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Aboriginal Property and Western Theory: Recovering a Middle Ground*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2009

James Tully
Affiliation:
Philosophy, McGill University

Extract

During the last forty years, the Aboriginal peoples of the Americas, of the British Commonwealth, and of other countries colonized by Europeans over the last five hundred years have demanded that their forms of property and government be recognized in international law and in the constitutional law of their countries. This broad movement of 250 million Aboriginal people has involved court cases, parliamentary politics, constitutional amendments, the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the development of an international law of Aboriginal peoples, and countless nonviolent and violent actions in defense of Aboriginal systems of property and cultures. The Aboriginal peoples of New Zealand, Canada, and the United States have been at the forefront of the movement, and it is in these countries that the greatest legal recognition has been achieved.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1994

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References

1 See Burger, Julian, First Peoples: A Future for the Indigenous World (New York: Anchor Books, 1990)Google Scholar, for an overview; see ibid., p. 15 for the figure of 250 million, not including Africa. See also Fieras, Augie and Elliott, Jean Leonard, The Nations Within: Aboriginal-State Relations in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

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3 Although I believe my argument could be extended to other countries, this essay is restricted to Canada and the United States.

4 See Singer, Joseph William, “Sovereignty and Property,” Northwestern University Law Review, vol. 86, no. 1 (1991), pp. 156Google Scholar; Wilkinson, Charles, “Native Sovereignty in the United States: Developments during the Modern Era,” in Aboriginal Sell-Determination, ed. Cassidy, Frank (Halifax: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1991), pp. 219–32Google Scholar; Slattery, Brian, “Understanding Aboriginal Rights,” Canadian Bar Review, vol. 66, no. 1 (1987), pp. 727–83Google Scholar; and Slattery, Brian, “Aboriginal Sovereignty and Imperial Claims,”Google Scholar in Cassidy, , ed., Aboriginal Self-Determination, pp. 197219.Google Scholar

5 “Aboriginal and common-law system” refers to both the Aboriginal and common-law modes of argument, authoritative traditions, and concepts, and the institutions of property and practices of cross-cultural negotiation these modes of argument are associated with. The locus classions for this approach is Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations [1953], trans. Anscombe, G. E. M. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), sections 240–42.Google Scholar See Tully, James, “Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy: Understanding Practices of Critical Reflection,” Political Theory, vol. 17, no. 2 (05 1989), pp. 172204CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and compare Bobbitt, Philip, Constitutional Interpretation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), pp. 141–77Google Scholar, and Patterson, Dennis, “Conscience and the Constitution,” Columbia Law Review, vol. 93, no. 1 (01 1993), pp. 270307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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18 Ibid., II, 27.

19 Ibid., II, 36.

20 Ibid., II, 42, 45.

21 Ibid., II, 32.

22 Ibid., I, 130–31; II, 10, 11, 16.

23 Ibid., II, 25, 39, 51.

24 Ibid., II, 37, 40–43, 48–49.

25 Ibid., II, 34, 37.

26 Ibid., II, 40, 41, 42.

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31 Ibid., II, 9, 108.

32 Ibid., II, 107.

33 Ibid., II, 108.

34 Ibid., II, 37, 48–49.

35 Ibid., II, 50. See Tully, , “Rediscovering America,” pp. 164–66Google Scholar, for a defense of this interpretation.

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47 Ibid., pp. 112–15.

48 Ibid., pp. 31–32, 124. For the philosophical background to the concept of “unsocial sociability,” see Hont, Istvan, “The Language of Sociability and Commerce: Samuel Pufendorf and the Theoretical Foundations of the ‘Four Stages Theory’,” in The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe, ed. Pagden, Anthony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 253–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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50 Ibid., p. 123.

51 Ibid., p. 119.

52 Ibid., p. 125.

53 Ibid., pp. 118–19.

54 Ibid., p. 118.

55 Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).Google Scholar See Lyons, David, “The New Indian Claims and Original Rights to Land,” in Reading Nozick: Essays on Anarchy, State, and Utopia, ed. Paul, Jeffrey (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981), pp. 355–79.Google Scholar

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57 Rawls, John, “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 14 (1985), p. 225.Google Scholar This premise is incorporated in Rawls, John, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

58 See Kymlicka, , Liberalism, Community, and CultureGoogle Scholar; and Buchanan, Allen, Secession: The Morality of Political Divorce from Fort Sumter to Lithuania and Quebec (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991).Google Scholar

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66 For the context, see Slattery, Brian, The Land Rights of Indigenous Canadian People as Affected by the Crown's Acquisition of Their Territory (Saskatoon: University of Saskatchewan Press, 1979)Google Scholar; and Stagg, Jack, Anglo-American Relations in North America to 1763 and an Analysis of the Royal Proclamation of 7 October 1763 (Ottawa: Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, 1981).Google Scholar

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70 Johnson, pp. 588–89Google Scholar, in Marshall, , Writings of Chief Justice Marshall, pp. 274–75Google Scholar; and Worcester, pp. 544–45Google Scholar, in ibid., pp. 428–29.

71 Johnson, p. 589Google Scholar, in ibid., p. 275; Worcester, p. 547Google Scholar, in ibid., p. 431; Campbell v. Hall, 1 Cowp. 204 (1774)Google Scholar; The Quebec Act, 14 George III, c.88 (1774)Google Scholar; Locke, , Two Treatises, II, 182–85, 192–96.Google Scholar

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76 See, for example, Green, L. C., “Claims to Territory in Colonial America,” pp. 99105, 110–11, 116–23Google Scholar; see also the examples in note 6 above.

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