This is a bit off thread but most of the UK property laws boil down to this because the Queen nominally owns all the land and you actually just have rights over it. They tend to be exclusive rights, but it is still an interesting point
I just want to add a few points. First, most Native Americans were not nomadic hunters, but farmers. What we think of as a “typical” Indian–a horse-riding, buffalo-hunting plains-dweller–didn’t even exist until after contact. I believe that the typical indian was actually a peasant farmer, not so different from subsistence farmers all over the world.
But…many of these cultures collapsed following contact. Not because of explicit genocide, but because of disease. Of course Europeans practiced genocide, but genocidal policies have been common all over the world since the beginnings of the first political units. So…why was the European genocide of America so spectacular, while the genocide of India or Africa or China or Indonesia or the Middle East or Central Asia didn’t result in replacement of entire populations? Why did genocide work in America but not India? Europeans weren’t any less bloodthirsty.
Of course the answer is that disease decimated the Native Americans, while India shared roughly the same disease pool that Europeans did.
I always love to point out that the story of the Pilgrims perfectly illustrates the cultural history of America in miniature. The Pilgrims made landfall, and after sailing around found a perfect place for to settle. And no one was living there. But there had been a village there several years ago, but it was now abandoned. And why was it abandoned? Because everyone in the village had died during a wave of disease.
The Pilgrims found several buried baskets of corn, which they took. And they were helped out by Squanto, who taught them how to grow Native American crops. And why was he so helpful? Because he was the only survivor of the village that the Pilgrims had settled on, because he was away when the plague hit. And why was he away? Because he had been captured by the Spanish and taken to Europe as a slave, where he subsequently escaped and made his way back to America, only to find his tribe dead, so he lived with a neighboring tribe until the Pilgrims showed up and he adopted them.
The point being, is that the settlement of the Americas didn’t happen because the Europeans were particularly violent, or technologically superior. Just read some history for crying out loud. War has been the method for resolving property disputes all the way back to Caina and Abel.
Which brings up the point. People didn’t need elaborate ethical justifications for settling land. Groups would fight, and the winners could force the losers to run away, or pay tribute, or become slaves, or what have you. They didn’t require racial motivations. Take England, for example. The English conquest of North America was not very different from the English conquest of Scotland, Wales, or Ireland. Seizing land from Native American tribes isn’t much different from seizing land from Irish or Scottish tribes.
The European conquest of North America wasn’t much different than the various European conquests of Europe. Land ownership philosophy doesn’t play much of a part in it.
By jove, Lemur866, I think you’ve got it! Give this man(sorry if I’m wrong, here) a prize! Yes, yes, yes!
This entire OP has attempted to rewrite historical events based on current modes of thinking, none of which are pertinent to the case.
Conquest and colonization had been the pathway to power for England and other nations for generations. England had in her time seen waves of conquest by many groups, in fact. It was the way of life and survival.
Along they come to a land of unlimited potential, unclaimed by any who could hold it, and they took it. Big surprise.
The real question this OP has yet to address is this: would any of us have anything to discuss if the actions of the British had included rapid assimilation or elimination of the natives?
I venture to say not. The absorption of these people would be another footnote in history, just one more entry in a very, very long list of the conquered.
Oi! Put a hold on the Brit bashing! 
IIRC correctly the direct involvement of the British Government did not come unil quite late, AFTER the general persecution of the Native Americans. By no stretch of the imagination were all the pilgrims Britsh, many being Dutch, French and German.
Yes, once we did become fully involved, we did some bad things, but then we did some bad things elsewhere too!
I would point out that American courts have used the “they weren’t using it” argument to deny Native American claims on land. There was a case on this point in my Property casebook, which (unfortunately) I cannot find anymore. Perhaps one of our other legal scholar types will remember the case.
I therefore believe that NaSultainne’s claim is off-base; the argument that is being discussed in the OP is not merely a “rewriting of historical events based on current modes of thinking” but rather a recurring mode of thought throughout American history.
A few things:
“Eminent domain” is the taking by the government of title to property for the greater good of society. That the government retains the right to take such land (under certain strict circumstances) does not mean a person holding land in fee simple has only a “right to use the land.” They own the land, entirely and freely.
The plains Indians, which were specifically the ones I was speaking about when the entire issue of “stewardship” versus “ownership” came up, were nomadic hunter/gatherers, not farmers. What the majority of pre-contact Indians might have been is therefore not really relevant. Nor is the whole discussion of pre-contact really relevant, since the subject here is the interaction (or collision) of Indians with white settlers – obviously post-contact.
No one is attempting to “rewrite historical events,” but rather to speculate on what justifications the white settlers (and American government) might have used to rationalize their land grab(s) – the most obvious of which was the European assumptions that (a) all land was subject to ownership; (b) unowned land could be claimed based on putting it to use; and © “using” land productively (ie, farming) was inherently better than leaving it fallow. These assumptions, taken together, went a long way towards explaining how settlers could blythely take land away from the Indians, and why the government would support their right to do so.
And “this entire OP” is a little confusing; I believe you mean “this entire thread.” “OP” is “original post,” ie, the post starting the thread. “OP’er” is the thread starter, in this case SVEN.
Yes, Jodi, I do understand the distinction twixt OP and thread, was just my slip of the tongue.
Sorry, Izzardesque, not my intent to Brit bash. Simply meant to go for the largest common factor. The Spanish and French also treated the native people with little regard. England ultimately successfully held what later became the colonies, eventually the fledgling U.S.
