"We recognize the unceded land of (insert tribe)"

When Europeans came to Canada, some of rland was sold to them from native tribes, but much of it was taken by the European settlers without any treaty with the indigenous people there. Many of the tribes still consider it unceded land, meaning that they say that they never gave it up, and still own it.

Canadian law has developed around this, recognizing a duty to consult native tribes when doing something on the land. The best known case of this is the construction of oil pipelines native tribes object to being built on the land.

In the past few years, politicians have been starting speeches with "We recognize that we are standing on the unceded land of (insert tribe here)".... but that strikes me as vacuous and self serving. It sounds like empty effortless virtue signalling to me.

Mr Prime Minister or Mrs Premier, if you actually do recognize that this is unceded land that you are standing on, why are you here? Why do you say that your laws apply here? Will you leave on request of the tribe? No, no you won't. So why say this obvious and empty lie?

 

There are very similar land acknowledgements in the States. They're stupid of course since if you really know such and such tribe owned a particular plot of land, shouldn't you give it back? The truth is it's unlikely a lot of these land acknowledgers actually know which tribe should have the land since tribes stole land from other tribes over and over long before there were any Europeans here.

 

Native Americans were fighting with each other and stealing each other's land long before Europeans ever set foot in America. Should have fought harder. Better luck next time....

 

Yes it's very disingenuous and I can see no point to it other than empty virtue signalling for self aggrandizement and maybe even mocking of the indigenous people.

 

The trend is stupid and quite worthless. . You are correct no one reallyt knows who owned a plot of land. Natives seldom had anything like a clear border for the ladn they claimed. The migrated a lot and simply lved where they built a village and hunted the land all around. Usually having to fight others for some land.Contrary to some claims they also changed, altered and destroyed what was on the land where ever they went. The truth is in North america there were so few that most of the land was simply empty.

There are other reasons why it is silly to make these statements as it is nothing more than vacuous virtue signaling.

All in all it is meaningless. However there is ajust a little bit of an ominous overtone. They did the same thing in South Africa. Making similar statements about recognizing the land of indigenous South Africans. Now look at what happened. The land owned by whites was siezed by people who did not really want it for any reason they just wanted the whites to not own it and as a result they ruined their agricultural base.

First they said it was taken from others, then they said it is hot ours, then the others demanded it back, then they were allowed to take it, and then they ruined it. We are not South Africa but it is a precedent to take note of

 

Exactly. If it's their land, vacate it. If it's your land, shut up with the virtue signalling.

It's like the whole Sanctuary thing that fell apart when folks actually sought sanctuary.

 

I think if I was a native person and heard a land acknowledgment I might have a hard time understanding why it's still your property.

 

Virtue signaling is all it is. It's the MO of the white liberals. Make sure all your "gestures" are very public and very meaningless. The same thing happens here in the US. I made fun of liberals for trying to rename Columbus Day in a thread here and Golem didn't disappoint. Basically none of the liberals in that thread were interested in returning the land to the indians.

 

It would be an interesting thought experiment to consider what exatly would happen if the land was returned to the indegenous tribes.

Would that mean I now simply pay my rent to the tribe, or am I to leave the country? If I am to leave the country, that's not a huge issue for me, since I immigrated here and still have dual citizenship, but what of the millions of Canadians who don't? Where do they go?

There are dozens of different tribes, so it would fracture the landscape into many small nations. I wonder if they would combine into a new sort of Iriquois style confederacy or if North America would look more like Africa or Europe.

 

Land doesn’t have to be bought. Governments throughout history have waged war for land. Russia is doing it right now. In the end it will always be the same. The strongest wins.

 

The argument is that the treaties were never signed surrendering the land, hence it being declared unceded. The settlers dealt with this for a century by ignoring this (hence your argument above could be made, that it is simply conquered land, but was kept silent), but now they are explicitly stating that they acknowledge it is unceded land. So they don't declare they conquered it. They don't declare it was ceded. Yet somehow they purport that their laws apply? Its odd and seems to be pure virtue signalling with little thought put into it.

 

They would happily accept the improvements made by the settlers, allow them to remain and vote, and their land would be taken once more.

I discussed this with a libertarian friend of mine once. He said the natives didn't have our system of laws regarding land ownership to claim it wasn't conquest. It was conquest. Humans were conquering each other they started writing. I don't feel guilty about it. Maybe that's bad, but it's better than feeling guilty about it but not willing to do anything as is the case for your average liberal.

 

To the winners go the spoils. Pretty simple.

 

Quite right.
When cultures collide to the victor go the spoils.
Time to acknowledge that violence can indeed solve a lot of issues.

 

Conquest is as old as civilization itself. We conquered the Indians and made America ours. White liberals feel bad about it, but not bad enough to return the land to the indians.

 

Europeans like to conflate internecine wars with colonialism since in their mind it gives them a free pass for their crimes. We all know it's a false equivalency though.

 

According to scripture, any land taken by the sword is I'll gotten gains and will be punished in future.

 

The almighty doesn't look at the scoreboard, he looks at how you played the game.

 

Live by the sword and die by it.

 

Not from lack of trying by indigenous people and apologists.

 

Which makes white liberals one step away from being white rightwing leftists like myself (who believe all land taken by force by white America should be returned)

 

The scriptures also talk of other things I’m sure you disagree with. I would argue scripture isn’t exactly a good debate tool. If it’s the end all be all then the left has far more to worry about.

 

He can view things in any way he wishes. I will stay with reality.

 

Apologizing for conquering a people while still on their land is the dumbest **** progressives have come up with.

 

We start speeches/meetings etc with


Where possible we add the name of the tribe whose traditional lands they were