Lemhi Shoshone and Salish (Flathead), Chief Washakie standing in front of his tipi with members of his tribe, 1870
1 media/shoshone_thumb.jpg 2020-05-08T21:57:02+00:00 Denise M. Johnson 4ac969f411f8ab69a8061d019e5b50c846dc43d8 337 1 Albumen print plain 2020-05-08T21:57:02+00:00 Denise M. Johnson 4ac969f411f8ab69a8061d019e5b50c846dc43d8This page is referenced by:
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2020-04-23T03:51:37+00:00
Theft of Indigenous Lands
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Denise Johnson essay
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2020-05-27T23:27:51+00:00
As an aside, Kathy Squadrito offers an interesting overview of dissenting opinions to Locke’s arguments regarding the theft of Indigenous lands in Locke and the Dispossession of the American Indian explaining that “Locke insists that private ownership of land does not rest on the consent of anyone who may occupy such land…[however] according to Lebovics, the argument as set forth in the Second Treatise are logically inadequate and irrelevant” to the problems of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as Locke describes is his problematic (106). Instead, Lebovics argues, according to Squadrito and in support of my positions, that “Locke’s intention…is to justify ‘land for the taking in the New World’" (106). Furthermore,
in an unpublished apaper, (sp) Michael K. Green contends that Locke’s whole account of property can be read as a justification for the displacement of the Native Americans. [Barbara] Arneil claims that ‘aware that Indians in the New World could claim property through the right of occupancy, Locke developed a theory of agrarian labour which would…specifically exclude the American Indian from claiming land (106 - 107).
Finally, Squadrito contends that “although these claims go beyond the evidence provided in the Essay and Second Treatise, they may not be entirely lacking in credibility” (107). If something becomes property when man removes it from nature, likewise as Locke and Enlightenment statesmen argued, once land is sold for money, the buyer can hoard as much as they can buy because money does not spoil, in the way that fruit and meat do. Like Squadrito, I smell a rat.
People of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe erected traditional dwellings across from the U.S.'s Oregon Trail Interpretive Center offering a more accurate portrayal of the landscape that Americans moved through, and the people who's land was claimed during the migration westward.
