatican Archives; Library of CongressBritish Colonial Statute, Virginia, 1667
Enacted on EOM land by the British colonial authority. Declared that Christian baptism does not change legal status. Closed the religious exemption Moroccan Muslims had relied on. Void: enacted by an occupying authority without jurisdiction over EOM land or its subjects.
British colonial codes enacted on EOM land in Virginia, 1667British Colonial Codes, Virginia, 1705
Attempted to merge Moors with Negroes under civil disability — while containing its own exemption for "Turks and Moors in amity with His Majesty." The exemption's existence proves the category. A separate section of the same statute named "Jews, Moors, Mahometans, or other infidels" in its purchasing restriction — co-classifying all three faith traditions of the EOM subject class under the same civil disability. The colonial system knew the EOM subject class included more than one faith. The statute's own text is the adverse admission.
British colonial codes enacted on EOM land in Virginia, 170514th Amendment, 1868
Imposed citizenship on people who had never consented. The Expatriation Act — passed the same session — confirmed citizenship must be voluntary. The treaty class was denied both options simultaneously. The 14th Amendment's application to the treaty class is void ab initio.
14th Amendment, 1868; Expatriation Act, 1868Plecker Directive, Virginia, 1943
State Registrar Walter Plecker ordered county clerks to alter birth and death certificates — crossing out existing entries and replacing them with racial classifications. Specific treaty-class surnames were targeted for reclassification. Physical falsification of documentary identity records.
Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics, 1943; Library of VirginiaUS State Department Note, 1959
Claimed the 1836 Treaty was "obsolete." Did not follow the treaty's own exit procedure (Article 25: 12 months notice). Directed at the Kingdom of Morocco (1956) — not the Empire of Morocco, the actual treaty signatory. Produced no legal effect. Contradicted by the US Congress in 2025.
US State Department Note, 1959; H.Res.251, 2025What courts have actually ruled
Rights of Nationals of the United States in Morocco, 1952
The ICJ explicitly ruled on rights "under the Treaty of 1836." Confirmed the treaty was real, in force, and created binding legal obligations. Ruling is in the permanent international legal record at The Hague.
ICJ Reports 1952, p. 176Cartwright Admissions — National Origin
Dr. S. A. Cartwright — the racial scientist whose testimony was published alongside the Dred Scott decision to give it scientific authority — acknowledged in that same publication that "a Moor tanned by the climate" is not a Negro. The scientific appendix excluded Moors from the racial category the legal ruling used to classify them. The colonial framing of the decision does not erase what was acknowledged in its own supporting document.
60 U.S. 393 (1857)The Foreign Relations of the United States is the State Department's official published documentary record. These documents came from within the same agency that sent the 1959 Note — and they contradict it.
Secretary of State Philander Knox — Treaty Termination Authority
Formal constitutional opinion: treaty termination "can only be" by "a treaty…regularly ratified by the United States Senate." The State Department's own Secretary established the constitutional rule that makes the 1959 Note legally impossible as a treaty-terminating instrument. The rule predates the Note by 46 years.
FRUS 1913; National Archives RG 59The "No Terminable Date" Confirmation
State Department internal correspondence explicitly confirming: "The treaty contains no terminable date." A treaty with no terminable date cannot be declared "obsolete" — there is no reference point from which obsolescence can be measured. This document was produced by the same agency that sent the 1959 Note 20 years later claiming the treaty was obsolete.
FRUS 1939, Vol. IV, Document 725FDR Meets Mohammed V — Without French Officials Present
Casablanca Conference, January 22, 1943. FDR met personally with Mohammed V — styled "Sultan" under the Protectorate; the treaty title is Emperor — without French officials present. This treatment of him as a sovereign, not as an official of an occupied territory, is a presidential admission that the EOM's sovereign relationship with the US was direct and unmediated. The EOM was never an enemy. The AEA Proclamations 2525/2526/2527 (Japan, Germany, Italy) do not name the EOM. They never did.
FRUS 1943; Casablanca Conference recordsOctober 1956 Diplomatic Correspondence — Treaty Relationship Active
US diplomat Cavendish Cannon to Moroccan Foreign Minister Ahmed Balafrej. October 1956 — three years before the 1959 Note. The correspondence confirms the treaty relationship was being treated as active and governing by the US State Department. You do not conduct active treaty relationship correspondence about an "obsolete" treaty.
FRUS 1956, Vol. XVIII; State Department archivesThe documented financial extraction — each instrument traceable to a primary source
Home Owners' Loan Corporation Residential Security Maps (1933–1940)
HOLC color-coded 239 US cities using a four-tier system: A (Best), B (Still Desirable), C (Declining), D (Hazardous). Treaty class neighborhoods were systematically marked "D" — Hazardous. The maps are in the National Archives. The designation cut off mortgage access for 35 years. The Urban Institute calculated the redlining-attributable wealth gap at approximately $148,000 per household.
