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Who Owns Oregon? Some Historical Context on the so-called Militia Occupation of Public Lands

2016-01-05 · explainer · John · 5:34 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society · mode: News analysis · tags: timely hook, heavy topic, self correction

John argues the militia's claim that the federal government cannot own land fails: the US Constitution and courts back federal land, and US land titles rest on land taken from the Northern Paiute, so if not federal, the refuge belongs to the tribe.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters; Oregon's progressive reputation, Portland

  • ★★★ John reports that a few days earlier armed people took over the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, a place known mainly for springtime birdwatching. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ John says the occupation is both a big deal, armed civilians controlling a federal building, and not that big a deal, since it isn't the US Capitol. — 00:00:11
  • ★★ John says Oregon is often seen as one of the most progressive US states, but as often in American history, the deeper you dig the more troubling it gets. — 00:00:27 · United States
  • ★ John judges cities by their soccer support and public transportation, by which Portland might be America's greatest city. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:29
  • ★ John calls Portland Oregon's capital; the description corrects this to Salem. — 00:00:29
    • check: Portland — slip of the tongue

00:00:45 — History of the refuge land: Wadatika Paiute settlement, disease, the Oregon Trail, the Donation Land Claim Act, statehood and exclusion laws, the 1872 reservation, the 1878 war and removal, the 1908 bird refuge

  • ★★ John says the Northern Paiute's Wadatika band moved into the refuge area about a thousand years ago, and Europeans first arrived in the 1820s, catastrophically. — 00:00:45
  • ★★ John says that, like most American Indian groups, the Wadatika were devastated by smallpox and other European diseases: as many as 90% died within 30 years of first contact. — 00:00:57
  • ★★ John says that by the 1840s thousands of white settlers had come west to Oregon on the 2,200-mile Oregon Trail. — 00:01:07
  • ★★★ John says the 1850 Donation Land Claim Act granted 320 acres to any white man who settled and farmed land for four years, 640 acres to married couples; many such laws followed. — 00:01:23
  • ★★ John says white settlement in Oregon increased dramatically and Oregon became a state by 1859. — 00:01:37
  • ★★ John says Oregon's first state constitution contained some of the most shameful language in American history, barring black Americans even from visiting; moving there was illegal until 1926. — 00:01:44
  • ★★★ John says the federal land grants assumed the land was the US government's to give; federal territory is established in the Constitution, and much of the US is still federally owned. — 00:01:58
  • ★★★ John says in 1872 the Northern Paiute signed a treaty with the US establishing the 1.8-million-acre Malheur Reservation, which settlers immediately encroached upon. — 00:02:22
  • ★★ John says after an 1878 war won by the US Army the remaining Northern Paiutes were forcibly moved to Washington State; about 100 families later returned to southwestern Oregon. — 00:02:39
  • ★★★ John says the reservation today is less than 1% of its original size and the tribe has just 349 living members. — 00:02:51
  • ★★ John summarises: for about 800 years the land was Northern Paiute land, until the US won a war, deported them and held it until Theodore Roosevelt made it a bird refuge in 1908. — 00:03:00

00:03:26 — Rebuttal of the militia's claim: federal land belongs to all of us under the Constitution; US land was taken from Native Americans, so denying federal title undermines private property; the land would belong to the 349-member tribe

  • ★★★ John says the refuge became the de facto headquarters of a militia claiming the US government has no right to own federal land; he summarises its argument that such control is tyrannical. — 00:03:26
  • ★★★ John says there are compelling arguments about government infringing on citizens' rights, but the militia's is not one of them. — 00:03:35
  • ★★★ John argues federal land belongs not to any one person but to all of us, who have collectively decided how to use it. — 00:04:00
  • ★★ John says the Constitution explicitly gives Congress power over US territory and property, and the Supreme Court has consistently upheld federally owned and managed land. — 00:04:06 · United States Congress
  • ★★★ John says the common counterargument, that land belongs to those who use it, resembles the Northern Paiutes' view, and the users would still be Paiutes had the US Army not intervened for settlers. — 00:04:23
  • ★★★ John says the US government took its land from sea to shining sea by purchase, war, forced deportation and dishonest treaties, then apportioned some as private property. — 00:04:44
  • ★★★ John argues that if the federal government never had rights to federal land, its land grants were void, making much American private property illegitimate, probably including his house. — 00:05:00
  • ★★★ John concludes that if the refuge headquarters doesn't belong to the federal government, the refuge and much of southwestern Oregon belong to the tribe's 349 surviving members, not the militia. (hedged) — 00:05:13

In the description and comments

  • ★ John's description corrects the video: Oregon's capital is Salem. (playful) — video description

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Federal government of the United States · Malheur National Wildlife Refuge · Militia occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge · Northern Paiute people · Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge · Oregon · private property · public land

Also: People: Theodore Roosevelt

Works: Constitution of Oregon · Constitution of the United States · The Oregon Trail

Organizations: Supreme Court of the United States · United States Army · United States Congress

Groups: African Americans · Native Americans in the United States · Wadatika

Concepts: colonialism · racism · smallpox

Places: Malheur Reservation · Oregon Trail · Portland, Oregon · United States Capitol · Washington

Policies: Donation Land Claim Act

Only in the description or credits: Burns Paiute Tribe · Salem, Oregon

Also centred on Federal government of the United States: Understand the Sequester (Spoiler: It's Bananas.) · Startling Facts About the Government that Made Me Feel Good · DOGE Is Not Cutting Government Spending

Also centred on public land: My Governor is Weirder than Yours

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