Can Indians still clame lands with discoveries that proove many different races lived in America before Indian

Question

If indian can clame land that they lost,being technocaly less advance, then Catholic Irish can clame Iceland(was celtic), all England, north part Spain. They have younger ancestral right to gain those territory than Indians.

Answer 1

ever notice that the Earth was more natural before the white race overspread other areas and claimed it. Natives respect their land and preserve it for their children. What species conquers, destroys, enslaves and rules. Which is more natural? It is undeniably true that the Natives of the Americas were robbed of their homes, families, cultures and future. It's happening in the rain forests as it happened everywhere.

Answer 2

How very small minded you are!  As far as I have heard, the indigenous native Americans ie Indians, were the first to live on this part of the North American continent1

As a race, the took care of the land!

They did not kill more game than they needed at any given time!

they did not strip the forests! And create smog, and polutuion!

They did not do their best to oblterate  the buffalo!

But we have on the other hand:

introduced them to a wonderful variety of diseases!

Try to kill them off in a sundry of manners

And so forth and so on, well you get the drift! They did not invade anyone, or anywhere! They did however war amomg themselves! But then so did we have our own Civil War!

Answer 3

I was reading some of the answers written and I believe it really has gotten of tangent.  The whole topic of treaty rights and tribal sovereignty is a whole different topic.

About the question, I doesn't really matter where we (American Indians) came from. So they found some evidence, great.  

Asking this question is like asking Christians why don't they believe in evolution despite the evidence.  It goes against what they believe in.  We believe that we have been here since that start of time because we didn't need to know why we where here, but rather how to survive.

To have anthropologist say that "you weren't originally from here" is easily answer with "nether were you" :)

In the grand scheme of humanity it's not where we are from, but rather where are heading.

Answer 4

I find it hard to believe that no one seems to know much about the DNA studies being done by National Geographic, albeit, the cost being in the thousands category.

   They're looking at somewhere between three thousand people that can trace their roots back 300 years, then they'll accept them and go further.

   This is going to open new testimonies to where we're from, including the American Indian, who claim they've been in the North American Continent since the bargaining of time.

   It's already known they've come from the Northern Japanese Islands and the Russian Continent. Most probably by boat (a new theory) along the coastline to North America.

   Another Clue, the South American Continent has been at least visited by Polynesia peoples since time began, by boat. Proof is being found every year in South American, some of these have wandered North.

   There will be proof in time of who we are and where we came from. Everyday they're finding out more and more. You'd think certain peoples would want to know their roots.

Answer 5

I think its time you layed off the peyote.

Answer 6

~Actually, the only lands the Indians can "claim" would be those granted them by treaty.  To the victor belong the spoils.  Of course, Indian claims to treaty lands (assuming the Indians have not breached the treaties themselves - in which case their claims would be legally and morally forfeit) would be much stronger than any "Palestinian" claims in the Middle East, given that the true 'Palestinians' have been extinct as a people since the days of Babylon.

If Kennewick man did inhabit North America at the time of the arrival of the Indians, the Indians successfullly displaced him.  This gives rise to a legimate claim to the land by the Indians generally.  Now, the Crow might not agree with the Lakota as to who "owned" what, but the superior forces in the area at the time pretty much determined that issue.  Likewise, the Mohawks only held the Hudson valley when the Algonquin were busy stealing southern Ontario from the Ojibwa.  Do we  give the Tuscarora a piece of New York State or a piece of North Carolina.  They didn't fare all that well in either but why should that be of any consequence?  On the other hand, if Kennewick was a failed evolutionary quirk in human development and was already extinct when the Asians crossed the ice bridge, any bogus claim you would cede them was extinct as well.  

By the way, if the Indians want their "original" lands back, wouldn't their gripe be with the Mongols, the Siberians and the Lapps?  How convoluted and idiotic do we want to make these 'claims'?

