What an incredibly odd argument to encounter on a P2P list concerned with reclaiming the commons! No one "owned" the commons in England, either. The common people had RIGHTS, guaranteed by the Charter of the Forest, the companion document to the Magna Carta. The enclosures of the commons usurped those traditional and legally ratified rights.

"The law locks up the man or woman. Who steals the goose from off the common. But leaves the greater villain loose. Who steals the common from off the goose."

May I recommend a couple of books by Peter Linebaugh?:"The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All" and "The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, and the Atlantic Working Class"

To say that the aboriginal people of the Western Hemisphere didn't "own" the land is as relevant as saying they didn't read English or worship Jesus Christ as their savior. Europeans stole the land by imposing their own peculiar property regime, along with the metaphysics that viewed such peculiarity as both natural and universal.

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 8:25 PM, Natalie Golovin <10natalie@cox.net> wrote:

The Europeans had better weapons. And since no one "owned" all that available land, and many of the tribes were nomadic-What right (Re: a previous mail) did the natives have to dominate it?