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Land Back: A Guide to Returning Stolen Land To Your Indigenous Community By Corinne Rice and Andrew Perera
Today’s lesson is written in partnership with my younger brother Andrew. He holds a Masters of Jurisprudence in Indian Law from the University of Tulsa, College of Law. He and I worked very hard on this lesson for you guys and hope to give you all a better understanding of the process of returning land to Tribal Nations and some action items for you too!
Let’s start with the colonial understanding of land ownership and how that differs from the Indigenous idea of land stewardship. When we say “Land back!” We are forced to argue this within the colonial construct of ownership, so that we can have our lands to practice stewardship. Care of the land. Traditionally we as indigenous people (and I speak for my cultures not pan-indigenously) do not OWN land. We cannot own your mother.
But because we exist in a space that is controlled by a federal government that requires things like deeds of trust etc, we fight in that arena. With their tools. We were forced to sign Treaties. A colonial construct as well, but we understand that the Wasicu (white man) values his legal papers.
Now that we have that understanding… Can land belong to a Tribal Nation? Yes! But we need to talk about Johnson v. McIntosh first.
In 1823 the Supreme Court saw a case that started what many know to be the Holy Trinity of fucking over Tribal nations and sovereignty. Johnson v. McIntosh established the idea that Tribal Nations were incompetent and unable to care for their own lands, and deemed entire nations to be “wards of the federal gov.” Tribal lands were then decided to be held in trust and managed for tribal nations. Doing this started a chain of events that still effect nations today. Things like funding for Indian Health Services and other necessary funding can be withheld by the federal gov if they requirements.
So you want to give your land back..
Let’s say Joe Smith, a farmer from South Dakota decides he wants to give his 120 acres of land back to the Lakota Nation. Here’s how he could do it.
He would start by presenting to the Tribal Council at their next council meeting, showing his land, that he wants to return it to the Tribe, and would then sign over his land deed to the tribe.
He would still be able to live on his land, the tribe would not have access to it. He could still farm etc. The main difference would be that his land would now fall under tribal jurisdiction and not state. He would pay Tribal taxes on his property and not state tax. The details of this varies by nation so if this is appealing to you, ask!
The tribe would submit that transfer of land title to the federal gov., and then the government would add that land into their trust. This takes 1-5 years to finalize.
So when has this worked successfully ??
Many many times! Mostly farmers and land owners, there have even been successful transfers of land back to tribal nations from cities! / End id ]