No, KellyM, I don’t believe I erred in my assertion that this thread(ah, I can get it right) attempts to isolate the actions of the American government re Native Americans to a period subsequent to the establishment of said government. Now, that’s my interpretion of a), the usage of terms regarding land use, which would only apply within a recognized establishment of legal principles, and b), actions as determined to be in accord with those legal principles. If I’ve misinterpreted the OP, my error and I’ll shut up. I’m merely attempting to point out that the interactions between European conquerors/explorers and the native people were not subjected to any law of possession on behalf of any native people. Queen Elizabeth considered them to be heathens and barbarians, King Charles I likewise. They weren’t a culture to be negotiated with as much as an impediment to securing lands/wealth for the respective crowns. I’m taking a long time here to get to the point, which finally amounts to this: how does anyone argue the actions of a given period of time without considering all initial specific actions leading or perpetuating those later actions?
Sure, we can all look back and agree that the Native Americans were terribly treated en masse from the very first European explorers setting foot on what is now the U.S. Was that in character with like actions in every other exploration made by any empire going back…to the beginning of recorded history? I answer yes. What made this episode of any heightened significance? Please tell me the argument doesn’t come down to a simple “we should have known better”. I don’t buy that for a moment. That’s what I call revisionist history. Interpret the past through today’s ideology at your peril.
The name of the book is “The Number of the Beast”. It was written as a kind of in-joke for the fans (almost every name in the book is an anagram of Heinlein’s or a relative). The same world with the “set your own value” tax system also had a pretty phaoric set of rulse regarding personal injury, in the story a fellow is staked out on the road and run over so he gets a broken leg. He is given first aid, but just to prevent death and is forced to wait three hours for further aid, as the person he ran over had to wait three hours for assistance. Sounds fair to me.
zen101
It isn’t justification as far as I’m concerned. However, it has been used as such by many for quite a while. For example, here is an except from a speech in the US Senate in 1837 by John C. Calhoun defending slavery. It is offensive reading today but Calhoun as one of the “great statesman” and leaders of the South at that time. His opinion was not at all uncommon then and for many years thereafter.
"I hold it [slavery that is]* to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be … and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually. It came among us in a low, degraded, and savage condition, and in the course of a few generations it has grown up under the fostering care of our institutions, reviled as they have been, to its present comparatively civilized condition. This, with the rapid increase of numbers, is conclusive nroof of the general happiness of the race …"*
In this case the resource that wasn’t being properly used by blacks, in Calhoun’s opinion, was their freedom and he justified taking that away from them on that, and other grounds. There isn’t any end to this justification because no matter how someone is using a resource you can always claim that you could use it better and take it away, if you are stronger, because of that.
That’s the idea behind the land reform movements in much of the third world-places where sometimes 2 percent of the population owns 70 percent of the land-and they aren’t doing anything with it-merely holding on to it so competitors can’t.
In the case of old people, they should absolutely have their resources taken away for better use. What good is it for a society to allow them to live in their huge houses, waiting to die, while the land all around is being used to create better living spaces for society as a whole? At a certain age it should reach a point where they should be isolated, and their resources used for the betterment of the rest of the population.
Oh, yeah. Not a chance that some uppity nonagenarian will produce anything at all useful to society. Sorta like William Steig, the author of Shrek, who was in his mid-eighties when he wrote the book. Mr. Steig continues to write children’s books into his nineties. (His career as an author started when he was sixty-one, after over thirty years as an illustrator for the New Yorker.)
Perhaps you do not see children’s stories as a “good use” of society’s resources. But Mr. Steig is only one of many nonagenarians and centenarians who are not merely “waiting to die,” as you so inartfully put it.
This one looks like a one-trick-pony, Kelly. He posted the same crap in at least one other thread.
The next time I drive by Sunrise Assisted Living on my way down to Woodbridge, I’ll scratch my head in puzzlement over where all these old people in large houses are, too.
Let me attempt to give a response appropriate to Great Debates. Here goes it:
People are an end not a means. If it were otherwise we’d cull deffectives ruthlessly, anyone not meeting certain standards would be killed and their body used to the best good of society. Your premise is flawed because it treats people as a means to achieve a goal.
Some do not ever contribute noticeably to society, others begin their contributions late and still others contribute when young and not much after they age. Isolating anyone after they reach an arbitrary age risks keeping from society from benefitting from those that start their contributions late or continuing contributing at a ripe old age. To meet your goal of benefitting society by placing resources where they will best be used. A test to see if the resources are adequate ly used for the current owner and another test for the proposed owners do see if they would better use them would acheive better resource allocation. Your premise is flawed because it is not the best way to acheive your flawed goal.
Yeah, I know, four-post wonders are quite often drive-by posters, sockpuppets, or both. Still, the point deserves to be refuted.
I would assume that Uekte post was an ironical response to the OP, and not a serious proposal to grab elder people’s property…
I personally believe in Eminent Domain and believe that we only allow ownership to encourage people to cultivate that land, and owning that land is sort of a reward for doing so. The idea that a human being in it’s mortality can claim “ownership” to the land that will outlive him by thousands of millenia, is pretty ludicrous. I’m not saying that the individual is less important than society, I think making the distinction of what is superior is a very flawed concept as society is made up of individuals, therefore respecting the individual is in the greatest interests of society, however, we cannot hold the individual on such a pedestal where we allow corporate greed, or personal greed to hold sway over society as a whole. For instance in the case of intellectual property, the idea that people will hold patents to products that will make their service less profitable is unconcionable. i.e. Oil companies holding patents to cleaner burning carburetors. That is a good example of where it is a good thing to take property from those not using it correctly. If a carburetor can make a car get an extra 10% fuel efficiency it is paramount that we put them into use immediately to lessen pollution and global warming.
Erek
I forgot to add, though, that just because the concept does have some relevancy that it does not necessarily justify conquest. Might justifies conquest in the end. If the winner can take it and hold it, then that’s pretty much the end of that one. If they are looking for some kind of moral legitimacy, they can make up all kinds of philosophies about it, but in the end they still took it by force.
Erek