19385 - “The Earth is the Lord’s…:” A Brief History of Continental Ownership

Course Overview

Throughout human history, territorial claims spawned wars and armies of real estate lawyers. In the US and Canada, the current debates about how we all came to ‘own’ the North American continent usually results in the issuance of ‘land acknowledgement’ statements and apologies to tribal Nations. Recently, an American scholar discovered the ‘doctrine of discovery’ and pinned the blame for aboriginal land dispossession, as well as for racism, on a 15th century Pope. These statements and explanations not only ignore a long-standing principle of land rights of tribal Nations in North America but also assiduously avoid answering a more germane question at the heart of this debate: by what right do any of us humans  ‘own’ or ‘claim’ our bit of  the real estate?