Where is there an issue here.   The Indians all lost out when the Europeans arrived.  I mean, really.  Do you want to give France back to the Celts?  Or the Rhine to the Saxons?  Or Normandy to the Vikings.  There must be a few Armenians left to which we could give Armenia (after creating it again.)  And you must want to return Afghanistan to the Persians (Iranians), right?

If you have learned nothing else from history, at least learn that losers only get that which the winners condescend to grant them.  Such is life.  So it goes.

I tell you what.  When the Pope gives God back to Isis, I'll considered the claims of the Catawba and the Arikara.  I'll have to think about the Gataka.  I draw the line at giving Rome back to the Teutons though (except with the Tuscans, Lombards and the Etruscans already in place, I guess the Teutons already have Rome. Okay then, I ain't giving Sicily back to the Goths.)

Answer 7

I think you'll find that nobody lived in America before the native Indian came. Hard to believe there was a time when man was scattered thinly around the globe.  They gradually arrived during the end of the last big ice age using the ice bridge from Europe.  They slowly settled as the ice cap receded northwards up the country.

Answer 8

I think you answered the question as to why native American politicians and political groups don't like the studies.  The land claims are not necessary valid in that many Indians have been shown to have taken the current land from other Indians.  That is OK but it is not OK when white people take the land from Indians.  Even if they are native, they are not necessarily native to the current land they occupy.  It is about time to eliminate Indian classification as a separate nation.  That might have made sense 100 years ago, but it is stupid now.

Answer 9

There are many sites that now even preceed kennewick man and clearly demonstrate that there were multiple migrations to North America. Does that mean that the Indians no longer have a right to land claims... of course not. The people called "Native Americans" were the previous conquerors and if their were some future unfathomable conqueror that displaced and rounded up the current population then surely the existing population would also fight for any right that allowed them to reclaim any of it back in their future. It is routed in the fact, of course, that upon initial contact the Europeans settlers either outnumbered the indigenous people that they found on the land already and then usually slaughtered the vast majority of them, or in some cases because of an urgency to spread and claim the areas before outnumbering the indigenous people, treaties became neccessary. Did you know that it was imperative for the young British Columbian colony to create very leniant treaties so that they could claim the area before the maurauding American settlers made their way north after their overwhelming western sprawl. Because of these treaties the Native Americans were able, because of overlap between indigenous groups, to claim that 110% of the province of BC belonged to them and claimed that it should be returned. (1998) Of course that was just cringed at, and sometimes laughed at by the existing population that now habituates the area, after all, 4 million people are not just going to get up, walk away, and say "oh, of course, here you go.... and here are the keys" Compromises must be reached and it is my belief that if the native american could somehow initiate a disbanding of the reservation system that they will be much better off. Their "slavery" as one earlier poster called it, is because they signed these same treaties and agreed to become wards of the state in trade for the "payoff" for living on the reserve system. I know that this problem is more persistent in Canada then in America because of those same early treaties, but if you give someone a house, car, money allowance, no taxes, free education (including university), but most of it based on if you stay on "the reserve"... do you get a motivated individual that pursues life with zeal, or do you get a person who has never had to work for anything and allows their being to rot as they allow the endowments that were supplied to them via the treaty to drown in alcohol? Native Americans are not actually slaves, just wards of the state, and until they become empowered to get off of those reserves this is how it will continue to be. Ironically the few Native Americans that I know that did pursue their free university did not grow up on the reserve. Their parents made a conscious effort not to let their children see that lifestyle because even they were embarrased by it's appearance of slavery and were much more proud then to allow their children to grow up like that. The Native American that I knew right from when I was young that did live on reserves, however, used to have dreams but those dreams quickly dried up once they became old enough to recieve their government cheques. Unfortunately if you start giving a highschool student money-for-nothing he/she don't tend to focus on their classes as well and begin a bad cycle of partying that usually ends up with many getting immediately trapped onto the reserve because they suddenly find themself with child. Ironic that somebody could be paid into slavery.

