Talk:Unceded territory

I'm not sure if it makes sense to speak of Native Americans holding "title" to their lands. I believe that land titles are a peculiarly European invention. ISTR that for most, if not all, Native American peoples, the concept of owning the land was so utterly foreign to them that they were easily swindled into signing away their claims to their land because they simply did not comprehend what was being bargained.

However, I'm not entirely sure how to rephrase it more accurately. Hard to avoid being tatuological with the title. Something like "Land to which the native peoples never ceded ownership" or that they never ceded their right to live on and off of the land. older &ne; wiser 02:49, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)


 * How does this relate or compare to land claims? If it's essentially the same concept, then these are disputed land titles and the wording should reflect this to remain NPOV.  Perhaps the phrase "the title is still held" should be changed to "the title is alleged to still be held" or "the equivalent of a title is still held" or something along those lines to keep it neutral. --Ds13 02:54, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)


 * I don't think there are necessarily disputes over "unceded territory" (there may be in some cases though). The description at land claims does seem similar, but I'm not terribly knowledgeable in this area. My only quibble is with using the term "title" to describe the ownership of the native peoples to the land. I just found Title, which elaborates a little bit. But I still think it sounds just a little odd to describe aboriginal land claims in terms of their holding title to the land. I don't think aboriginal peoples conceived of land ownership in a way that fits neatly under the rubric of holding "title" to property. older &ne; wiser 01:05, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree, "title" sounds a bit unusual (thus my suggestion for "equivalent of title").


 * Does anyone have examples of unceded territory? The reason I believe it is disputed is, as I read the definition in the article, it sounds like there could be significant amounts of land in this category which has now fallen into private or government hands for other uses and I'm sure if push came to shove, there would be a dispute.  Until I can see some examples though, this is just my uneducated guess. --Ds13 15:59, 2005 Apr 20 (UTC)

I'm interested in this discussion going further. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:FB19:B400:2174:CA03:9B83:339C (talk) 14:18, 19 November 2020 (UTC)