Native American land claims
Native American land claims refer to the ongoing disputes and legal actions undertaken by Indigenous peoples in North America regarding the rights to their ancestral lands. These claims have emerged from a historical pattern of land seizure by non-Indigenous peoples, initiated during early European contact and continuing over centuries through military conquest, treaty violations, and legislative actions. Significant legal precedents, such as the 1810 Supreme Court case Fletcher v. Peck, established the notion that Indian lands were "effectively vacant," thereby allowing for their appropriation without consent.
Despite the federal government’s recognition of certain rights through treaties, many American Indians have seen their reserved lands exploited or lost due to policies like the General Allotment Act of 1887, which promoted individual land ownership and diminished communal land tenure. Throughout the twentieth century, Indigenous groups have utilized various means—including legal recourse and protests—to seek restitution and regain land. While some courts have awarded compensation or access to traditional lands, the complexities of land claims often result in ongoing conflicts over rights and resources. This issue is likewise present in Canada and Mexico, where Indigenous groups similarly negotiate for land rights and self-governance amid historical and contemporary pressures. Overall, land claims remain a vital aspect of Native American efforts to assert their autonomy and improve their socio-economic conditions.
Native American land claims
Tribes affected: Pantribal
Significance: American Indians are using a variety of means to repossess land that was taken from them by conquest, treaty, or court decision
Land claims are a key component in conflicts between American Indians and federal, state, and local governments throughout North America. The claims stem from the repeated seizure of Indian lands by non-Indians since the beginning of European contact. American Indians have seen their land taken from them by military conquest, by treaty, by depopulation, and by court action. For example, in the United States, in the 1810 case of Fletcher v. Peck, U.S. Supreme Court justice John Marshall ruled that American Indian lands were “effectively vacant” and could be taken from Indians without their consent. Subsequent U.S. court cases in the early nineteenth century ruled that the federal government had precedent rights over American Indians by the fact of discovery; Indian nations were seen as “domestic to and dependent upon” the U.S. government, which could make decisions on their behalf.
Even the reservation land guaranteed to American Indians in the more than three hundred treaties signed between Indians and the U.S. government between 1790 and 1870 was open to non-Indian exploitation. The General Allotment Act of 1887 ended the traditional Indian land tenure system of communal ownership by assigning plots of land as private property to individual Indians on reservations; family heads were assigned 160 acres, for example. Because there were far fewer Indians than land parcels in 1887, the General Allotment Act gave the federal government the right to lease “surplus” reservation land to non-Indians or to incorporate it into national parks or forests. In this way, American Indians lost effective control of two-thirds of the acreage assigned to them by treaty. Individual Indians were also given the right to dispose of their reservation allotment, and many individuals found themselves coerced by poverty or pressure from non-Indians to lease their holdings to non-Indians. On some reservations, such as the Crow Reservation in Montana, non-Indians control nearly half of reservation land.
Many American Indians see land claims as basic to their efforts to improve their economic status and to gain an increased sense of self-worth and autonomy. In the twentieth century, American Indians have used a variety of means, including peaceful demonstrations, violent confrontations, and legal actions against governments or individuals in courts, to gain access to land taken from them. In the United States, Native Americans have often turned to the federal court system to enforce the terms of treaties or to set aside the effects of the General Allotment Act. The courts have been reluctant, however, to return land leased or owned by non-Indians; in some cases, Indians have instead been awarded restitution or access to former treaty lands for hunting, trapping, or fishing. For example, in 1986, a federal court in Minnesota awarded each individual of the White Earth Chippewa (Ojibwa) compensation for land lost to the General Allotment Act based on the value of the land at the time it was lost plus 5 percent compound interest; an additional six million dollars was granted the tribe for economic development of the reservation. Individuals who did not agree with the court’s decision were granted the right to sue for outright return of land within a given time period, but of thirty-nine Chippewa who elected this procedure, none prevailed. Similarly, in 1983, a federal court in Wisconsin gave American Indians the right to hunt and fish by traditional methods both on and off their reservations in that state. This led to occasional violent confrontations between Indians and non-Indian sport fishermen when Indians asserted their treaty rights to set their own season and size limit for fishing.
Similar land claim conflicts occur in Canada and Mexico. While the Canadian government has asserted the rights of Indians and Inuits to self-government on native lands since 1989, the actual implementation of those rights has been controversial. For example, in 1991, the Canadian government created a new 770,000-square-mile Arctic territory called Nunavut and assigned 136,000 square miles to the Inuit. In return, however, the Inuit were required to renounce their claims to all ancestral lands, especially those areas rich in oil, gas, and minerals. Many Inuit found that to be too steep a price to pay for land they effectively possessed anyway. In other cases as well, the Canadian government insisted that Indians give up all traditional land claims as part of any agreement on land use and self-government.
In Mexico, Maya Indians in 1992 peacefully marched 1,000 kilometers across Mexico to protest the loss of traditional lands as well as to publicize other grievances; in return, the Mexican government pledged to resolve local land disputes in the state of Chiapas and to finance hundreds of small community development projects. The failure of the Mexican government to fulfill its pledges led to a January, 1994, uprising in Chiapas in which Indians battled with government troops; nearly one hundred persons were reported to have been killed, and a former governor of Chiapas was kidnapped. Thus, in all sections of the North American continent Indians see land claims as central to their disputes with non-Indians.