Anyways, the whole point of this meandering of words was to identify that the problem is much more deep seeded then just land claims. This native population needs to feel useful and productive just like everyone else in society, and until they make a break from the reservation system and create some popular and successful role models within themselves they will continue in this downward spiral and bicker about what "should be theirs" but to relatively little or no avail.

As for this whole bit about some naive impression that natives were more harmonious with nature... One poster wrote "Natives respect their land and preserve it for their children. What species conquers, destroys, enslaves and rules." Well, the Native Americans conquered, destroyed, enslaved and ruled the predecessor populations, that is what kennewick man shows.  Furthermore, because DNA has shown that kennewick man is not a part of modern native populations, that this was NOT a peaceful affair.  Other American natice groups like the Inca and the Maya grew into great civilizations, and once successful and large were no more kind to the land then any other sociey of similar size.  Their are many archaeological remains of city's that would have been the largest of their day with so little respect for the land that over harvesting forests caused a declining soil quality that forced these civilizations into starvation and decline.  The native Americans in North America were no better, they were still human and had bitter wars with each other.  Many times their alliances with Europeans were not bred of ignorance, but was their attempt to swing their own battles in their favour, the Huron (British) and Iroquois (French) being a good example of this.  If they were nature loving and peaceful with each other then they could have made the European encroachment very difficult and the Europeans may have given up because they already had a lot of conflicts back in Europe, but when presented with such an easy game of chess the Europeans were pulled in with haste to allign with the respective native groups, who were already divided, all that needed to be done was the conquering.  One thing that I can say however, in the European dominance of the Americas the Native American  DNA is not dead.  No, unlike kennewick man the slaughter was not wholsale.

Answer 10

In many cases yes, they can still make land claims.  the legal conditions on which claims are based vary, and therefore so do the claims - but none are based on a simple "we were here first" foundation.

Land claims are made based on several broad issues - one being that a legitimate treaty made by the US Congress was broken the second is when the US Congress did not ratify a land deal.

In both instances the issue is sovereignty - the US Government since its very beginning has recognized that Native American Nations were indepedant seperate nations, with the same relationship to the US as France and England.  Early on the US even relied on Indian Nations to help protect our borders from European colonizers - but as the US grew more powerful, the need to keep Native nations as allies was reduced and they began to be treated differently.

Both the US Consititution and the Trade and Intercourse Acts of 1791 clearly indicate that Indian Nations were to be treated as equals and specifically indicated that no one but the US Congress is enabled to interact with them (buy land).  Unfortunately, in a time when States Rights were often considered more important than National issues, many states ignored these regulations and went about purchasing land at ridiculous prices, often from individuals that did not have the right to sell Nation land.  This is major legal issue in land claims in the east.

From the very beginning, many native nations fought this, but they recieved little legal help from the US courts until the 1970s.  At that time a case involving the Oneida of NY finally got to the courts, where it was determined that the state had actually broken the laws established in the Constitution and Trade and Intercourse Acts and had illegally gained control of much of the Oneida territory (There are also several Treaty issues involved in this case - Treaty of Fort Stanwix, Cananadaigua Treaty).  The State was ordered to make a settlement in lieu of giving the land back.  

Another early case happened in Maine, where the Penobscott-Passamaquody won their suit.  Maine settled by giving back a large portion of land - utilizing state and national forest lands - that had no one living on them.  In NY there is no such large land area without someone already resident to return, so the state still has not settled that suit as far as I know.

Many of the land claim issues in west are based on the breaking of specific treaties in which the US government not only identified "Indian Lands" but promised to keep whites out with military force if needed.  I am not as familiar with those and can provide no examples.

The issues regarding Kennewick man are much deeper than Land Claim issues.  You may want to look at the National NAGPRA site to get some inkling of the major issues that revolve around burial sites.  Be prepared to do a lot of thinking. (http://www.nps.gov/history/nagpra/)