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Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

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Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#201

Post by WalterBright »

klyrs wrote: post #191
bluedevil2k wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False. There’s no such thing as “squatters rights” or anything or a statute of limitations. At any point the neighbor can sue you to protect his land. Further, when either property is sold, a survey will show the discrepency.

Depends where you live. You and GP are quite possibly speaking true of your respective locations but overlooking the rest of the world. In some jurisdictions, you are correct: the state owns all land, and purchase agreements are subject to consent of the state. No bill of sale, no rights. I know that the province of BC in Canada is one such jurisdiction. Irony here being that much of indigenous land in nominal BC is…

I live in Washington, and I have been personally involved with encroachments on my property in two separate cases, and I personally know of others.

The various lawyers involved all said the same thing - if you don't put a stop to encroachments, you lose the property.

In one case that I knew about, the property owner moved the surveying monument 10 feet to increase the size of his lot. He built his house. 20 years later this was discovered, but oops, it was his land now. In another case, the neighbor did indeed build a garage on a friend of mine's land. My friend called the police, who told him it was a civil matter, not a police matter. So one day, he rented a bulldozer and demolished it. The neighbor called the police, but my friend showed the police the garage was on my friend's land, and that was the end of that. He figured the dozer was cheaper than a lawyer :-) and he was legally in the clear as long as he did it before adverse possession was claimed.

You might be surprised how often people lie and cheat about where the property lines are. It's worthwhile to have an official survey done for property you're considering buying - it can save you a lot of grief later.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#202

Post by refurb »

rukittenme wrote: post #76
baddox wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that, unlike other injustices where we as a society generally approve of at least attempting to correct the injustice, this particular injustice is unique, and we shouldn't even attempt to remediate? Or do you oppose all attempts to correct past injustices because "cosmic justice" doesn't exist? I don't hope for cosmic justice, I think justice is up to us humans. Nothing about my argument relies on rac…

> Nothing about my argument relies on racial language or philosophy. It does because you're relying on racial identity to determine who pays and who receives rather than who stole and who was stolen from. The matter of who did what to whom is "settled" in the sense that all parties are dead. > I don't hope for cosmic justice, I think justice is up to us humans. What is your solution to the "stolen land" problem?

What is your solution to the "stolen land" problem?

I am by no means an expert, but I think the recent SC case is probably the right approach. I don't see why the US government should not be held to the treaties they signed - I mean, the court still relies on law settled centuries ago.

And if the gov't can't hold up their end, then restitution is reasonable. However, I wouldn't restitute based on today's value just because the tribal land is Manhattan now. But it would seem fair to make them whole based on if the treaty had been fairly followed.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#203

Post by cameronh90 »

cataphract wrote: post #192
300bps wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why Adverse Possession has been a principle of law for thousands of years. Without such a concept, there can be no private ownership of land. Because someone can always come out of the woodwork with an old document that says the land your family has owned for tens or hundreds of years is actually their land. http://dirt.umkc.edu/archives/dirt2003/mar2003/adverse%20pos...

Well, the UK has basically killed adverse possession in the Land Registration Act 2002, so we'll see how that turns out for them.

Arguably that reason makes less sense now, given that record keeping and accessibility is much better. It should now be relatively trivial to ensure you own any given land in the land registry.

The bigger argument for it now is making land use more efficient.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#204

Post by faitswulff »

Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #149
faitswulff wrote: post #123

A lot of comments arguing about the specifics of land ownership in this thread. I think the point of the website is that it's not our land unless you're indigenous.

Do the Alaskan natives own their land? I ask because they represent a separate and later migration. The original Alaskan natives are no longer around to dispute the matter as they were replaced by those who now are now called indigenous. This is reflected in their languages, which are unrelated to other indigenous languages in North and South America.

