because "why else would someone trade an island for some beads?"
When I was in school, it was taught to us that the vast majority of Natives had no concept of owning land, which even back when I was a fucking child, made no goddamn sense. Every Native American tribe HAD to have some concept of it, because there existed no single tribe of Natives on the entire goddamn continent that were at peace with ALL of their neighboring tribes, not being aware of where your tribe's territory ended and the enemy tribe's began was a death sentence. Even if it was just communal ownership, every tribe had to have some concept of territory.
And if that were true, then we should have made our treaties with the WOLVES instead, because THEY sure as fuck know what "land ownership" means (even if humans don't recognize their territorial boundaries per se.) And so would ANY territorial animal, by definition.
And as far as it goes, the biggest problem the truly nomadic tribes like the Shawnee had with the American government was that they didn't have land to claim that was recognized by anyone, including other Tribes. (source: Pierre Burton, and his books on the War of 1812.) (The ones that DID have land to claim, such as the ones in Indiana, were being underbid, AND THEY KNEW IT. The Brits were willing to pay them market price of about $2 per acre at the time, but the guy running the Indiana Territory at the time only wanted to pay something like 30 cents per. Sounds to me like they knew exactly what was what. And that's why so many of them fought alongside the English. That, and the English let them get away with helping themselves to whatever they wanted.)
When I was in school, it was taught to us that the vast majority of Natives had no concept of owning land, which even back when I was a fucking child, made no goddamn sense. Every Native American tribe HAD to have some concept of it, because there existed no single tribe of Natives on the entire goddamn continent that were at peace with ALL of their neighboring tribes, not being aware of where your tribe's territory ended and the enemy tribe's began was a death sentence. Even if it was just communal ownership, every tribe had to have some concept of territory.
And if that were true, then we should have made our treaties with the WOLVES instead, because THEY sure as fuck know what "land ownership" means (even if humans don't recognize their territorial boundaries per se.) And so would ANY territorial animal, by definition.
And as far as it goes, the biggest problem the truly nomadic tribes like the Shawnee had with the American government was that they didn't have land to claim that was recognized by anyone, including other Tribes. (source: Pierre Burton, and his books on the War of 1812.) (The ones that DID have land to claim, such as the ones in Indiana, were being underbid, AND THEY KNEW IT. The Brits were willing to pay them market price of about $2 per acre at the time, but the guy running the Indiana Territory at the time only wanted to pay something like 30 cents per. Sounds to me like they knew exactly what was what. And that's why so many of them fought alongside the English. That, and the English let them get away with helping themselves to whatever they wanted.)