Just curious (Fairbanks: lawyer, wages, work)

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by RayinAK

When they arrived at Ellis Island?

When they arrived at Plymouth Rock.

Actually though, it started with Columbus, who personally was in charge of exterminating something between hundreds of thousands of Native people and millions of them (the arguments vary, but his contemporaries put it in the millions).

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

When they arrived at Plymouth Rock.

Actually though, it started with Columbus, who personally was in charge of exterminating something between hundreds of thousands of Native people and millions of them (the arguments vary, but his contemporaries put it in the millions).

We were talking about legal/illegal immigration from the present back to the time when legal immigration took place at Ellis Island, not about the time the Colonies were founded.

Regardless, the mistakes of the past does not put us (our generation of Americans) at fault.

[Metlakatla]

Regardless, the mistakes of the past does not put us (our generation of Americans) at fault.

No, it doesn't. But my generation still remembers--albeit very vaguely--my Haida cousins who lived in Juneau being bumped from a flight because Caucasian passengers took precedence. At least that's what I heard; I was maybe six or seven then.

So I'm sure that...attitudes from long ago have continued to effect more recent history.

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

No, it doesn't. But my generation still remembers--albeit very vaguely--my Haida cousins who lived in Juneau being bumped from a flight because Caucasian passengers took precedence. At least that's what I heard; I was maybe six or seven then.

Hopefully that does not take place today. In fact racial discrimination makes for an excellent lawsuit. Things like that did happen in the past, not only to Indians, Alaska Natives/Indians, but to Blacks, etc. In fact, the Irish were discriminated against, the Italians, etc.

[Metlakatla]

That was at least 40 years ago....I was little and they had come down to visit.

My ex father in law used to talk about growing up in the south...they were Catholic, Sicilians, and he said that he remembers a few times when his father would take the whole family up to the attic to hide as the klan rode by at night.

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by RayinAK

By the way, private ownership (other than State, Federal, and Native lands) is very small, perhaps under 2%. I understand that this land allocation took place after the flu epidemic, but you have to consider that the new generations of Americans are not at fault for mistakes of the past.

http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/mlw/factsht/land_own.pdf

According to the cited document from the State of Alaska, the Federal Government owns 222 million acres (the document says 60%, but it works out to 59.2% of the 375 million total), the State owns 103.350,000 acres, or 27.6%. The rest is private. That amounts to 13.3% of Alaska being privately owned.

What you meant to say is that less than 2% of Alaska is privately owned by non-Natives. That is an inherently racist point to make, and is more so when it is then stated to be the only private land in Alaska! And therein lies the problem with systemic racism, because I doubt you were even aware of the racist overtone to your statement, and I doubt you want it to be considered that way.

But let me quote something directly from the document you cited:

"Native lands are private lands."

The problem of course is that they are distinctly not the same kind of "private lands" as those that you and I might own. On the other hand, the State and Federal goverments do not dare to call Native land anything other than "private lands" because doing so lets in the boogy man named "Tribal Sovereignty"!

BTW, I am a strong proponent of Tribal Sovereignty!

[Marty Van Diest]

I'll agree with you Floyd that Native Lands are private lands. But I'll also agree with you that they are not the same as private lands that most other US citizens own.

Even if the state and feds don't want to talk about it, there is a little more to the story. I believe that Native Lands generally have some rights that most private lands do not have. That is, their own a little more of their land than most people in Alaska do.

For example, usually they own the mineral rights, most private lands in Alaska do not own the mineral rights.

Often, they are able to erase previous easements. I'm not sure exactly how it works but somehow in the transmission of the land from BLM to a native corportation, section line easements can disappear.

I'm not sure of the mechanism, but I do believe that there is almost a quasi-governmental ownership of the lands by at least some of the native corporations. The government being the tribal government.

