Homesteading

I post this on homesteading because another post here on "Do I own my land?" has got me thinking.

I understand Locke's principle of mixing one's labour with the land.  I see how it would work in Rothbard's strip it all back to basics desert island. 

But, I am concerned with how it applies to America.  Even though the land may have looked "virgin", the Indians there would probably have regarded themselves as having mixed their labour with the land, laying traps and hunting over an extensive area.  There would most likely have been certain areas that certain tribes regarded as their own.  The Europeans farmers would have used the land more intensively than the Indian hunter-gathers, for sure, but the land would have been used before. 

In the same way, it would not be justified to some new settlers with more advanced technology to come and forcibily displace the Europeans from their farms because they wanted to "homestead" the land more intensively for, let us say,  the assembly of factories. 

Can we really regard the Americas as having been "homesteaded"?

The native (north) americans were nomads. They did not have a concept of land as capital. They moved around and displaced each other as they willed. European settlers gave them money to move a bit faster, until the indians found out they had been squeezed out of all the best land. In that sense, it can be said that North America was homesteaded.

Latin America, on the other hand, was populated by agricultural civilizations. The Spanish came in, conquered the local rulers and took over the land and the people on it. Latin America was genuinely colonized.

From that, some may say that the United States government colonized the american homesteaders by imposing communal land ownership structures (county governments).

 On the homestead principle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_principle

To add a twist: What about Kennewick Man and his ilk.

Remnant:

Can we really regard the Americas as having been "homesteaded"?

Claims older than a certain period of time aren't enforceable.

If the decendants of native americans can prove that their ancestors lived in a certain area, then he has a theoretical (but not practical) claim against whoever's living there now.  In practice, people who feel that they owe a debt to native americans should make volunatary contributions.  For example, does each such descendant have a separately valid claim?  If there's only one living descendant, then does he now have a claim to all that land?

As another example, President Roosevelt seized gold from US citizens in 1933.  Suppose I buy a gold coin, and it is one of the coins that Roosevelt seized in 1933.  Do the descendants of people who lost their gold in 1933 have a valid claim against me?  No.

Here's another example.  Many farmers lost their farms during the Great Depression, which was intentionally caused by the Federal Reserve.  Do those farmers have a valid claim against whoever owns the farm now?

If you allow old claims to be enforced, it's impossible to untangle who owns what.

Remnant:

The Europeans farmers would have used the land more intensively than the Indian hunter-gathers, for sure, but the land would have been used before. 

Homesteading means using. The extent does not hold any relevance.

Remnant:

In the same way, it would not be justified to some new settlers with more advanced technology to come and forcibily displace the Europeans from their farms because they wanted to "homestead" the land more intensively for, let us say,  the assembly of factories. 

Well of course. But to be historically accurate, the original English settlers at Jamestown (I'm not figuring in Roanoke for the sake of argument) did not invade lands actively occupied by indians when they first settled. Now as far as property invasion is concerned after the original settlement, you can be sure that most of the colonials actively engaged in theft. The 13 colonies were all territories established mainly by theft of tribal lands.

Remnant:

Can we really regard the Americas as having been "homesteaded"?

I don't see why not.

Where are you going with this though? Are you supposing that groups of people hundreds of years ago taking lands people occupy now negates any current future entitlement to property?

fsk:

Claims older than a certain period of time aren't enforceable.

I'd revise that.

Suppose I miraculously live to be 1000 years old? At what point is my claim to ownership no longer enforceable? When I turn 500?

EDIT: Should have read the rest of that post instead of skimming forget the above.

fsk:

If the decendants of native americans can prove that their ancestors lived in a certain area, then he has a theoretical (but not practical) claim against whoever's living there now.

No, because there is no way for the decendant to prove that his ancestors would have passed down the property to wind up as his or not. He has no claim.

fsk:

In practice, people who feel that they owe a debt to native americans should make volunatary contributions.

