User:Erwilliams2pstcc.edu/sandbox

Landownership challenges[edit source]
Native land that is owned by individual Native Americans sometimes cannot be developed because of fractionalization. Fractionalization occurs when a landowner dies, and their land is inherited by their children, but not subdivided. This means that one parcel might be owned by 50 different individuals. A majority of those holding interest must agree to any proposal to develop the land, and establishing this consent is time-consuming, cumbersome, and sometimes impossible. Another landownership issue on reservations is checkerboarding, where Tribal land is interspersed with land owned by the federal government on behalf of Native's, individually owned plots, and land owned by non-Native individuals. This prevents Tribal governments to secure plots of land large enough for economic development or agricultural uses. Because reservation land is owned “in trust” by the federal government, individuals living on reservations cannot build equity in their homes. This bars Native Americans from getting a loan, as there is nothing that a bank can collect if the loan is not paid. Past efforts to encourage landownership (such as the Dawes Act) resulted in a net loss of Tribal land. After they were familiarized with their smallholder status, Native American landowners were lifted of trust restrictions and their land would get transferred back to them, contingent of a transactional fee to the federal government. The transfer fee discouraged Native American land ownership, with 65% of tribal owned land being sold to non-Native Americans by the 1920s. Activists against property rights point to historical evidence of communal ownership of land and resources by tribes. They claim that because of this history, property rights are foreign to Natives and have no place in the modern reservation system. Those in favor of property rights cite examples of tribes negotiating with colonial communities or other tribes about fishing and hunting rights in an area.

Land ownership was also a challenge because of the different definitions of land that the Natives and the Europeans had.

Most Native American tribes thought of property rights more as "borrowing" the land, while those from Europe thought of land as individual property.