[pizza]

I'm skeptical of the idea that the tragedy of the unintended epidemic resulted, fairly, in property rights for the invaders. It means that either:

- "collective pre-existing rights became held in abeyance because so many rightsholders died" -- This assumes the living natives were not the owners of what was still there, either because they were propertyless, or the dead rightsholders didn't have a way to transfer property rights - which they would necessarily, historically have had for rights to have been a pre-existing Native American cultural notion - at the very instant they met the explorers.

- "the natives didn't have a notion of property rights, but the explorers did. the explorers were able to respect property rights, so it was best and fair that they acquired as much as they could" -- If anything this suggests that the explorers had great disrespect or didn't even understand property themselves. It was peak hypocrisy to violate the Native American population's property rights -- that were still their rights even if they were unaware of them. You cannot steal something from someone else if you think they don't know it is theirs. I have a suspicion that this idea I keep hearing "natives didn't have the concept of property" is really just false and veiled racism.

- "even if natives did have property rights nevertheless the invading explorers had a different concept of property rights" -- yes, the explorers had the same idea of fair property rights as someone going into a convenience store and shouting "nobody move, this is a stickup!"

[syrrim]

It means merely that there were very few people laying claim to a very large piece of land. That they were killed by disease means that they weren't killed intentionally in order to take the land.

Property rights don't actually exist. The idea of property rights is a way nations like to explain the division of property they allocate to their citizens. In reality, there is very little earth that needs to be divided among all. A small group cannot claim an unfairly large portion, no matter how long they've lived there, nor what means they used to claim it.

[pizza]

Yes, I agree property rights are not physical law. That said, who determines what is fairly or unfairly allocated is never who is most sanctimonious but who is holding the gun.