Good morning, Hank. It's Tuesday.
So until a few days ago the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in [southeastern] Oregon
was mostly known for its high quality springtime bird watching.
But then some people with guns decided to take over the refuge's headquarters.
Which is both a big deal, like armed civillians are in control of a federal building,
and not that big of a deal. Like it's not like the building in question is the US capital.
Regardless, it gives us occasion to consider some complicated history and how ideas about public
and private property have shaped the United States.
So these days Oregon is often seen as one of the most progressive states in the US.
I mean, I judge a city primarily by the quality of its soccer support and its public transportation,
by which measures Portland, [not] Oregon's capital, might be America's greatest city.
But as is often true with American history, the deeper you dig, the more troubling it gets.
Okay, so around a thousand years ago the northern Paiute tribe's Wadatika band, moved into
what is now the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The first Europeans didn't show up until the 1820s
and their arrival, of course, was catastrophic.
Like most American Indian groups the Wadatika were devastated by smallpox and other European diseases.
As many as 90% of them died from disease within 30 years of the first European contact.
So by the 1840s, thousands of white settlers had made their way west to Oregon via the Oregon trail.
This 2200 mile long wagon route, that today is primarily famous as a video game,
in which you almost always die of dysentery.
The settlers encroached on the northern Paiute lands and there were some conflicts
but things didn't really pick up untill 1850, when the US passed the Donation Land Claim Act.
That law granted 320 acres of land to any white man who settled and cultivated the land for at least 4 years.
And married couples could get 640 acres of land.
There were a bunch of laws like this. White settlement in Oregon increased dramatically
and by 1859 it became a state.
Quick side note: Oregon's first state constitution contained some of the most shameful language in American history.
For example, it outlawed black Americans even visiting Oregon.
It was technically illegal for African Americans to move to Oregon until 1926.
But right. So by 1859 there were all these new white settlers in Oregon thanks to the federal
government's land grants. And not to state the obvious or anything, but inherent to the idea that
the US federal government could give land to these white settlers, was the idea that the land in question
was the US government's to give. The idea of federally owned territory is established in the consitution
and even today a lot of the United States is owned by the federal government.
Speaking of which, in 1872 the northern Paiute tribe signed the treaty with the United States government
establishing a 1.8 million acre reservation called - get this - the Malheur Reservation.
The US government abided by this treaty for all of 0 minutes with settlers immediately encroaching upon
the reservation. And then, after an 1878 war won by the US army the remaining nothern Paiutes were
taken off their land and forcibly moved to Washington state
About 100 northern Paiute families were allowed to return to southwestern Oregon
at the end of the 19th century but today their reservation is less than 1% of its original size
and their tribe has just 349 living members.
So in summary: for 800-ish years what is now the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was northern Paiute land.
First, because they were the only people living there and then because they negotiated control over the land
in a treaty with US government. The US government then won a war,
deported the remaining native Americans and took control of the land, which it held untill 1908
when president Teddy Roosevelt declared it to be a refuge for birds.
That Teddy Roosevelt. He loved birds. Especially hunting them.
So that was the history of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge until a few days ago,
when it became the de facto headquarters of a militia claiming that the US government has no right to
own federal land. Hank, there are many compelling arguments to be had about government infringing upon
the rights of citizens, but this is not one of them.
So this militia argues that there is something tyrannical about a representative government telling the people
it supposedly represents to do or not do things on certain land.
Like if the government is of the people and by the people, then how can the government prevent me,
a person, from doing whatever I want on federal land?
The answer, of course, is that the land doesn't just belong to you, it belongs to all of us and collectively
we've decided what to do with it.
This is in accordance with the US constitution, which states pretty explicitly that the US congress
shall have the power to - and I quote - "dispose and make all needful rules and regulations respecting
the territory or other property belonging to the United States".
And throughout the US history the Supreme Court has consistenly upheld the idea of federally owned
and managed land. The counterargument I've seen most often is that land should belong to the people
who use it. Not to the government. Which isn't so different from the way the northern Paiutes treated land
for most of Oregon's human history. However, the people using the land in question would still be
the northern Paiutes if the US army hadn't intervened on behalf of white settlers in the 19th century.
In American history, there is no escaping that fundamental fact - our government took this land
from sea to shining sea. Whether through purchase or war, or forced deportations, or dishonest treaties
and then it apportioned some of that land off as private property.
If the federal government has no rights to federal land and it never did, then they never had the right to give away
millions of acres to white settlers in the 19th century. This would render much of American private property
illegitimate. Including, by the way, probably my house.
Hank, it seems to me that if the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge's headquarters building doesn't belong
to the federal government, that built and paid for it, than that building and the Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge, in fact much of southwestern Oregon belongs not to a militia but to the 349 surviving members
of the tribe that has lived on that land for most of its history.
Hank, I'll see you on Friday.