I'm not saying it's bad, it's a fact of Alaska History that when the US bought Alaska from Russia the title that Russia was able to give was clouded. What did Russia actually own that they could sell? Obviously different tribal groups held enough of a claim to Alaska to force the US Governement to settle with them. That settlement is still happening now and I do believe that certain native groups are making legitimate claims that usually only belong to governmental agencies.

I don't feel that it is necessarily racist to say that only 2% of Alaska is in private hands because I don't think Alaska Native land are completely private, they are similar to government lands. Not public land, but land owned by a native governmental agency. They do operate as a corporation, but they are special corporations with more responsibilities and more rights than many other corporations have.

[RayinAK]

This comment is inherently racist? I don't agree with you at all about being "inherently racist," since in no way did I intend it to be:

You most be talking about the time when Americans moved to the West, after the Spanish left California, not the legal immigration process that took place at Ellis Island.

By the way, private ownership (other than State, Federal, and Native lands) is very small, perhaps under 2%. I understand that this land allocation took place after the flu epidemic, but you have to consider that the new generations of Americans are not at fault for mistakes of the past.

In other words, Native lands are private, and so non-native private lands. Federal land is Government, and State lands is State and public lands.

Why does everything has to be about race?

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by RayinAK

... you have to consider that the new generations of Americans are not at fault for mistakes of the past.

http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/mlw/factsht/land_own.pdf

Here is what the first few lines of the cited document says:

Russian traders arrived in Alaska in the mid-1700's ... Alaska Natives (the Eskimo, Indian, and Aleut peoples) continued as the primary "landowners" during this period of Russian occupation.

On October 18, 1867, Russia sold Alaska to the United States government. As a result, the federal government owned the Alaska Territory, approximately 375 million acres (about one-fifth the size of the continental U.S.).

Alaska became a state in 1959. The federal government granted the new state 28% ownership of ...

There are two very serious disconnects in those statements. They are not a matter of opinion, but a matter of Law, having been adjudicted in the court system and taken all the way to the US Supreme Court.

The first paragraph says that under Russian jurisdiction the Native people owned title to the land. That is true. But then the second paragraph says that Russia sold Alaska to the US, and the Federal Government then owned the land. That is not true. The US government did not buy title to the land from Russia, if for no other reason than Russia never claimed to own it! Indeed, the US had come up with the Monroe Doctrine specifically to threaten Russia with a war if they ever attempted to claim ownership of the land!

The State of Alaska, created in 1959, was given 103 million acres of land taken at that time (not in 1867 by our ancestors) from the Native people by the Federal government, and given to the State. Other, much smaller land tracts had already been taken at various times from 1867 onward, and that continued until 1971. In 1971 the Federal Government did two things, one of which was to take all but 44 million acres from Native ownership, and the other was to do what the US Supreme Court had ruled years before was necessary to make it legal: pay the Natives something for the land.

So in 1971 Congress paid Alaska Native people 1 billion dollars for the 325 million acres, including the $100 billion dollars of oil known at that time to exist at Prudhoe Bay. (Some people might call that a deal. Others would call it theft...)

One of the things you need to understand is that the treatment of Native people by our ancestors in this country has not changed radically. Starting in 1492 Europeans have been taking whatever they wanted that was owned by any Native. If that required that the Native die in the process, it was okay by those doing the taking.

NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

If you like reading history books, there are at least a couple which are quite interesting on this topic. "Sold America -- The Story of Alaska Natives and Their Land, 1867-1959" by Don Mitchell is one, but at least equally interesting is "History of Alaska", originally published in 1876 by Hubert Howe Bancroft. There is a 1970 reprint available in most Alaska libraries.

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

That was at least 40 years ago....I was little and they had come down to visit.

My ex father in law used to talk about growing up in the south...they were Catholic, Sicilians, and he said that he remembers a few times when his father would take the whole family up to the attic to hide as the klan rode by at night.

It happened in NY, too. Even the Irish who immigrated first disliked the later Irish immigrants. It was the same with all races, Sicilians, Italianos, etc.