NARA; University of Richmond "Mapping Inequality" project; Urban Institute, 2021Freedman's Savings and Trust Company — $3M Depositors' Loss (1865–1874)
The Freedman's Bank was chartered by Congress in 1865 to serve emancipated treaty class members. Frederick Douglass served as president. It failed in 1874 — its charter having been amended to allow speculative investments that white-controlled banks conducted. Depositors lost approximately $3 million ($78 million in 2024 dollars). Congressional charter. Congressional amendment. Congressional failure. The US government chartered the mechanism of the loss.
Congressional charter, 1865; Senate Freedman's Bank Hearings, 1876Wells Fargo DOJ Settlement — $175 Million (2012)
The US Department of Justice settled with Wells Fargo for $175 million for charging higher rates and fees to Black and Hispanic borrowers regardless of credit risk. Internal Wells Fargo documents — referenced in the DOJ settlement — used the term "ghetto loans" for mortgages marketed to treaty class neighborhoods. The term appears in internal communications. The settlement is public record. The internal documents were entered into evidence.
DOJ Settlement Agreement, 2012; Civil Penalty OrderCarnegie Institution Eugenics Record Office (1910–1939)
Carnegie Institution funded the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor. The ERO produced the racial science that was used to: (1) design immigration quotas targeting non-European populations; (2) justify compulsory sterilization (Buck v. Bell, 1927 — approximately 60,000 sterilizations); (3) provide the theoretical framework for HOLC racial grading. The Carnegie funding is documented in ERO annual reports. The connection to HOLC grading criteria is documented in the HOLC training materials.
Carnegie Institution Annual Reports; ERO Records, NARAThe legal instruments that make the international case viable — each in force, each binding on the United States
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969)
Article 26: "Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith" (pacta sunt servanda). Article 27: "A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty." The 14th Amendment is internal US law. It cannot be invoked to justify failure to perform the 1836 Treaty.
VCLT, UN Treaty Series, Vol. 1155, p. 331UNGA Resolution 1514 (1960) — Declaration on Decolonization
"The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation." This is the Fourth Committee's (C24's) governing mandate. The EOM treaty class argument fits within this mandate by definition: subjugation of a treaty class whose sovereignty was never extinguished, whose status was never lawfully removed.
UNGA Resolution 1514 (XV), December 14, 1960ARSIWA — Articles on State Responsibility (2001)
Article 31: "The responsible State is under an obligation to make full reparation for the injury caused by the internationally wrongful act." Article 34: Reparation forms include restitution, compensation, and satisfaction — which corresponds to recognition. ARSIWA is the international law standard for state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts — including the centuries-long suppression of the treaty class and the continuous breach of the 1836 Treaty's obligations.
ILC Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, 2001International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966)
The United States ratified the ICCPR in 1992. Article 1: "All peoples have the right of self-determination." Article 27: "Persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities shall not be denied the right... to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language." The Islamic and Amazigh cultural traditions of the treaty class are protected by a treaty the US has ratified.
ICCPR, UNGA Res. 2200A (XXI); US ratification with reservations, 1992What the science says — and what test was never run
Ely et al., University of South Carolina, 2006
Analysis of maternal DNA (mtDNA) from the Gullah/Geechee people — inhabitants of the SC/GA Sea Islands, the same territory where South Carolina recognized Moroccan subjects in 1790. 40% of those maternal lineages matched nothing in a database of 3,725 sub-Saharan African sequences. No comparison against Al-Maghrib al-Aqsa — the Empire's full western domain — was conducted.
BMC Biology, 2006;4:34 — doi:10.1186/1741-7007-4-34 (open access)Gullah/Geechee Maternal Lineage Study, 2025
Confirmed that the Gullah/Geechee people are the maternal progenitors — the original mothers — of the entire African American population. The Great Migration spread their lineage to every major city in North America. 40% of that lineage has no sub-Saharan African match.
Published 2025 — citation available in the full legal record23andMe and comparable studies — "North Africa excluded"
The major genetic studies that conclude "African Americans are 73% West African" explicitly note in their methodology: "our analysis does not include ancestry from North Africa." The comparison against Al-Maghrib al-Aqsa — the Empire of Morocco's full western domain, which includes the Americas — has never been conducted. You cannot fail a test that was never run.
23andMe Ancestry Composition Methodology, multiple editionsEvery document is cited. Every citation can be verified.
The complete legal record — with full citations, primary source links, and argument structure — is documented throughout this site. These documents are the public-facing record. The colonial apparatus and its international law mapping are on the next page.