The English part of me feels a bit guilty since the Chickasaw were such good friends but the Chickasaw part says don’t worry about it and the French part hates both for kicking so much of its butt. The Scots hates the English and the Norman and the English hates the conquering Norman. The Cherokee part just wants me to visit the Smokies every so often.
I hope that clarifies things.
How come we’re not arguing about Palestine then? The Jews stole it from the Canaanites, the Romans drove out the Jews, then it bounced back and forth (the European Crusaders helped themselves to title for a centuring or less) the Arabs took it, the Ottomans took it, yada yada…
Or England, where the Romans took it from the Britains, and the Angles took what the Romans abandoned, then some norsemen, and the Normans took title and pretty much manageed to hold it, until the Scottish monarchy took over.
Not to stir up things, but to point out that every piece of real estate everywhere (with the possible exception of the arctic, Tasmania, New Zealand, Polynesia and Tierra del Fuego) - land was bounced from one “owner” ethnic group to the next, even before the modern Europeans accomplished the last and greatest hostile takeover.
Do African-Americans share the guilt, since half the country was probably taken after they stopped being property and became citizens? Do recent immigrants bear any guilt for what happened to the Indians? Should latinos in the latino areas of southwest USA and the Puerto Rican neighbourhoods of New York feel guilty for taking over land that is not theirs? They may have “legally” acquired title, but if the intimidation of a “changing neighbourhood” forced the previous inhabitants to leave, then how voluntary was the process?
How about the land around the reserve south of Montreal, where Indians given farms traded them to the locals, in one case seling a farm to the local parish priest for a bottle of whiskey and a bar of soap. (?!?! 
) Not a racist commentary - more likely a guy who grew up hunting in the woods did not know or care to learn what to do with a farm .
The main problem is that the concept of “owning” and fencing off a piece of land was totally alien to a nomadic culture; so they happily gave up a few square miles of their hunting grounds (Less that 1%) for some trinkets. When the newcomers became populous and strong enough to start taking the land they wanted, it was too late. The traditional method of defending title to hunting ranges - kill the other guy, take his scalp - did not work well against a more numerous and superior armed force.
Do people in Europe feel guilty about living on land that was stolen from the Celts? Do people in Africa feel guilty about living on land that was stolen from the Khoisan? Do people in China feel guilty about living in land that was stolen from the Yi?
Pretty much all of us are the descendants of people who conquered land that belonged to somebody else. Including those of us who are descended from “natives” - who usually just conquered land belonging to earlier native groups. I live on land, for example, that used to be part of the Iroquois Nations. Should I be apologizing to the Iroquois? If so, then should the Iroquois be apologizing to the Algonquians?
Yes… I do feel some guilt.
My Great-Great-Grandfather came to the San Diego area in 1850, and, very cleverly, claimed a lot of land. He fenced it, registered it, and it has been in the family ever since. A LOT of land. (Much of which has had to be sold, as property taxes were eating it up. So it goes.)
The land was, in essence, stolen. It was taken right under the noses of the local Kumeyaay Indians, who, by and large, didn’t even comprehend what was happening. They had no clear idea why the idiot gringos were stringing fence all over the place.
I feel some meaningful guilt, because I am still benefiting (a very little) from this “crime against humanity” of a century and a half ago.
Personally I live near Detroit. So “we” didn’t steal any land from Native Americans. “We” stole it from the French, and nobody would feel guilty about that. :).
This thread made me think of: This Land is Mine - YouTube
I am not American.
In an era when past injustices are being recognised in some countries and land returned, it does not seem that the US is doing anything to rectify past bad behaviour and injustice.
If you google “black hills of dakota and supreme court” you will see all about it. In 1979 the supreme court recognised the tribes claim to the Black Hills.
Even President Obama has spoken about it.
The difference is probably that the Celts et al are now part of modern society, and not confined to “reservations”.
I wasn’t trying to get into the whole “ownership” debate, which is why I never mentioned “ownership”, but iut seems that is where this thread has gone.
I was actually trying to find out if people thought about how they came to live where they do, thought about those that were treated badly to aquire the land, and do they feel any guilt for past injustice?
You’ve gotten answers. Sorry if they’re not the answers you wanted. Repeating the OP isn’t going to change that.
So are the vast majority of Native Americans. They’ve integrated to the point that most modern people with Native American ancestry are less than half. No one (well, no adult) is forced to live on a reservation. You do realize this, correct?
Edit: didn’t see last post. Was going to point out that native Americans are no more confined to reservations than the Welsh are.
The godforsaken patch of scorched earth where I grew up in West Texas belonged to no Indians. No one wanted that entire area. What few Indians there had been in the area were themselves scrawny and starving long before the settlers came.
In Albuquerque, I worked with a lot of Navajo and Pueblo Indians. Cutting silver and selling turquoise to the native craftsmen. Sure the pueblos and The Rez as the Navajo call it are there, but so many live elsewhere. There is no forced residency on any reservation.
Living in Hawaii, there was a small native movement, but they were an extremely minuscule minority that’s even smaller now no doubt.
I used to feel guilty, but since marrying a Native American and ceding womb space to Native American genes, not so much.
Perhaps when I find myself feeling resentful for picking up their socks I can see it instead as reparations for European crimes.
My folks didn’t travel here until the first part of the 20th century. As it turns out, they came here because the communists kicked them off their land in eastern Europe. So it goes, I guess.
Actually no, but you can thank the media for that impression. If native Americans are free to leave the reservation, why are there so many news articles about how bad life on the reservation is? Surely, if life there is so bad, wouldn’t they all just leave and go somewhere better?
That is possibly because there are no reservations in Wales, LOL.
Seriously, as far as I know, the Welsh were never driven off their land by the English government at the same time as the native Americans were removed from their lands by the US government.
I don’t want to go back further in history than that, thanks.
Why do people live in inner city ghettos? Just because you can legally leave a poor area doesn’t mean you have the opportunity to live somewhere else.
Doggo, do you mind if I ask where you’re posting from?
Because news articles about bad living conditions are more interesting than news articles about good (or even adequate) living conditions. Interesting gets more eyeballs onto the ads that accompany the news.
Or the desire. “Home is where the heart is.” However crappy the place may be, it’s home. It’s where their parents lived, and their grandparents, and in many cases the reservation was part of the tribe’s traditional range. And unless everyone living there goes to the SAME place, abandoning the reservation means losing important cultural traditions (often including the extinction of the tribal language). I no more expect the major tribal reservations to be abandoned than I expect New Orleans or Detroit to be abandoned. People live where they do for many complicated reasons, not all of them coldly rational.