I got some pushback on my last column for not calling the public lands in the United States “stolen land.” I’ll clarify that misunderstanding in this column.
Opinion
As you read this, you are occupying stolen land. No matter where you are in the world, you are standing on stolen land. No matter which continent, no matter who you are.
Every acre, every square inch of the planet Earth has changed hands at some time in history, most often by violence. That is simply the nature of history. That is the nature of humanity. And, no matter how you wish it were otherwise, or how wrong you think it is, there’s nothing you can do to change that fact.
This will not be my most popular column. Many of you will misconstrue this rant as either a liberal or a conservative viewpoint. It’s not, it’s history. You likely don’t want to hear this, and you will probably be outraged. But you are standing on stolen land.
This reality is helping to drive the protests in Los Angeles and elsewhere. We are seeing an outburst of emotional indignation by those rising up against ICE and that agency’s actions to deport undocumented immigrants from Mexico. Waving Mexican flags, protesters claim that California was “stolen” from Mexico.
California was not stolen; it was purchased in 1848 by the United States at the end of the Mexican-American War. But it was purchased from a nation that had “stolen” it from prior occupants, who had themselves stolen it from previous “owners.”
By violence. By being more powerful.
This is the same dynamic at work in the Middle East today, between Israel and the current and former occupants of Palestine. The same forces were at work in the 20th Century when European colonial powers lost their grip on Africa.
Go back further in history, to the “barbarian” conquest of the Roman Empire, to the Persian incursion northward into Greece. Go back further to the Neanderthal supplanting the Cro-Magnon. History is full of examples of people conquering people who conquered other people. Since humans walked out of Africa on two legs, this has been how we have behaved.
The arc of human history on our planet has been one of conquest. For a hundred millennia, humans of all races on all continents have conquered and taken land from fellow humans. Every skin color in the crayon box has stolen land from folks of the same color. They have killed them, enslaved them and sometimes eaten them. Guilt can be placed on no single culture nor any single empire.
Ancient cultures have been swept aside by invaders and lost to memory. Laws, customs, beliefs and knowledge held dear by the conquered people are replaced by those of the interlopers. It must be something in human DNA that makes us do this to one another. Perhaps it is a deeply rooted acquisitiveness in our nature, a lust to exercise power, to dominate and take by force what others own.
And it is perhaps this historic phenomenon that irks people and prompts them to protest a perceived “injustice” and to demand that stolen land be returned to the rightful owners. This, in my opinion, is nothing more than a lazy virtue signal that rolls easily off the tongue when shouted through a bullhorn during a protest. But it turns a blind eye toward reality.
Aside from the impracticality of returning the surface of the Earth to the original “owners,” it begs the uneasy question of to whom it should be returned.
Should the Black Hills, for example, be returned to the Sioux? Or should it be returned to the tribes that the Sioux drove off in order to occupy the Black Hills? Or to the unnamed people who lived there before they were, in turn, driven off?
Who is in a moral position to make that determination?
That conundrum prevails across the face of our planet, because there is nowhere that the original “owners” of the land still control it. Nowhere.
Seen in this light, land reparations are a surrogate issue for something deeper that bothers us. We have in our American nature the genetic makeup of both conquerors and the conquered. All people share that. And what might disturb us the most, might drive us into the streets in protest, is this inconsistency within us, this deep realization that power over others ultimately prevails in our world, no matter how much we might wish otherwise.
As you read this, we all live on stolen land. And the fact of the matter is that we stole it from ourselves. Cassius, in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” nailed it when he said, “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars. But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
The stolen ground on which we now stand “is” the dusty remains of those who have come before us; and the ashes and dust that we will leave in our wake is the inevitable price we each must pay for trying to steal this land from our children’s children.
Some interesting comments. Since the Black hills has been used as a model for this exercise in critical thinking, can someone explain why the Arikira are not laying claim? Oh and some gets to tell Rod that we gave his ranch back to France. Good writing Rod. Enjoyable read.
…Cousin Rod… and here I thought you had transitioned to the Great Beyond! But alas! Yet another great piece from the likes of the sharply analytical mind of Rod Miller. I agree with my old friend Duane Kerr’s comments completely (scroll below)… as well as yours…
I enjoy seeing the expression on the faces of Mexicans telling me this land was stolen from them when I ask why they speak Spanish instead of Aztec/Inca or some other than Spanish tongue.
That’s right Rod, Alfred Packer ate most of the Democrats in Hinsdale County, Colo., hence the Alfred Packer Grill at CU in Boulder and the Packer Burger that used to be served at Snowmass ski area shortly after they opened back in the late 60’s.
I can’t argue with you Rod. I have had the same thoughts on the subject for many moons. The cynical side of my nature tells me things will never change. But at 77 years old I still harbor a naive optimism. As unlikely as it may be I imagine a time when we realize we occupy only one planet with no escape. (Unless of course you are unlucky enough to be beamed up to Elon’s Mars colony) Perhaps if we understand we are stranded together we may someday start cooperating and survive. The handwriting is on the wall however. We either realize this or not. Continue the experiment or annihilate one another.
