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Comment by zamalek | Hacker News Reader

That is certainly something the tribes should sort out, after getting the land back.

Which tribe would get the land back?

In this case, the nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy.

Why? They killed various tribes to obtain at least some of their land. If it was wrong for the colonists then we shouldn't reward tribes who did the exact same thing? Taking land from oppressor A just to give it to oppressor B is just dumb.

The one last in possession - the point of my comment is that it is not the responsibility of colonialists to decide who the land belongs to. The only certainty is who last had it.

If we don't have a responsibility to determine who the land belongs just who last owned it then it seems like the colonists should retain it. The last people to control the land are the colonists after all.

Let's look at this from a normal legal situation. You own an item that was stolen by thief A. Thief B then steals it from thief A. Should your item be returned to you or to thief A? Your logic would indicate thief A. Nobody thinks that would be the right solution and yet when it comes to native lands nobody cares. I just want some consistency.

If you make a binding contract with thief A, you should honor it.

If you recognize them as the rightful owner at the time, make an agreement for exchange, then the burden of consistency is on you. Buyers remorse is not sufficient to unwind your obligations while retaining the property.

Another way of resolving this is simply recognizing that conquest does not create obligation, but diplomatic agreement does. It is a matter of integrity and honor, literally, in the sense of do you honor you commitments or are you a liar.

While repugnant to some, I think this is quite clear. In the cases where settlers simply took land by force of arms, they created no legal or honorable obligation. Where they took land by legal agreement, they have created an obligation.

So if I am lead to believe that a thief has rightful ownership of an item and rent it from them, I'm obliged to return it to the thief instead of the rightful owner?

no, im not saying that.

Im saying that if you fully acknowledge someone to be the rightful owner and something, you dont get to change your mind about paying them, and call them a thief with no new information, and then keep it for yourself.

IF the US somehow discovered evidence that it bought stolen land, and chose to pay or return it to the original holder, that would be one thing.

Simply not paying and keeping something for yourself make YOU the thief and a liar too.

The thing is that some of these treaties are expiring (e.g. one of the tribes in Snohomish county, I forget which) and, per the treaty, the land must be returned to them. This is why these treaties are seen as problematic.

Once these treaties expire, assuming they are ignored, the land does become stolen.

I don't expect the tribes to be unreasonable about the land and take up land-grabs, it will likely just be a matter of taxes going to one entity instead of another.

That's the problem with having rule of law, integrity, and honor. Sometimes it's inconvenient and costly.

Something being costly does not absolve you of your moral, legal, and honorable obligations. It is not a justification for ex post facto recontracting.

I would like to see the government uphold it's obligations, stop acting weird exceeds these obligations, I work towards permanent Solutions where advantageous. This may include buying out of contractual obligations for purchasing Indian land and rights

I think the fact that we now know the land was stolen was conceded much higher up in this thread ("That is certainly something the tribes should sort out, after getting the land back.") Conceding that we know the land was already stolen and arguing that our responsibility is still to give it to the immediately previous thieves and let them figure it out is what I take issue with. If we don't know whether it was stolen, that's another matter.

Fair enough. I lost track of that conceit in the hypothetical. If there is a clear victim, then yes it should go back to them, not the thief.

Because individual actors and even nations are discontinuous over the thousands of years we are talking about, we are stuck with treating racial and ethnic lineages as the actors, blurring the lines. The Thief and victim can be the same. Lets say a deceased grandfather (A) was robbed by a now deceased son (B), depriving the living grandchild (C) of their ancestral property. Living Indians, party C, are the decedents of both the thief and victim. It still makes more sense that the stolen goods should go back to them, than stay with recipient of the stolen goods.

Anchoring back to reality, I think the whole thief analogy is bogus. At the time treaties were made with Indians, possession by conquest was considered a valid means of acquisition, and Indians were held to be in sufficient standing to enter agreements.

Rationales which try to retroactively invalidate the historic land ownership by natives, and thereby invalidate contractual obligations, are logically bankrupt if they dont also attempt to identify a rightful owner to return the property to.

"What's best for the aboriginals" is a pondering that originates from a colonial mindset. It implies that one's opinion about the best course of action is more important, or superior, than those who's opinion actually matters. Furthermore, colonialists don't exactly have a good track record of making morally sound choices regarding land.

Not only is our opinion irrelevant; our opinion has been abundantly demonstrated to be awful in every single way. We need to stop.

Giving it to the last inhabitant, yes possibly conquerer, is really the only choice we have (apart from doing nothing and stealing the land) - to put things back the way they were.

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