From: Jeff Davis (jdavis@socketscience.com)
Date: Sat May 22 1999 - 17:28:19 MDT
Michael Lorrey wrote:
>The fact that every treaty that
>was signed between europeans and native tribes dealt with the disposition
of ownership of land
>indicates that they understood about real estate property rights.
To use any part of the history of european and native american relations as
an element to support legal legitimacy or property rights, is more than a
bit of a stretch.
We Americans have been brought up in a culture where public education uses
the euphemism "western colonialism" to sanitize the historical record of
the western European juggernaut of military conquest, subjugation, and mass
murder.
The treaties of which you speak were drawn up by the europeans and employed
to give documentary legitimacy to territorial acquistion accomplished
through the use of superior military technology. The documents thus signed
were little understood by the defeated parties and, in any event, were
signed under conditions of the most extreme duress imaginable. These facts
are more applicable to subjects such as corrupt historical scholorship, the
brutality of realpolitik, and the morally perverse employment of legalistic
instrumentalities, than to any discussion of legal legitimacy and property
rights. Bad form that, at best.
(In the new Star Wars movie the evil-emperor-to-be tells his military
proxies to proceed with the invasion. When challenged about the legality of
this course of action he says, "I will make it legal." Whereupon he
instructs the proxies to capture the queen and force her to sign a treaty.)
Best, Jeff Davis
"Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
Ray Charles
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