#indigenous land claims

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

John Linton Palmer, Views near Fort Victoria, June–July 1851, pen and ink, From Chile to the Arctic Album, F030/4 © RGS-IBG.

First plate, top: Esquimalt harbour, with Constance Cove, and Mt Angeles in the distance.

First plate, below: ‘Entrance to Victoria Fort’.

Second plate, above: ‘Fort Victoria, Vancouver I.’.

Second plate, below: ‘From landing place at Victoria Fort’ [original caption].

Third plate: Sketches of people and artefacts, Vancouver Island, June–July 1851. Fourth plate: Tomb of King Freezy’s brother at the entrance of Victoria Inlet, B. Columbia, 1851′.

"In considering such archival images as traces of encounter, contemporary historians would of course seek to adduce more evidence about the meanings of such events for the participants, in this case both British and Hawaiian, situating these events in their time and place. From this perspective, the rituals of diplomacy, the expectations of the various parties, the knowing and unknowing ways in which these events were described, would all need to be investigated. The same is true of the many other examples of the art of encounter in Linton Palmer’s albums. From an art historical perspective, such imagery would also need to be carefully contextualized with reference to matters of style, genre and perspective. In many cases, as I have argued, the influence of the naval tradition of maritime view-making is clear. However, there is another way of seeing these visual archives, especially when encountered from a heritage perspective, in which the informational content – the documentary detail – may matter even more than the point of view.

In order to substantiate this final point, we should return to Linton Palmer’s Fort Victoria sketches. Fleeting views they may have been, but in their attention to detail – whether the rendering of the hair and adornments of the people he encountered, or the material evidence of Indigenous presence in the landscape – such pencil sketches by naval visitors sometimes record what other contemporary documents do not, and in ways that can be located precisely in space and time. The matt lodges around the Fort, the cedar plank houses across the harbour, a fishing station in the distance: all these features signal an active Indigenous presence at a particular moment preceding a disastrous era in the history of the Indigenous people of what became British Columbia. Since they were first made available to First Nations historians following their exhibition in a 2009 RGS-IBG exhibition (Hidden Histories of Exploration), Linton Palmer’s images have entered the visual archive of Indigenous history and made more widely available in digital form. In particular, they have been incorporated into understandings of local settlement history by Grant Keddie, a curator at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. As Keddie’s work indicates, there is an ‘archaeological’ way of reading such documents, cross-referencing with other sources of evidence about the precise geography and chronology of landscape change. As is clear from the contemporary significance of the Indigenous sites sketched by Linton Palmer, such work is far from merely of academic interest. In 2001, 150 years after the brief visit of HMS Portland to Fort Victoria, a claim was filed in Canadian courts asserting that the land on which the Parliament of British Columbia was built (near the original Fort) had originally been occupied by or promised to First Nations peoples. After a long and contested legal process, the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation eventually reached an out of court settlement with the representatives of the Esquimalt and Songhees nations, which has been valued at $31.5 million dollars. In this context, mapping the precise geography of Indigenous settlement in space and time mattered a great deal: in fact it truly was the multi-million dollar question. And in the process, as researchers and consultants pored over long forgotten maps and drawings not unlike Linton Palmer’s sketches, the visual archive of travel acquired a new value." - Felix Driver, "Material memories of travel: the albums of a Victorian naval surgeon." Journal of Historical Geography 69 (2020): 53-54

[txttletale]

fyi i think your use of the phrase "time immemorial" in a dismissive sense may have some unintended colonialist implications to some readers, in my region "time immemorial" refers to a new curriculum that teaches indigenous sovereignty through a decolonizing model that holds space for oral histories. it took me a minute to realize you probably werent referring to that, it made the whole post read in that context like one of the "social facts" you're critical of is the sovereignty of indigenous people on indigenous lands. idk how many people would see that but thought you might wanna know

huh! i've never heard of this usage of the phrase (& was just using it in the sense of the generic legal term meaning 'there is no specific precedent for this because it Has Always Been So' as has historically been used in english law). but i mean that said, like--i don't think that claims to indigenous sovereignty do, should, or can substantively rest on 'time immemorial' (as in, the oral tradition stretching into prehistory). which is not to denigrate the value of that oral tradition in and of itself as a form of historical record but to say that i think the actual case for indigenous sovereignty should be built off the much more recent facts of colonialism (for the same reason that, for example, the israeli claim to indigeneity is specious and the palestinian claim is correct--because 'indigeneity' is comprised of a specific relationship to colonialism)

[snekdood]

idk who needs to hear this but not a single being on earth owns land

[seleneprince]

The story of Palestine

State 1: Before Israel there was a British Mandate, not a Palestinian

State 2: Before the British Mandate, it was the Ottoman Empire, not a Palestinian

State 3: Before the Ottoman Empire Was the Islamic State of the Mamluks of Egypt, not a Palestinian

State 4: Before the Islamic State of the Mamluks from Egypt, the Arab-Kurdish Empire was the Ayyubid, not a Palestinian

State 5: Before the Ayyubid Empire was the Frankish and Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, not a Palestinian

State 6: Before the Kingdom of Jerusalem was the Umayyad and Fatimid empire, not a Palestinian

State 7: Before the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, the Byzantine Empire was not a Palestinian

State 8: Before the Byzantine Empire, there were Sassanids, not a Palestinian

State 9: Before the Sassanid Empire was the Byzantine Empire, not a Palestinian

State 10: Before the Byzantine Empire was the Roman Empire, not a Palestinian

State 11: Before the Roman Empire it was a Hasmonean state, not a Palestinian

State 12: Before the Hasmonean state was the Seleucid, not a Palestinian

State 13: Before the Seleucid Empire was the Empire of Alexander, not a Palestinian

State 14: Before Alexander's empire it was the Persian Empire, not a Palestinian

State 15: Before the Persian Empire was the Babylonian Empire, not a Palestinian

State 16: Before the Babylonian Empire were the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, not a Palestinian

State 17: Before the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, there was a kingdom of Israel, not a Palestinian

State 18: Before the Kingdom of Israel, the theocracy of the twelve tribes of Israel was not a Palestinian

State 19: Before the theocracy of the twelve tribes of Israel, there was an accumulation of independent Canaanite city-kingdoms, not a Palestinian

State 20: In fact, in this plot of land kingdoms fell and fell .. But there was never a Palestinian state.

The Palestinians are Arabs and they're origined from the Arabian Peninsula. It is pure propaganda to claim that Arabs are native to Palestine or that the Palestinians aren't Arabs.

[brick-van-dyke]

To be honest, I think one of the things that really piss me off about Israelis saying "it's about land back" (about their militarized ownership of land which isn't what land back means) and then saying other indigenous people are being "antisemetic" when we say "please don't use our term for practicing our culture and learning it to describe the miliary occupation of Palestine" is that I find overwhelmingly that Zionists are silent on the issues of indigenous people worldwide. And they only actually speak up about us when it's beneficial to their cause, when it can be used to justify their own militarization or they can make some vague comparison. When there are attacks on learning our history in our schools, or high incarceration rates for indigenous populations, or how high our mortality rates are, I don't see Israel as a so-called "successful land back nation" speaking up about it or doing anything to denounce the occupiers doing this.

In fact, they're allies with them and actively benefit off of the occupation of other indigenous people who they try to imitate. What's really insulting about this and the whole "well if you're indigenous why don't you support Israel?" bullshit is how Israel actively benefits off of indigenous suffering worldwide by allying themselves with the nations that mistreat their indigenous populations, remain silent on said population's social issues and don't act like the so-called "successful land back" nation they pretend to be. Instead, they actively take and appropriate our struggles for their own gain while showing literally no care factor for the abuse done to indigenous people worldwide and have no respect for anyone else in the land back movement. And yes, this includes Jews, because they're not being given free rights to pratice all sects of Judaism when Ultra Orthodox Jews are forced into conscription and call Jews who disagree with Zionism "self hating" (code for "weak" Jew since that's often the connotations associated with the term since 1945). That's literally the opposite of a nation that, theoretically, should let all native ethnic groups be allowed to pratice their faiths and live by their cultures. Which, yeah, would also include other groups and cultures besides Jews as well, especially Palestinians who, as a diaspora formed over literal centuries of on and off colonisation, resistances and migrations, include people from a variety of ethnic groups that stretch back from and before King David in Judea. It would include literally every minority within it, and every other ethic group that has an equal claim to be allowed to pratice their own culture; which is everyone.

That's the thing about land back that I think Israel likes to forget/ cut away from its central meaning; it was never about ownership and we, as indigenous people, have constantly stated this. It's about land care and freedom to pratice our language, culture and beliefs. It's about being allowed to teach it. It's about being allowed to exist simultaneously with every other tribe around us, even when we all have different cultures and languages. Because it's not "land back from only one of the hundreds of people from this land and everyone else has to conform or die", it's "we all deserve an equal place to live in peace without prejudice or erasure". And yeah, as someone who's had their language and culture taken away, that really pisses me off. Israel's occupation isn't "land back" when the methods it's using are literally just copied from western imperialism and militarization. If Israel was land back, they would be willing to decolonise their own systems, but they're not and they show over and over again that the struggles of other native people around the world mean jack shit.

They expect a statement from us condemning Hamas, the Intifadas and resistances against their militarization, but are dead silent when another kid from our mobs are killed in juvenile prisons for a crime they didn't even commit or when there are laws placed against or right to pratice our culture or even speak or learn our languages. That's okay somehow? But we're expected to support you despite that silence? Fuck off.

[galaxyb1tchsblog]

Israel’s existence is lowkey antisemitic

[zhuhongs]

just found out the lead singer of taiwans biggest death metal band is also an active parliament member since like 2015.... and is still active as a death metal singer. he's a pretty standard taiwanese center left anti communist from what i could gather. which like as a leftist i dont really agree with but i also dont know enough abt taiwanese politics to like make a full judgement. though he seems to be a standard liberal nothing remarkable, radical, or new, not overtly horrible but just bland. but that was something i definitely did Not expect. apparently he's very pro indigenous rights and self determination for indigenous people but being in a centre left mega party like the DPP does not seem like the best way to achieve that. But yea, just thought I'd share

[theghostiedyke]

not me seeing the same discourse the land back movement got being repeated for Palestine. 🤨 y'all aren't even trying to think critically.

[penguicorns-are-cool]

me, someone who has been exposed to zionism and Israeli culture/history since elementary school and has done quite a bit of research into both topics as a result: zionism and i/p are a lot more complicated than that

some rando who only talks about i/p conflict when the violence escalates and has no understanding of what zionism is: it's really simple actually zionism is evil

[antisisyphus]

came up w a few different ideas for my american indian studies final but i cannot for the life of me find the right keywords to find more articles/sources -_-

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Peguis Indians May Carry Fight to Throne, Asking Aid Of "Great, White Mother"," Winnipeg Tribune. December 9, 1933. Page 1. ---- Chief Insists on Letter of Treaty and Promises Made ---- Chief Alex Greyeyes, head of the Peguis Indians that once lived on St. Peter's reserve, with his chief lieutenant, Henry Pahkoo, came to Winnipeg Friday to get help for 17 of his band against whom prosecutions are pending for squatting on land along Netley Creek.

He went to Col. H. M. Hannesson, former Dominion member for Selkirk constituency, and told him that if he couldn't get justice from the authorities he intended to tell his troubles to "The Great Mother, the Queen."

"You mean King George," he was told.

'No, not King George," he answered. "We mean the Great Mother." He took from his pocket a copy of the treaty agreement of August 3, 1871, made at Lower Fort Garry, and pointed to the words on which he said his band relied.

Promise of Treaty "The Great Mother, the Queen, knows you are poor," the treaty said. "She will assist you all when you settle, and our Great Mother will give you 160 acres of land per five of a family. When you will be on your Indian reserve, no white man will be allowed to stop there inside the reserve, and if a white man does anything wrong inside the Indian reserve, I will punish him myself."

About 26 years ago the white man did begin to go inside the reserve and in a series of negotiations that the Indians said never was fair, St. Peter's reserve was surrenderd. The Dominion government arranged their transfer to Fisher Branch reserve, about 100 miles from St. Peter's, a location between Hodgson and Koostatak.

Started a Battle The surrender proceedings years ago started a bitter battle in political circles and at Ottawa the cause of the Indians was taken up by Senator Geo. Bradbury, then the House of Commons member for Selkirk. The surrender of the reserve was put through, and a Royal Commission investigation was forced. Some of the Indians moved from St. Peter's to Fisher Branch and others never moved at all.

When the surrender was made each family was given 16 acres of land in a part of St. Peter's Reserve or near it. This concession was a sort of compromise. but it never satisfied members of the band. A number of them sold the holding for little or nothing. In 1914 Mr. Bradbury got through parliament a bill that placed a lien of $1 an acre on the 16-acre holdings. This was intended as a trust fund for familles of the reserve. It was to bear Interest at five percent from July 1, 1913, until paid, and although registered as an encumbrance on the titles, little or no attempt has ever been made to collect it.

Lacked Local Market Things never went well for the band at Fisher Branch. There used to be a local market for their wood and hay at Selkirk, but in the northern reserve there is little or none. Members of the band who used to act as guides in the hunting marshes have no chance for this occupation at Fisher Branch. Mostly they were deprived of what chance they once had of making a little money.

Two years ago Chief Grey Eyes and some 50 families packed up their belongings at Fisher Branch and returned. Their lands on St. Peter's were gone and they pitched their tents on the north end of Netley Creek. A year after, they started to build log huts, and there they intend to stay. About nine months ago the Dominion government started prosecutions for trespass, and two members of the band, John Muningwav and Charlie Thompson, were given three-month jail sentences. Munnigway has served his time, and Thompson 's still at Headingly. Prosecutions against 17 others are pending.

Petition Government Two months ago the band petitioned the Dominion government and asked that the prosecutions be dropped and the two prisoners released. They asked that they be permitted to organize again as a band and settle on some undisposed parts of the former St. Peter's Reserve, in return for which they agree to surrender all rights in the Fisher Branch Reserve.

In the petition they also undertook to abandon all agitation to set aside the surrender, provided the government would collect the assessments under the 1914 act and distribute them among families of the Peguls band as originally constituted.

[More about St. Peter’s here.]

[chaosordoffl]

evangelicalism is a mental disease what do you mean "god promised them that land" so the occupation is fine

[waffle-bubbles]

As soon as a marginalized groups fights against their oppression, they're seen as a threat

[cinematech]

i have takes and questions on whats going on that might be incorrect but im too pussy to talk about it

[soup-mother]

French Canadians Vs Amish Americans

FIGHT