Realist, not conformist analysis of the latest financial, business and political news

So Whose Land Are We Actually On?

This is talking about specifically the Apache and more generally the Amerinds. The principle does of course extend out to everyone and everywhere:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Versions of land acknowledgments are widely practiced in countries that are working to untangle the historical knots of colonialism. In Australia, those leading public occasions often recognize whose traditional lands they are on; others invite an Aboriginal elder to conduct a more formal “Welcome to Country.” In New Zealand, it is common for public speakers to acknowledge they are situated within Aotearoa, the homeland of the Māori. But no matter where one is located or how it is performed, as essayist Stephen Marche has written, “The acknowledgment forces individuals and institutions to ask a basic, nightmarish question: Whose land are we on?” [/perfectpullquote]

There have indeed been places which simply didn’t have any humans in or on them when variants of White Europeans turned up. Mauritius, say. These places being known as “terra nullius”. There are plenty of places which have been first settled within the realm of what we might call recorded history. The Polynesian expansion across the Pacific happened mostly after the birth of JC. Madagascar was settled perhaps around 400 AD. The Amerinds go further back, we date the arrival of hominids to the Americas to around 11,000 BC or so although that’s a variable date as more is found out.

We’ve even places – Australia – that were declared terra nullius by those White Europeans but which weren’t really.

But within all that the accurate answer to “Whose land are we on?” is the land of the latest bunch of murderous bastards who killed all the previous inhabitants. Perhaps moderated to say the peeps who killed all the previous men then dated the remaining womenfolk. Because once we’ve got past that nullius stage that’s the way it has been. The Moriori are in short supply these days on the Chatham Islands given that the Maori decided to eat them.

The original inhabitants of the British Isles, the Beaker Folk, were entirely replaced by the next lot, the Iron Age Celts and similar. The Angles displaced to the west the Romano Celts in their turn, detailed DNA studies showing rather more of the female side of the R-C’s bred into the new population than the male. The Franks weren’t indigenous to France, the Allemani to Germany, the Turks to Turkey.

In fact, we’ve between little and no proof that the varied Amerinds were the original inhabitants of the lands where the White Europeans found then from 1492 onwards. In the case of both the Incas and Aztecs as political powers, proof they weren’t. And horses and Plains Indians simply weren’t a thing until the Eurasian horse was introduced post 1492.

Basically, this is indeed true. Anywhere is the possession of simply the last group of people to have slaughtered, or outbred, the previous group.

An interesting observation – if we apply the oft stated Americas example elsewhere, that Whitey stole it all and should give it back, then the Bantu should be back in Nigeria and Central Africa returned to the Pygmies, Southern to the Khoi San. We don’t say that and for the life of me I can’t work out why.

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Matt Ryan
Matt Ryan
4 years ago

I can’t be arsed to read the original source – is this another bleeding heart Leftie who wants to give away other peoples money to make themselves feel better by compensating whatever group is bleating on about some perceived slight done to them in the past?

Q46
Q46
4 years ago

‘Whose land are we on?’

The person with the biggest stick and the most mates with sticks.

That is how it has always worked.

Q46
Q46
4 years ago

I thought aboriginal groups where Whitey went had no concept of land ownership, thought it wrong, until of course said Whitey got there, farmed, traded, added value and prosperity then suddenly aborigine man decided land ownership was only wrong if they were not the owners.

literate3
literate3
4 years ago

The Beaker People and the Celts were both a cultural rather than a racial grouping. If you want to go back to “original inhabitants” of the British Isles, the Neanderthals were here in the latter stages of the last Ice Age and AFAIK didn’t displace anyone except a few polar bears. [You refer to later invasions which left more female than male survivors after a series of battles between males of different races]

For Terrae nullius the standard examples are Iceland and Greenland; you may add the Falkland Islands.

Whose land? Didn’t the Dutch *buy* Long Island?

timworstall
timworstall
4 years ago
Reply to  literate3

Manhattan….

literate3
literate3
4 years ago
Reply to  timworstall

Of course! Sorry

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