Theft of Indigenous Lands
in an unpublished apaper, (sp) Michael K. Green contends that Locke’s whole account of property can be read as a justification for the displacement of the Native Americans.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.
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.” 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.