We should take back our land by lawsuits, impeachment, revolt. Our words and rants and rages are not working. My family roots go back to 1644 with some Indian heritage as I am sure many here do also.
Tribe’s Lawsuit Seeks Return of 3,600 Acres of Prime Long Island Land
The Shinnecock Indians have a grand idea.
They want this wealthiest of Long Island beach towns to give back to the tribe about 3,600 acres, encompassing the posh Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and a few multimillion-dollar waterfront chateaus. Southampton’s forefathers long ago obtained this land — valued at a tidy $1.7 billion today — from the Shinnecocks under questionable circumstances.
The Shinnecocks, known as the People of the Shore, have watched their tribal lands dwindle over the years. In the halcyon days before European colonists set foot in the New World, the Shinnecocks and Montauketts, both Algonquin tribes, controlled a long stretch of sandy beaches and marshes and highland bluffs. In 1640, English settlers arrived and bought about eight square miles of land from the Shinnecocks, for the not-so-princely sum of $20.
“We have to care for our elderly and pay our bills. What folks have to understand is that this is our land.”
Let me repeat this:
“We have to care for our elderly and pay our bills. What folks have to understand is that this is our land.”
And one more time:
“WE HAVE TO CARE FOR OUR ELDERLY AND PAY OUR BILLS. WHAT FOLKS HAVE TO UNDERSTAND IS THAT THIS IS OUR LAND”
Well, actually… by that argument, this isn’t our land, it’s the Indians’ land. 🙂 Pretty much all of America would be.
As someone who is both outraged by the Kelo decision and who lives on land that legally appears to belong to Indians (the Onondaga Nation, to be exact), I’m caught a bit between these realities. Fortunately, the Onondagas acknowledge that there are non-Indians who are caught in the middle, and are seeking a solution that focuses a great deal on the health of the land that we all live on presently, as well as on compensation for their own peoples’ irrecoverable losses.
As the Onondagas or other Indian nations could tell you, it’s very, very difficult to make Power acknowledge the Law. The Onondagas were signatory to an important and early federal treaty which acknowledged their land rights, but it has been whittled away into almost nothing for a variety of reasons, none of them fair. Now we non-Indians are facing the slow whittling of our Constitution that acknowledges what rights we have.
In my view, what the Onondagas are attempting to do is to reestablish genuine authority over the land they’ve lived on for thousands of years, and which appears to be legally theirs. I personally have been impressed at how they refuse to play the casino game that so many other tribes are having trouble with, and are using a form of moral force instead, or at least as a major part of their tactics – trying to leverage their claim (if it is successful) into a force that will clean up the land we all live on.
So how do WE, as non-Indians who live on this land too, contribute OUR moral force for the good of this part of the continent? Wouldn’t you agree that American democracy itself (not the land-grabbing that went with it) is a great moral force (or can be)? But here’s the danger: They say America is losing its moral authority in the world; but what’s really happening is that individual Americans are losing their authority at home. We are losing, in a way, our sovereignty which allows us to exercise that moral good – because we are not asserting it. In this, our experience is beginning to reflect that of the Indians.
We do have to stand up to this in an effective way, and lawsuits can be an important tool; but it’s not going to be just as simple as filing a lawsuit. As some Indian nations are beginning to understand, that’s just the beginning of regaining what has been lost.
Guess I’m wondering if our children will be someday in 20-30 years just starting the protests and demands to get America back for us?
For the very same reasons-“WE HAVE TO CARE FOR OUR ELDERLY AND PAY OUR BILLS. WHAT FOLKS HAVE TO UNDERSTAND IS THAT THIS IS OUR LAND”
Which was more my point. I have some Indian in me so maybe I’ll qualify for double pay back. LOL!