Dave Gustafson
I am reminded of an exchange I had with a couple of inebriated sheep ranchers during a talk on wolves I gave in Rock Springs 30 years ago for the Wyoming Council for the Humanities Speakers Bureau. Somehow the question of stolen land came up and I stated my support for the Indian position. The ranchers exclaimed, “well, they lost!” I said, “you’re right. And who’s losing now?”
Down to iron horseshoes. Rod Miller’s argument here is that might makes right. Pretty much the same argument the Athenians made to the Melians, as reported by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War. (This war occurred during the 5th century BC). The Athenians demanded that Melos surrender to Athens unconditionally, or Athens would destroy the city. The Melians argued that justice required that they refuse Athens’ demands and that Athens should back off and leave them in peace. Athens cared nothing for justice or morality, only power, so Athens attacked the city and killed all the inhabitants. Might makes right. Right?
Let’s try a thought experiment. Miller owns a big ranch in Happy Valley that his ancestors took from the Indians 150 years ago. He now has a deed on file at the county courthouse that says the land is his. I and my fellow conquistadores ride by and like what we see–lots of good grass for our horses and a fine fast flowing rocky river full of fish–so we ride in and demand that Rod hand his ranch over to us. Miller asserts 5th Amendment protections for private property. We laugh, and with our superior weapons and mastery of military tactics, we light Happy Valley up and kill everyone, and then take possession, deed or no deed.
Isn’t that what we did to the Lakota? Does it really matter that they did the same thing to other Indian tribes? What rights did the other tribes have to the Black Hills before the Lakota took them by force? None, according to Miller’s argument. Might makes right is the rule, and prior occupation and the 5th Amendment, not to mention justice and ethics, don’t mean a thing.
We did it to them. So we have no right to complain when someone does it to us. Right?
Might makes right goes both ways. If we want to assert our rights to land, even when it’s stolen land, we have to acknowledge Indian rights as well. Either everyone has rights, or no one does.
In the long run, it makes sense that we do in fact apply justice and ethics to land claims if our own claims are to have any meaning.
We “own” the land now, but as history shows this is only temporary. We can be good caretakers of the land, preserving it for future use, or we can despoil it for short term gain. How do we want history to remember us?
It is our species’ facility for forming tribes that won us the million year bi-pedal race for planetary dominance. It is that same tribalism that will end it.
I get in deeper trouble when I tell people there is no such thing as private land or private property. If you say you totally own 40 acres and a house along the river, I say you own only a piece of paper at the Courthouse . Think not ? – the Sheriff can and will sell your landed property on the front stoop if you don’t pay the State its due in property taxes. So there.
I note that if a ‘ conversation ‘ on the topic occurs , in less than two minutes I will be called a communist. Happens every time.
Pretty tasty food for thought. Rod seems to have a knack for making my brain work, usually in a good way. Oh, and let’s make an effort to protect the lands that now belong to all of us. They don’t need to be “sold”.
Another amazing piece of work Rod. If anyone disputes what you’ve said here they have drank too much of the Kool-Aid that has been passed around too generously lately. Well done.
It has been my foolish hope that our brains, and yes, our compassion and love for our fellow man has evolved to the point where we were little less savage and greedy. While I’m not a fan of the president, I am even more appalled that so many of my fellow men and women are applauding the inhumane policies he is promoting.
You essentially summed up the hard truth, Rod.
Man’s inhumanity to man has been the problem throughout history.
The US Govt took the Black Hills from the Lakota Sioux, 100 years earlier the Lakota took those same Black Hills from the Cheyenne, Crow, Kiowa, and Pawnee..
An attempt to undo history long past, furthers the injustice by taking from people that had nothing to do with the theft and giving to people who’s ancestors took from someone else at some point.
The American SW faces these kinds of threats through La Raza (renamed to UnidosUS) and Union Del Barrio, both openly calling for a “Nuestra América” or Reconquista and redistribution of lands they say were stolen.
The consistent waving of Mexican flags by American Hispanics and others seems to illustrate this vision.
Where does is it end?
Rod Miller’s “We are all standing on stolen land” is the correct reply to the call of reparations. Whether it be for stolen land or enslaved people. It should be the first lesson of all history classes and first chapter in all history books.
I agree with you on this. Why is it so hard for many Americans to admit what really happened in the history of this country. Why get your feelings hurt over the truth?
In the late ’80s the native peoples of Wisconsin were having some of the same arguments and protests. They were exerting their mid-19th century treaty rights to spear fish throughout the state. They said the land was stolen from them and so they were going to take some of it back. Then the state government offered them casino rights in exchange for unlimited spearing of fish and suddenly spearing fish at a boat landing wasn’t nearly as important.