Q&A: The Moral Claim of the Native Americans in America Against the Settlers Who Came from Europe and Their Descendants Today
The Moral Claim of the Native Americans in America Against the Settlers Who Came from Europe and Their Descendants Today
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Do you think the Native Americans’ claim against the Americans is justified in light of their past? For example, if we take the case of the Americans taking control of natural resources such as gold and coal mines that were in the territory of Native American reservations. I thought there might be grounds to say that the Native Americans did not own that land, because in their time they did not have internationally recognized borders. Something like the halakhic principle that establishing possession over a field requires an act such as fencing, locking, or breaching, so too one would need to perform some act of acquisition over land in order for it to be considered yours—and only the Americans performed such an act of acquisition, essentially through defending their borders or through the international recognition they received from other states. In addition, I thought that in the period when the crimes against the Native Americans were committed, human society as a whole operated according to a law-of-the-jungle principle, and it is likely that the Native American tribes themselves conquered the land they lived on from other groups who had lived there earlier. Similar to what you wrote about property law in the Kovno Ghetto: when society operates in a certain way, no one expects anyone else to respect his property rights, and only force speaks, and in such a situation there are no property rights either (between different societies, not between individuals within a society). What do you think?
Best regards,
Answer
You are mixing up ownership and sovereignty. Claims of ownership could belong to any of them, or even to a tribe, and that is determined according to the norms that were accepted there. They did not have sovereignty. Therefore there is no problem with the Europeans coming there to settle, so long as they did not take private property. When they impose sovereignty that also includes the territories of the Native Americans, that could be problematic. But even there, if they are given equal rights, it is possible. In the end, a decision is reached by the majority of the residents.
Regarding the Kovno Ghetto, I did not write that one need not respect another person’s property. Exactly the opposite. When there are property norms, that is what governs and it must be respected. In Kovno there were no norms.