buying back tribal land

rae121452

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the newshour had a 2 part story on this. tribes are raising money to buy back parcels of their ancestral land that was stolen by the government. apparently there is also an obama era federal program to buy and return land.

Native American tribe in Maine buys back island taken 160 ...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/04/...

Native American tribe in Maine buys back island taken 160 years ago. The Passamaquoddy’s purchase of Pine Island for $355,000 is the latest in a series of successful ‘land back’ campaigns ...

the above story is just one of many. i absolutely LOVE this. it's so 2021, the tribes are using capitalism to regain their birthright. it's such a big 'fuck you' to the system.
 
When they do that, does the land come under tribal governance or does it remain under state control?
 
i believe, because it is bought by the tribes and not individuals, it's under their governance.
 
i believe, because it is bought by the tribes and not individuals, it's under their governance.

That woud make some sense, but it is a transfer of sovereignty in some sense, too, so it may get complicated.
 
When they do that, does the land come under tribal governance or does it remain under state control?

It remains under state control. That issue has been addressed and adjudicated. They have to pay taxes, abide by all applicable laws, and cannot use tribal police to do anything on the property.

Tribal lands are owned by the Federal government and held in trust for the various nations. And in case anyone missed that point, the various nations don't even own their own reservation lands. They are there at the sufferance of the Federal government and the land is administered by the Dept. of the Interior.
 
That woud make some sense, but it is a transfer of sovereignty in some sense, too, so it may get complicated.

I believe Indian reservations are under state jurisdiction in some respects -- they can operate casinos, but can't dodge state taxes. I'm unclear on the dividing line.
 
State taxes are NOT paid on any transactions that take place on tribal land, that land belongs to the Federal government.

There are certain negotiated exceptions. For example those gaming establishments have to abide by the various states gaming commissions laws. What happens there is that the various tribes agree to pay the state "administrative" fees in order to obtain the gambling license.
 
That woud make some sense, but it is a transfer of sovereignty in some sense, too, so it may get complicated.

Not any more than the first time sovereignty was transferred. Stop and think about it though: The tribes are buying back land that was seized from them through force. It would be like me kicking you out of your house, taking your property by force with the full involvement and cooperation of the neighborhood, handing you a tent and camp stove to live with, then offering to sell your property back to you. Great concept, huh?

Comshaw
 
Not any more than the first time sovereignty was transferred. Stop and think about it though: The tribes are buying back land that was seized from them through force. It would be like me kicking you out of your house, taking your property by force with the full involvement and cooperation of the neighborhood, handing you a tent and camp stove to live with, then offering to sell your property back to you. Great concept, huh?

Comshaw

one of the tribal heads addressed this, he basically said "by any means necessary".
 
I believe Indian reservations are under state jurisdiction in some respects -- they can operate casinos, but can't dodge state taxes. I'm unclear on the dividing line.

Businesses on tribal land pay no state taxes at all. Nor do they have to go by state gambling laws or pay the state a fee for a licence. They can voluntarily conform to state gambling regulations but they do not have to. Tribes operate under federal not state regulations. A good example is fireworks. Here in this state we have "safe and sane" fireworks, which are a lot less spectacular than the ones allowed by the feds. However, all you need to do is drive down to your local reservation and you can buy all the federally approved fireworks your little heart desires and the state can do jack shit about the tribe selling them.

The federal government has certain rights on the reservation and the tribe must abide by some (but not all) federal regulations, but tribal land IS NOT federal land.

They can (and do) negotiate with the state they are in for some things, like fire suppression, water and sewer services. State law enforcement can't arrest a tribal member on tribal land, nor can they even go on tribal land without permission. Each tribe has its own police force and courts, set up and run by that tribe.


Comshaw
 
Traditionally, right of conquest confers fair title so long as it's a state doing it.

Bullshit. Confers title yes. Fair title fuck no. If that were true laws would not have been passed to force governments to pay fair market value when they seize property under Eminent domain. Or was that passed just for first class citizens?



Comshaw
 
Early in the history of the U.S., the Cherokee of Georgia, despised as savages, decided to deal with it by becoming civilized on the white man's terms. They took up farming and tradecrafts, settled towns, adopted a written language, and a written constitution and law code, converted to Christianity, and they even kept black slaves like the whites did.

It didn't help. When the whites decided they wanted their land, the Cherokee had to walk to Oklahoma. (I don't know what became of their slaves.)

But there is no essential reason why the Cherokee Republic, so constituted, could not have been admitted as a state of the Union -- and that would have set a precedent for other Indian nations.
 
