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Aboriginal Property and Western Theory: Recovering a Middle Ground*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2009

James Tully
James Tully
Affiliation:
Philosophy, McGill University
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Extract

During the last forty years, the Aboriginal peoples of the Americas, of the British Commonwealth, and of other countries colonized by Europeans over the last five hundred years have demanded that their forms of property and government be recognized in international law and in the constitutional law of their countries. This broad movement of 250 million Aboriginal people has involved court cases, parliamentary politics, constitutional amendments, the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the development of an international law of Aboriginal peoples, and countless nonviolent and violent actions in defense of Aboriginal systems of property and cultures. The Aboriginal peoples of New Zealand, Canada, and the United States have been at the forefront of the movement, and it is in these countries that the greatest legal recognition has been achieved.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Summer 1994 , pp. 153 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1994

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References

1 See Burger, Julian, First Peoples: A Future for the Indigenous World (New York: Anchor Books, 1990)Google Scholar, for an overview; see ibid., p. 15 for the figure of 250 million, not including Africa. See also Fieras, Augie and Elliott, Jean Leonard, The Nations Within: Aboriginal-State Relations in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

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3 Although I believe my argument could be extended to other countries, this essay is restricted to Canada and the United States.

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18 Ibid., II, 27.

19 Ibid., II, 36.

20 Ibid., II, 42, 45.

21 Ibid., II, 32.

22 Ibid., I, 130–31; II, 10, 11, 16.

23 Ibid., II, 25, 39, 51.

24 Ibid., II, 37, 40–43, 48–49.

25 Ibid., II, 34, 37.

26 Ibid., II, 40, 41, 42.

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31 Ibid., II, 9, 108.

32 Ibid., II, 107.

33 Ibid., II, 108.

34 Ibid., II, 37, 48–49.

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36 Williams, Roger, “The Bloody Tenant…,” in The Complete Writings of Roger Williams (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963), vol. 3, p. 250.Google Scholar See Moynihan, Ruth Barnes, “The Patent and the Indians: The Problem of Jurisdiction in Seventeenth-Century New England,” American Indian Culture and Research, vol. 2, no. 1 (1977), pp. 8–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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44 See note 16 above.

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47 Ibid., pp. 112–15.

48 Ibid., pp. 31–32, 124. For the philosophical background to the concept of “unsocial sociability,” see Hont, Istvan, “The Language of Sociability and Commerce: Samuel Pufendorf and the Theoretical Foundations of the ‘Four Stages Theory’,” in The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe, ed. Pagden, Anthony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 253–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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50 Ibid., p. 123.

51 Ibid., p. 119.

52 Ibid., p. 125.

53 Ibid., pp. 118–19.

54 Ibid., p. 118.

55 Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).Google Scholar See Lyons, David, “The New Indian Claims and Original Rights to Land,” in Reading Nozick: Essays on Anarchy, State, and Utopia, ed. Paul, Jeffrey (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981), pp. 355–79.Google Scholar

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70 Johnson, pp. 588–89Google Scholar, in Marshall, , Writings of Chief Justice Marshall, pp. 274–75Google Scholar; and Worcester, pp. 544–45Google Scholar, in ibid., pp. 428–29.

71 Johnson, p. 589Google Scholar, in ibid., p. 275; Worcester, p. 547Google Scholar, in ibid., p. 431; Campbell v. Hall, 1 Cowp. 204 (1774)Google Scholar; The Quebec Act, 14 George III, c.88 (1774)Google Scholar; Locke, , Two Treatises, II, 182–85, 192–96.Google Scholar

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77 See Johnston, , The Taking of Indian Lands in Canada (supra note 72)Google Scholar; and Worcester, p. 547Google Scholar, in Marshall, , Writings of Chief Justice Marshall, p. 431.Google Scholar

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80 Worcester, p. 560Google Scholar in Marshall, , Writings of Chief Justice Marshall, p. 446.Google Scholar

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