Well, the ones who "now are called indigenous" actually do exist and are alive, contrary to popular belief and government intervention. And the point is that they do not own their land, settlers do at the moment, and that indigenous folks have a claim preceding Western style land ownership.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#205

Post by rexpop »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #166
rexpop wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is "None" the answer that would satisfy you? You seem to be implying a slippery slope, but you come off as saying "what's non-trivial shouldn't be attempted." If you're actually interested in answering that very big question–which, I suspect, you might not be, only ornery and combative–you would do well to read what scholars have written on it. You might even Google the simplest component of the subject. Here is a st…

Answers along the lines of "here's a start" are unsatisfying, because the question is where the end is. It's like asking what the ingredients for a loaf of bread are and hearing "well a tablespoon of flour is a start". I'm not aware of any scholar who's said "after we do X, Y, Z, the wrongs of history will be righted and we won't need any further efforts to make it up to Native Americans". (If you know someone who di…

Some ideas are best conveyed through richer media. Don't hesitate to read Indigenous People's History of the United States, and stop demanding bread recipes on fortune cookie slips.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#206

Post by yellowapple »

BurningFrog wrote: post #198
thethethethe wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are brushing off the systematic, mass genocide of native people and dispossession of their land by essentially saying that its happened throughout history, that it’s normal. I’m not really sure how this argument justifies anything. The colonization of America is recent. NA indigenous people are still alive and have special designated land that they were forced to move to. They weren’t even given citizenship by de…

[flagged]

Just because the genocide didn't fully succeed in exterminating every last Native American doesn't mean it somehow wasn't a "systematic mass genocide", for the same reason that just because Nazi Germany didn't successfully wipe every last Jew off the face of the Earth doesn't mean that wasn't a "systematic mass genocide", or how just because the VRS didn't exterminate every last Bosniak doesn't mean the Bosnian genocide wasn't a genocide.

Like, there's nothing mixed about that message at all. The United States systematically displaced or outright exterminated countless Native Americans, and yet some did survive and will hopefully have a chance to recover from that genocide and reclaim some of their lost lands.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#207

Post by oh_sigh »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #32

This map should really have some dates on it. It might represent the state of things within, say, a 100 year period (or so) of European arrival, but it doesn't convey the history of humans in North America. I read the FAQ and could not find any information on what time period is represented here. If someone showed you a map of Europe or China marked out like this, it would be natural to ask "when is this?" None of th…

As an example, Southern Athabascan speakers(e.g. Apache, Navajo) only migrated from what is approximately modern day Canada to the American Southwest within the time frame that Europeans were already on the continent(~1500 AD).

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#208

Post by oh_sigh »

faitswulff wrote: post #204
Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the Alaskan natives own their land? I ask because they represent a separate and later migration. The original Alaskan natives are no longer around to dispute the matter as they were replaced by those who now are now called indigenous. This is reflected in their languages, which are unrelated to other indigenous languages in North and South America.

Well, the ones who "now are called indigenous" actually do exist and are alive, contrary to popular belief and government intervention. And the point is that they do not own their land, settlers do at the moment, and that indigenous folks have a claim preceding Western style land ownership.

But they just stole the land in a similar manner that Europeans stole the land from Natives. If someone steals your car, and then has that car stolen from them - it would be strange to set up a movement to have the car returned to the penultimate thief instead of the original owner.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#209

Post by asguy »

bjourne wrote: post #180
Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #117

Maps like these give the false impression that nearly every square mile of land - even inhospitable desert regions, were once occupied by some native polity. Reality check: Most indigenous peoples lived in Mesoamerica, with < 10 million in what is now USA/Canada and that's being generous. There are regions of North America today that have no residents. By what grounds are these native lands - because some nomads once…

Maybe no one owns the land then? Owning land by purchasing a title registered in the State's land registry can hardly be a stronger claim than being a nomad wandering through.

Who owns the laptop you’re currently typing on?

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#210

Post by oh_sigh »

sxv wrote: post #103
fennecfoxen wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so simple. Kind of hard to run a farm and grow your food when "land belongs to all". And who'd be stupid enough to put up a building on land they don't own?

I think you are suffering from "I can't imagine how things could work differently because I only know how things work currently". Where I am located, on the coast of Ecuador, most land is collectively owned by the "comuna", or a group of local villagers. They sell temporary land-use permits (usufruct) but the land will always belong to the comuna. I can still build on it with the understanding that I would only pass…

So land ownership is bad, but granting exclusive use of land for a set period of time is okay? Who grants the exclusive use of land, and from what authority? If I'm not a part of that comuna, do I need to abide by the rules of who gets exclusive use of a given plot of land?
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