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Bullshit. Confers title yes. Fair title fuck no. If that were true laws would not have been passed to force governments to pay fair market value when they seize property under Eminent domain.

Nothing unfair about it, they lost.

The end.

Or was that passed just for first class citizens?

Just the citizens.

Welcome to the concept of citizenship and nationhood.
 
Bullshit. Confers title yes. Fair title fuck no. If that were true laws would not have been passed to force governments to pay fair market value when they seize property under Eminent domain. Or was that passed just for first class citizens?



Comshaw

I don't think Indians were even legally recognized as citizens until the 1920s.

But, the guarantees of the 5th Amendment, with regard to compensation for eminent-domain seizures, never were limited to citizens. Technically.
 
Read some history folks. The Cherokee were NOT expelled to seize their lands although that was the consequence of the decision to move them out.

The various Indian nations were essentially nations within a nation. The tribes were free to, and did, treat with foreign powers. Most notably the English and the Spanish used the tribes as proxy warriors against the Federal government. This is an intolerable situation for any nation, so they were expelled to territories not part of the contiguous United States at the time.

The expulsion and consequences were ugly but understandable.
 
Read some history folks. The Cherokee were NOT expelled to seize their lands although that was the consequence of the decision to move them out.

The various Indian nations were essentially nations within a nation. The tribes were free to, and did, treat with foreign powers. Most notably the English and the Spanish used the tribes as proxy warriors against the Federal government. This is an intolerable situation for any nation, so they were expelled to territories not part of the contiguous United States at the time.

The expulsion and consequences were ugly but understandable.

I see nothing to support that here. It had more to do with a gold rush.
 
People do have a very naive and sanitised view of the history of these tribes.
 
the newshour had a 2 part story on this. tribes are raising money to buy back parcels of their ancestral land that was stolen by the government. apparently there is also an obama era federal program to buy and return land.

Native American tribe in Maine buys back island taken 160 ...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/04/...

Native American tribe in Maine buys back island taken 160 years ago. The Passamaquoddy’s purchase of Pine Island for $355,000 is the latest in a series of successful ‘land back’ campaigns ...

the above story is just one of many. i absolutely LOVE this. it's so 2021, the tribes are using capitalism to regain their birthright. it's such a big 'fuck you' to the system.

Whatever the Justice loving, God-fearing White Man takes away, it is never returned! It is the rule of thumb!

These tribals will never learn ..
 
I see nothing to support that here. It had more to do with a gold rush.

Revisionist history, Ish is an expert at that. Ish is trying to use the Fox wars in the Great Lakes region (1712 to 1733) to justify the removal of all tribes that stood in the way of the settlers. That and manifest destiny were the same arguments used back then to undertake the removal of the tribes.

The gold rush came later when the U.S. illegally seized the Black Hills from native Americans (it was an illegal seazure because that region had been secured to them by treaty) when gold was discovered there.

All kinds of excuses were used but what it boiled down to was the government wanted the land for their citizens and fuck a bunch of savages. They weren't seen as people anyway. Blacks were seen as more valuable because they could be bought, sold, traded and used. Native Americans were viewed as so much vermin standing in the way of the destiny of "real" people.

A small unauthorized contingent of the Cherokee nation signed a treaty with the US government sceeding the land to it. The government quickly ratified it even though it did not represent the will of the Cherokee nation. Over 14,000 Cherokees signed a petition to vacate the illegal treaty but to no avail. That's when the tribe tried to take it to court and were rejected.

History is what it is. Those who can't live with it will try to tweak it to their liking or bury it out of sight, just as Ish is trying to do.


Comshaw
 
Not any more than the first time sovereignty was transferred. Stop and think about it though: The tribes are buying back land that was seized from them through force. It would be like me kicking you out of your house, taking your property by force with the full involvement and cooperation of the neighborhood, handing you a tent and camp stove to live with, then offering to sell your property back to you. Great concept, huh?

Comshaw

Moral of the story: Don't lose a war if you want to retain sovereignty over your land. The Germans found that out the hard way in 1945, and the Arabs in 1948 and again in 1967.

My question was whether the Indians could annex the property to the reservation, expanding the reservation, or whether they were, essentially, like a Frenchman buying a farm in Nebraska....that farm doesn't then fall under French sovereignty.
 
Well, I suppose most of it is land nobody else is using, so why not?


I know exactly where this is. I've been in Indian Township many times. I'm not sure who the previous owner(s) of the island was, but it probably wasn't used for much other than a summer camp. The Passamaquoddy find it culturally significant, though.
 
