How the Indians Lost Their Land
Law and Power on the Frontier
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10029587 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jennifer Carson (0000-0001-8887-9774, Queen's University, corresponding author), J T Carson |
| Year | 2006 |
| Volume | 93 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 547-548 |
| Publication date | 2006-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/4486309 |
| OpenAlex | W2033037902 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
How the Indians Lost Their Land begins with a basic question that students often pose: Did the first people sell their land, or was it taken from them? To find the answer Stuart Banner explored the origins of colonial British land policy and followed the trail into the early twentieth century. In contrast to the historiographical convention stating that the English justified their claim to North America by right of conquest, Banner distinguished between rights of sovereignty to govern the land and rights of property to own it. While early English settlers expected legitimate land use to involve dense permanent habitations, they nonetheless recognized aboriginal horticulture, settlement, and government as proper markers of ownership, but not necessarily of sovereignty. After the American Revolution, the United States attempted to assert rights of conquest over nations who fought alongside the British, but costly wars in the Ohio country forced the government to recognize aboriginal title and to resort to treaties in order to acquire the land for which settlers clamored. The strategy of the federal government shifted again in the 1820s in order to justify its removal policy. Because of popular constructions of “Indians” as nomadic hunters the government was able to assert rights of occupancy over rights of ownership. Banner, however, took great pains to argue that, at the time, people thought of the removals as emigrations and that the grim business was simply a continuation of earlier policy imperatives
Archaeology · Banner · Colonialism · Economics · Frontier · Government (linguistics · Land law · Land tenure · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Private property · Property rights · Settlement (finance · Sovereignty · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,29 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2020 (2) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |