In public high school, I was always taught that the idea of owning land was completely foreign to Native Americans when European settlers arrived and was a major reason settlers were able to convince natives to sign contracts that ceded land. Is this true?

by chivestheconquerer

Is there any evidence that Native Americans had privately owned land (within a given tribe, as separate tribes assuredly had their own general territories)? It just seems like a huge generalization (and a coincidence!) that none of the indigenous Americans that settlers came across had developed this idea.

retarredroof

Among southern Northwest Coast groups, particularly the Yurok, Karuk and Hupa, in addition to the private ownership of items, such as canoes, regalia and houses, there was private ownership of gathering, hunting, and fishing rights in specific areas. These rights were traded, inherited, and used for paying debts. Many natives let others use the property for a fee. Anderson described a section of coast on which an individual owned the rights to sea lion hunting but let others use it if they paid him one sea lion flipper for every sea lion taken, see here.

The difference between this and what you are asking has to do with the private ownership of land. While native northern Californians owned specific exclusive gathering rights, I know of no California natives that actually conceived of land as something that could be owned. Many individuals owned exclusive use of acorn gathering areas, sections of rivers for fishing and coastal zones for sea lion hunting. However, they weren't exclusive of other uses. A private fishing area was often used by others for transportation, hauling freight or other uses. Bettinger discusses this here . And it is discussed at length by Kroeber in Handbook of California Indians. I wish I could provide better sources, but I am away from my library right now.

Edit: clarity, unscrewed my references

Searocksandtrees

hi! not discouraging further discussion here (especially given the large number of cultures both aboriginal and European, and the long time-frame, involved), but here are a few posts that can get you started:

these may be of tangential interest too

These posts have been archived by now, so if you have follow-up questions for any of the users, ask them here & mention their username to notify them

edit: typo

The_Alaskan

It's absolutely wrong, and /u/Searocksandtrees' links are a good tear-down of the topic. I like the first one in particular, and not just because I chimed in.

I recommend Crow Dog's Case if you're interested in the many ways the United States has stumbled and fumbled its way toward a legal policy when it comes to American Indians and Alaska Natives. For Alaska, I recommend the new A Dangerous Idea, which focuses on the Alaska Native Brotherhood's involvement in the land claims issue before the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

Generally speaking, I also recommend you take a look at Chancellor James Kent's Commentaries on the Common Law, published in 1828. In the third volume of that book (Lecture L) he gives what is one of the United States' first real discussions of American Indian land ownership law and recognizes the de facto authority of military power.