In a recent Tweet, I wrote:
Rand on the Injuns
“Now, I don’t care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country. And you’re a racist if you object, because it means you believe that certain men are entitled to something because of their race. You believe that if someone is born in a magnificent country and doesn’t know what to do with it, he still has a property right to it. He does not. Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights—they didn’t have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal “cultures”—they didn’t have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using.
“It’s wrong to attack a country that respects (or even tries to respect) individual rights. If you do, you’re an aggressor and are morally wrong. But if a “country” does not protect rights—if a group of tribesmen are the slaves of their tribal chief—why should you respect the “rights” that they don’t have or respect? The same is true for a dictatorship. The citizens in it have individual rights, but the country has no rights and so anyone has the right to invade it, because rights are not recognized in that country; and no individual or country can have its cake and eat it too—that is, you can’t claim one should respect the “rights” of Indians, when they had no concept of rights and no respect for rights. But let’s suppose they were all beautifully innocent savages—which they certainly were not. What were they fighting for, in opposing the white man on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence; for their “right” to keep part of the earth untouched—to keep everybody out so they could live like animals or cavemen. Any European who brought with him an element of civilization had the right to take over this continent, and it’s great that some of them did. The racist Indians today—those who condemn America—do not respect individual rights.”
Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q & A, Robert Mayhew
To avoid confusion, I was not quoting her approvingly. Just like I do not approve of her and other Randians like Leonard Peikoff and Yaron Brooks comments about nuking innocents. (See Centralist, Pro-War Objectivists on Paul.)
I would agree with Rand that the American Indians were nomadic and did not intend to permanently homestead land. When they moved on they effectively abandoned whatever claims they had, and thus, Europeans had the right to homestead it. I do not think that was stealing anything from the American Indians. But it was not because the Indians were too primitive or savage not to have rights. They did have rights. They owned their bodies, whatever movable possession they had, and whatever land they were temporarily using until they moved on and abandoned it.
I believe somewhere Rand wrote that before the modern age of enlightenment, individualism, reason (say, more than 300 years ago?), it’s hard to say that humans had rights, since we were not sophisticated enough to argue for them or something like that. I am unable to find this quote. If anyone has it, please let me know. (Update: Roderick long pointed me to some of his papers, which alleged touch on this or related issues. From Roderick: “Some of her followers have said that before the industrial revolution, the case for rights was empirically inadequate. Some of her followers have also said that rights don’t (fully?) apply except in an organised society, which turns out, essentially, to be a society with a state. On the latter, see my citations and criticism starting on p. 379 of this piece… Not sure how much of this is from Rand herself. Also, I have no idea why I referred to Seneca’s text as Greek rather than Latin. Musta been something in the water.” From Defiant Egoist to Submissive Citizen. And “Some relevant material here also (more specifically on Rand herself — see especially page 7):” Ayn Rand’s ‘New’ (Posthumous) Critique of Anarchism: A Counter-Critique.)
Related:
See Hoppe, “Of Common, Public, and Private Property and the Rationale for Total Privatization,” as ch. 5 of The Great Fiction, Part II, discussing the right of groups to homestead partial easements of land by use. I have written a bit on some similar matters, about how the English “enclosure” did violate some pre-existing easement rights, so in some sense “property” is “theft” as Proudhon said (meaning property rights decreed legislatively by the state that trampled on pre-existing easement rights). See Robin Hood, Magna Carta, and the Forest Charter