When a tribe purchases non-tribal land (called "deeded" land, meaning it's owned by an individual), the tribe has three choices.

1. They can simply transfer the land to the tribal legal land management agency. On Rosebud, the Sicangu reservation in South Dakota, it called TLE - Tribal Land Enterprises. In addition to being a Tribal entity, TLE is also an LLC. In this case, the land remains in the state and local tax base and simply becomes corporate held and administered by the tribe.

2. They can transfer the land to the full Tribal authority, in which case it is removed from the state and local tax base, placed back into the tribal land base and administered as tribal land. This can only be done if the land was originally part of the tribal land base and was lost to private ownership via the Dawes Act. This is essentially restoring land lost - the land went from tribal ownership to individual ownership and now is moving back. In this case, for all intents and purposes, the land becomes part of the reservation again (exempted from state and local laws except where tribal-state or tribal-county compacts exist). In some cases this might be a full transfer back to Federal Trust (Department of Interior), but that only happens for those tribes who do not manage their own land. In the case of Rosebud (TLE), the Bureau of Interior has a very small footprint as the tribe is sufficient in size and scope to manage their own land.

3. Depending on the land, there can be a negotiated settlement (which happens when the land is more urban) where the land is transferred back to tribal ownership, but some form of contract-for-services exists with the city/county for urban services (sometimes including law enforcement). Many tribes have "enforcement compacts" with the state or county (where local non-tribal police are deputized to enforce the law on tribal lands and vice-versa, were the tribal police are also deputies of the county). These most often involve the local highway patrol.

This process has been going on since the seventies, when the tribes began to get legally more sophisticated and churn out their own well-educated lawyers. Something near to a million acres has returned to tribal ownership/control. The federal government provides some funding under law, but only for the restoration of Dawes Act era tribal lands. State lands are more contentious and those are what you see in the news - where the tribal entity does not have a federally recognized reservation and so was not part of the Dawes Act. These tend to touch off the battles between the government entities (Federal, State and Tribal) and are most contentious in the Eastern United States near major urban areas.

The development of this whole process over the last four or five decades is in part due to the tribes learning to navigate the local legal systems and is constantly ongoing. Part of it was fueled by casino revenue, especially among the smaller east coast and west coast tribes, where it's contentious.

My tribe acquires tens of thousands of acres a year, either from purchase or inheritance. (Since the tribe has the combination of casino funds and federal funds, it is a contender in any land sales that arise in the traditional tribal land regions.)

It's all good in my book. (I've personally transferred three quarter sections from private ownership back to TLE, mainly for tax purposes but also from a degree of tribal pride. LOL - but I'm not proud enough I would have done it if it didn't made tax sense. Income generated from TLE lands is non-taxable - the Fed's don't tax it and it's outside of the state tax base. I've never run into any problems because it's mostly been range land.)
 
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Moral of the story: Don't lose a war if you want to retain sovereignty over your land. The Germans found that out the hard way in 1945, and the Arabs in 1948 and again in 1967.

My question was whether the Indians could annex the property to the reservation, expanding the reservation, or whether they were, essentially, like a Frenchman buying a farm in Nebraska....that farm doesn't then fall under French sovereignty.

You do realize that at the time of the Indian Removal Act the Cherokees were not at war with the US and hadn't been for many years, right? They didn't lose their land by an act of war. They lost it because of greed and political manuvering. Isn't that the same thing the extreme right has been railing about? Fucking deep state!

The idea behind the act was to trade land out west for the land the tribe occupied, land that settlers wanted for land the government saw as useless. The Cherokee nation tried to do it as any other citizen would, through the courts, but were pushed off anyway because the government wanted white settlers on that land to fulfill their destiny and Native Americans weren't seen as citizens of the country at the time.

That wasn't the end of it though. The Native Americans were moved to Oklahoma (Indian Territory) with the assurance it would belong to them. Guess what, it wasn't too many years later that land guaranteed to them by treaty was opened to homesteading. Look up the term "sooner". Even after that, when oil was found on the reservation the government wanted to remove the tribe AGAIN and take the land to allow oil companies access to it. Thankfully we had matured enough as a country to say that was enough.

As far as your question, if it is purchased by an individual of the tribe, unless that member gives it to the tribe, it remains as privately owned property and subject to all state and local regulations. If it is purchased by or given to the tribe, they can declare it to be part of the reservation. A Native American is in a completey differnt catagory then a Frenchman. The actual legal status of a tribe or a tribal member is very complicated. Suffice it to say they have dual citizenship: tribal and the U.S.


Comshaw
 
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