Haudenosaunee chiefs march on Canandaigua Treaty Day in 2011. From left to right, Chief Clayton Logan (Seneca), Chief Sam George (Cayuga) and the late Chief Stuart Patterson (Tuscarora). Photo by Syracuse Peace Council via Flickr
The idea that tribes had no concept of land ownership or property rights has persisted for more than three centuries, law professor Ilya Somin observes:
One lesson of the holiday that we should try not to forget is how the Pilgrims were saved from starvation and misery by adopting a system of private property rights. This may also be a good time to reject the persistent myth that Native Americans didn’t value (or perhaps even know about) property rights in land until Europeans arrived and foisted this concept on them. In reality, many native peoples made extensive use of property rights long before whites arrived, even though they obviously did not use the same legal terminology as Europeans did. The myth that Native Americans had no property rights was first developed by 18th and 19th century whites as a justification for dispossessing Indians of their land on the grounds that they didn’t really own it. In the 20th century, the idea was taken up by some left-wing environmentalists and others in order to show that Native Americans had a supposedly superior collectivist ethic that whites should imitate.Get the Story:
Ilya Somin: How private property rights helped save the Pilgrims (The Washington Post 11/26)
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