Colonial governments quickly and freely granted licenses to buy land to private individuals. The implications of this legal principle, as well as the need to develop a practical means to enforce it, was regularly evaded by colonial governments. Unlike Europeans, who could sell their land to whomever they chose, Indians could sell land only to the government. The British did, however, place an important limitation on Indian land ownership. British settlers also came to the pragmatic conclusion that buying land was simpler and cheaper than trying to take it, an action that almost always led to war. This was just as any British land owner could expect when property changed hands. The prevailing British legal view eventually became that Indians owned the land and had the right to be compensated if they surrendered control over it. In British legal theory the settlers had a “right” to settle found in the charter granted to the colony by the As long as the European population was small and the amount of land in question was minor, trading land for otherwise unobtainable goods was a reasonable decision.Īlthough Natives never doubted they owned the land, the English were not so sure. Glass products proved an adornment Native Americans found attractive. Iron artifacts in general and firearms in particular worked better than the alternatives used in tribal society. The Europeans brought several items they deemed of value. It is likely many Native Americans did want to enter into a trade relationship with the Europeans. The only question was whether it would be wise to part with some of it to obtain useful or beautiful things these new people from across the ocean offered. Land Transactions before the American RevolutionFor the Indians, there never was any question that the land was theirs.
Both communities were uncertain over how to proceed.
The story of how these issues were resolved is often told as a tale of opposites. Eventually both sides had to decide what to do now that they had met. At first, neither side truly understood the other. Indians, meeting Europeans who wanted land, had a similar issues to resolve. People already living in North America forced European settlers to think about and resolve moral, legal, and practical problems regarding land ownership. When Europeans first arrived on the shores of North America they claimed the land they “discovered.” Besides the obvious problem of potentially overlapping claims by various European nations, Europeans quickly realized that in practice the land was already claimed, by the people living there. Understanding how the land changed hands is to learn much about questions of equality, morality, and legality. This observation, however, conceals a complex web of assumptions, decisions, and unilateral actions that shaped how the story took place, and the implications of the past for the future. Land ownership in the United States has been the story of land moving from Indian to White control. Between American Indians and the United States Government