I don't suppose they feel the urge to owe a debt to me given one of their "ancestor's" axes was found in one of my "ancestor's" pelvises.

fsk:

In practice, people who feel that they owe a debt to native americans should make volunatary contributions. 

Which is quite easy to do now.  They even have machines for it, lined up in long rows in rooms with no windows or clocks.  You put a coin in and pull a lever to see pretty pictures as a thank you for your donation. Every once in a blue moon, they give you your coin back, along with some extras. 

The Indians, or at least the present self-appointed representatives of their "people's heritage", have gotten their 40 acres and a mule slot machine, in the form of force-backed local monopolies on one of the most lucrative money-making schemes ever invented.

Only individuals own property, and only individuals have a right to compensation for theft.  Good luck tracing any of this back to individual property rights.

Thanks for your responses.  Let me stress that I am not following guilt or compensation line of thought here.

I often hear mention, including Hans Herman Hoppe recently, describe the early settlers as following Locke's principles and "Homesteading" America.  The point I am trying to make, and the question I am trying to ask, is "Was not that the land being homesteaded already, but just at such non intensive scale as to seem unused by today's standards?"

Even nomads are are exploiting the land: following herds, or slash and burning and returning several years later.  For example, if we went into the thick jumgle in Borneo today I imagine that there are tribes there which wouuld take a very dim view of us clearing the land and setting up home.  They would regard that land as theirs, for hunting etc.

Hi Remnant, I think the cornerstone to grasp the matter is: following prof. Hoppe ,  being engaged in argumentation is the only conflict free way to settle quarrels. What  if interlocutors don't agree with ? Unfortunately  war . Feaseable solutions to work off equation right=might ?

For example Molyneux  DROs.

Sorry for my poor English

spirit66

Remnant:

Even nomads are are exploiting the land: following herds, or slash and burning and returning several years later.  For example, if we went into the thick jumgle in Borneo today I imagine that there are tribes there which wouuld take a very dim view of us clearing the land and setting up home.  They would regard that land as theirs, for hunting etc.

Only tribes in the Midwest praries and American Great Plains were really "nomadic". The Iriquois Confederacy, Cherokee Nation, Many of the West Coast tribes, and the Mississippian Tribes were not. Iriquois and Cherokee are the only names I can remember.

Indian tribes also openly sold and traded hunting rights which was like buying and selling land, they also had monetary systems.

Reality is complex. I don't think you can simply say, "yes America was homesteaded," or "no!" There are certainly parts where homesteading occurred in perfect harmony with natural law and there also plenty of instances where it occurred with egregious violations of natural law. That's the whole problem with hypothetical scenarios like this: you can't just put people in groups like "Indian" and "white" hundreds of years after the fact and try to assign guilt... though I know you weren't suggesting an actual trial, even a thought experiment cannot possibly come to any just conclusion.

As far as the idea of being able to steal something because you plan to use it more intensively than the rightful owner... we'd have to throw the idea of natural rights into the dustbin if that's what we believed. I can't take my neighbor's bike from him because he only rides it once a month and I plan to use it daily. We might as well believe in eminent domain if this were the case.

I think it would have been theoretically possible for a European settlement of America to occur without any natural rights violations. The Indians were happy to trade with the colonists and acquire new technologies and make deals regarding the settlement of land; the whole murder, theft and disease thing was what they had a problem with (I'm not trying to speak like one of those blowhards who talks as though the spread of disease was some sort of deliberate tactic of mass murder). It obviously didn't happen this way and seems unlikely that it could have without a major difference of ideology from what the colonizers thought; but it wasn't impossible.

Nomads?  Some of the tribes were nomads, but certainly not all.

1491: New Revelations of America Before Columbus by Charles Mann

He lays it on a little thick in some parts, but it paints a pretty decent picture of how different tribes lived before meaningful contact with Europe.

