[mtgp1000]

How do you think warring tribes treated each other? You are aware that some proportion of native tribes kept both native and black (and probably white to a lesser extent) slaves, right?

It's also interesting that you choose the word "theft" as though the natives even had a concept for land ownership. Seems people are too eager to view history through a modern moral lense these days.

[__s]

> It's also interesting that you choose the word "theft" as though the natives even had a concept for land ownership

There were many tribes living without telecommunications across the Americas with all their varying climates causing different socioeconomic structures to emerge

https://mises.org/wire/did-indians-understand-concept-privat...

[mtgp1000]

>all their varying climates causing different socioeconomic structures to emerge

Which supports my point, that trying to view native practices through modern concepts is a bit like forcing a square peg through a round hole.

>One of the reasons that many continue to think that aboriginal Americans had no concept of private property, however, is because many tribes did regard land as being communally owned. Carl Watner explores the topic in The Journal of Libertarian Studies

The article seems to conflate "private property" with land ownership. Even this particular paragraph speaks of "communal ownership" which isn't quite the same as the concept of ownership in modern US law, though there are certainly provisions for group ownership.

Point is that article only supports what I'm saying, that it's borderline slanderous to assign morality to the behavior of cultures from 300+ years ago according to modern laws and ideas. Regarding this discussion, "theft" certainly becomes a strong word when you consider how different (and heterogeneous) concepts and practices were back then.