Open Access
American Research Journal of History and Culture
ISSN (Online): 2379-2914
DOI: 10.46568/arjhc
Adverse Possession in Context of Native Americans
Abstract
This paper discusses the issue of Native American tribes claiming ownership of certain tracts of land,
citing their historical ownership of those areas, even though individuals, businesses, and government have
claimed ownership to the land. This paper will discuss the doctrine of adverse possession and will demonstrate
that many lands occupied by individuals, businesses and government, actually belong to Native American tribes.
The doctrine of adverse possession does not apply to the taking of government land, and since Native American
tribes are sovereign governments, and thus, lands taken from Native Americans tribes, without treaties, or the sale
by deed, are therefore lands still owned by the Native American tribes. After the Native Americans were pushed
west of the Mississippi river by treaties with the United States, history suggests that the federal and state
governments continued to appropriate their lands through warfare and coercion. As such, a situation has arisen in
which arguably the lands that Native American tribes once owned by grants under treaties, may still belong to the
tribes; and the residents and business entities on those lands cannot justify their claims of ownership under the
law of adverse possession. There have been several lawsuits over the ownership of the areas claimed by Native
American tribes resulting in considerable debate over the injustices done to the Native American tribes in past.
Despite the efforts of the federal government to compensate for their wrong doings, there has been no clear
consensus on what is to be done with the once Native American owned lands. Most of the government’s measures
to pay damages to the tribes have been in the form of monetary compensations in lieu of lands, or allowance of
the Native American tribes to charge rental fees for usage of their land. Several businesses and states have
contended that the laws awarding reparations to tribes are stringent and lopsided, thereby harming businesses and
giving rise to issues such as maintenance of law and order and loss of tax revenues3.