Given the technology and staple crops available to pre-contact Native Americans, many portions of the Americas were unihabitable for sedentary farming (read Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond for more on this fascinating subject.)  The extinction of the nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes from the Americas is just one of few recorded examples of agricultural societies displacing hunter/gatherers.  This same process occured almost prehistorically in Eurasia.  Its always ugly when it happens.  It is almost always a violent confrontation that results in the loss of life and liberty of the hunter/gatherers.  Hunter/gatherers lacked the resources and man power to protect their claims to hunting rights against the onslaught of "homesteaders."

An insteresting book relevant to this subject is The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America (Pivotal Moments in American History)  by Colin G Calloway.  He shows that hunter/gatherer Indian tribes west of the Appalachins were powerful enough prevent settlers from expanding west of the Appalachins as long as the colonial powers of Great Britain and France were at war.  These Indians were generally warlike people and, more important, were entrenched in the region, had a home field advantage, and easy access to fire arms through the fur trade.  However, once England won, they consolidated their position and commited their military resources toward eradicating the Indians (even those allied to them against France in the French and Indian War) and moving settlers westward.  So in this case it took the coercive power of the state to open up the frontier for settlement by "homesteaders."  The United States continued this policy once it won independence and continued the expansion through the Great Plains and on to the west coast, which had already experienced heavy settlement by people of European descent.

It was not just the settlement of Latin America that relied on colonial power.  North America was also conquered through aggression.  Whether it was aggression against property rights or simply aggression against right to life and liberty, it was conquered one dead Indian at a time.  Stranger, I hope you are not simply trying to write off the whole affair because you think some Indians didn't understand the concept of private property.  Its a little more complex than that.  The Indians who found themselves displaced (or in some instances, just plain killed) may not have understood your particular definition of property rights, but they did understand when a stranger was in their forest and they understood what was happening when "homesteaders" began chopping it down and building permanent settlements.  I believe their response was appropriate.

A general reply would be that:

Some of the land in the US was actually homesteaded by the native population.  Some of this homsteaded land (perhaps most of it) was expropriated by the State and others (often acting under its aegis).  Likewise, some Europeans actually homesteaded some land in America and were expropriated.  Whenever discussing issues of law, justice and property one must never forget the specificity of individuals and property.  Beyonf this, the problem many native american tribes had can be viewed as people getting bitchy that their nature-walk has been turned into a house.  Tough luck.

R.J. Moore II:

Likewise, some Europeans actually homesteaded some land in America and were expropriated.  Whenever discussing issues of law, justice and property one must never forget the specificity of individuals and property. 

Same applies to South Africa. Their were already some Bushmen/Hottentots (PC: San Khoi) in the Cape, but it is difficult to say what they really homsteaded. Most of the Highveld was really homesteaded by the Boers given that it was either unused or the previous population was exterminated (by Blacks). The Bantu people also homesteaded certain parts of the country (usually where there is a a big supply of water, since they were cattle herders) especially in the Eastern Cape and Natal - These homesteaded lands formed the core part of the later homelands for Black people in South Africa.

The Boers also got territory via conquest and exchange through treaties with Black chieftains. One must remember that the dominion over lands mostly rested with the chieftains and his subjects were assigned portions of land by him for grazing and other usage. The National Party (former Apartheid government) did expropriate (and pay) some White farmers to create land available for the settlement of Blacks. In some cases Blacks were also expropriated for similar reasons - Then usually lands were exchange. Despite the propoganda of the "Anti-Apartheid-movement" the Blacks got functionally better properties then they had before. That they wasted lots of it, is no ones but their own fault.   

banned:

fsk:

If the decendants of native americans can prove that their ancestors lived in a certain area, then he has a theoretical (but not practical) claim against whoever's living there now.

No, because there is no way for the decendant to prove that his ancestors would have passed down the property to wind up as his or not. He has no claim.

Nonsense. In the absense of a will decendants are the heirs.

JonBostwick:

Nonsense. In the absense of a will decendants are the heirs.

That merely makes it a "reasonable assumption", not a guarantee or right.  Decendants have no real right to inherit from their ancestors, since a person is free to leave their wealth to anyone they choose, and not necessarily to their children or family.