Hundreds of years ago, settlers came to the land that is now the United States and systematically stole land from the indigenous people living there for thousands of years prior. Today, indigenous tribes are fighting to get at least some of their land back. This Colorado landowner returned ancestral land that he purchased unknowingly. (1)
Colorado Landowner Returns Ancestral Land To Indigenous Tribe
Rich Snyder is originally from Iowa but describes himself as a wanderer. A plumber, builder, and artist, for the last 20 years he’s meandered across the US, finding work where he went and staying with friends. In 2015, he purchased a parcel of land on the San Pedro (or Wild Horse) Mesa near the border of New Mexico. (1)
The land was just a 2.5-acre empty expanse with a few horses, a lot of dust, and not much else. Despite this, he still loved it because it was his. On his visit to the land, he slept in a tent. He woke up from an afternoon nap in a panic, however. He’d had a dream that his tent had disappeared and indigenous children were touching his skin. (1)
Spooked, he packed up his things and went and stayed in a hotel. (1)
His Second Visit
Though his dream spooked him, he still liked the land and wanted to go back. On his second visit, while exploring the area, he found stone chimneys and fireplaces on a hillside. He didn’t have another dream, so decided to stay. His dad and brother came to help him build a small solar-powered cabin. (1)
He continued to find more artifacts around his new land, and these discoveries made him question who this land truthfully belonged to. (1)
“Then I started (wondering) — who owns this land?” he said. “Whose land was this?” (1)
For the next three years, Snyder lived on his land on-and-off. He couldn’t seem to forget the idea that, despite his payment for it, this land wasn’t his. (1)
Returning the Ancestral Lands
He learned that the land was in an area formerly occupied by the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah. In 2018, he went onto their website and sent them an email. In his email, he said that he wanted to return the land to them because he knew it was rightfully theirs. (1)
He received a response from a man named Robert Lucero, who is the founder of the Ute Land Trust. Not a member of the tribe himself, he formed the trust to hopefully return as much of the Ute’s ancestral land to them as possible. (1)
Snyder’s offer to return the land was the first of its kind in anyone’s memory. (1)
“It was moving. It was moving and questionable, I guess. Why would someone want to give back their land that they own to the Ute tribe?” said Edred Secakuku, a member of the Ute Indian Tribe’s Business Committee. “With everything in our history, we learn not to trust, we’re always on the defense, and that’s just natural for us.” (1)
After a visit to the land, they knew the offer was real. In September 2018, Snyder signed a deed and officially returned the land to the Ute people despite the financial blow to himself. It took Snyder a full year to financially recover the expense of the land he gave up. For him, however, it was worth it. (1)
“I never felt energy like that in my life. I never did anything that good in my life,” he said. ” …The day someone finishes paying off their 30-year mortgage, they’re probably as happy as me now.” (1)
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Living On Stolen Land
The reality is, across North America, people are living on land that once belonged to indigenous people. Despite promises of sharing the land, the reality is that colonists stole land from indigenous tribes, murdered hundreds of their people, and caused their cultures and ways of life to all but go extinct. (2)
Four hundred years later, indigenous tribes are still fighting to get their land and rights back. Unfortunately, despite existing for thousands of years, not all tribes qualify as Native Americans under the government’s definition. (2)
“We’re kind of stereotyped as the tribes that met the Pilgrims, and that’s our whole history, like we ceased to exist in 1621,” said Robert Maxim, a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.” (2)
This means that many tribes are simply fighting for the ability to even just exist in the eyes of the government, let alone have rights to any land that was formerly theirs. (2)
Reclamation Means Returning Ancestral Land To Its Rightful Owners
There are many facets to reclamation, including connection to ancestors and ceremonies, access to traditional knowledge and education, hunting and fishing rights, access to clean water, food, homes, and education. (2)
Ultimately, however, reclamation means returning to indigenous tribes what rightfully belongs to them, namely, their land. In Oklahoma last July, justices ruled that about half of Oklahoma, including Tulsa, should be recognized as part of a reservation. The land totals about three million acres. (3)
This is significant for the approximately 270,000 indigenous people who live in that area. It affects how they are persecuted under the law, and it exempts many of them from certain taxes, among other things. (3)
There are five tribes in Oklahoma (3):
- Cherokee
- Chickasaw
- Choctaw
- Seminole
- Muscogee
Happy about the ruling, they said this in a joint statement:
“The Nations and the state are committed to implementing a framework of shared jurisdiction that will preserve sovereign interests and rights to self-government while affirming jurisdictional understandings, procedures, laws and regulations that support public safety, our economy and private property rights,” (3)
There is still a long way to go for reclamation. Decisions like the one in Oklahoma or private landowners like Snyder returning ancestral land are a good start.
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Sources
- “A nomadic plumber found mysterious stones on his land — so he became the first person to return land to the Ute Indian Tribe.” Denver Post. Andrew Kenney. September 13, 2019.
- “Indigenous people across the US want their land back — and the movement is gaining momentum.” CNN. Harmeet Kaur. November 26, 2020.
- “US Supreme Court rules half of Oklahoma is Native American land.” BBC. July 2020.