On Indian Reserves and Decentralized Power --- *Note: I will use various different descriptors in this article, but will often default to "indigenous" as it seems to be the most broadly applicable. In Canada, the Constitution Act of 1982 uses three distinct categories (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) to describe what are ultimately more than 600 different legally recognized bands. Other terms are used in the US, and both countries use the historically confused "Indian" in legal contexts (The Bureau of Indian Affairs, etc). The Youtuber CGP Grey has an excellent video on why the term "Indian" is often still used, even by indigenous people themselves, and why this isn't necessarily an issue, even if it does seem needlessly inaccurate. Also note that the term "reservation" is used in the US, while in Canada the term "reserve" is standard. The terms "tribe" and "band" are used interchangeably in this article, although I default to "band." --- Tension between the indigenous peoples of North America and the descendents of the European colonists has existed since the moment of first contact. As the foreign arrivals spread across the "new" world, the native population must have no doubt felt similar feelings to what many modern day North Americans and Europeans who are against liberal immigration policies feel today: we are being overrun by foreigners who do not share our cultural values, and who do not respect our land, or our laws, or us. In Canada, perhaps much more than the United States, we are having a modern day reckoning with these old tensions (I am not familiar with the status of the debate in Mexico). Disagreements about so-called "land acknowledgements," proposed redistribution of private property, questions of governance, and sensationalized stories of mass grave sites are just a few of the touchpoints in this wider cultural debate that is underway. I don't intend to litigate these issues individually, because for the most part I am unqualified to do so. The one example listed above that I feel sufficiently strongly about to make a statement on is that the redistribution of private property is immoral and misguided, and will not right the wrongs of the past, only create new ones. Rather, I would like to explore, from the comfort of my philosopher's armchair, the idea of indigenous reservations and how they might dovetail with the concept of decentralized power. I say "might" because, in their current form, they do a very poor job at decentralizing power (I speak now about the Canadian system, specifically). I am motivated to pursue this line of inquiry because it is my belief that, all else being equal, it is better to have power decentralized rather than centralized (all else is, of course, never equal, but it's a starting point before delving into the nuance). Legally, as a byproduct of Canada's Commonwealth status, the title to the land upon which First Nations Reserves (the Métis and Inuit were not granted reserves) sit belongs to the monarch of England, so we're already off to a bad start. It does not belong to the band (although individuals can hold certificates of possession of lots or homes), and it does not even belong to Canada, technically. The situation is marginally better in the United States, wherein bands do have the ability to purchase or negotiate treaties for the land, although in most cases it is held in trust by the federal government. But at least they don't have the additional layer of a figurehead king in a faraway land. Thus, bands in Canada do not have sovereignty over the land they inhabit. They cannot simply use it as they see fit. Additionally, most bands are not financially independent from the federal government. These two facts, I believe, cannot be considered in isolation from one another. There is a perception (not unwarranted) that bands are the beneficiaries of much socialist support from the federal government, and that this is an unfair burden on the taxpayer. And perhaps it is. But to suggest that they should simply be cut off of their support, without addressing the issue of land ownership, is to only see one half of the problem. It is difficult to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps when someone else owns your boots. To clarify two points: 1. The land titles in question pertain to the reserve lands only, not other titles that individuals or businesses may hold that are now in jeopardy of essentially being voided (see Cowichan Tribes vs Canada and šxʷq̓ʷal̕təl̕tən Rights Recognition Agreement [no, I don't know how to pronounce that because, to a rounding error, nobody does]). Let us also, for the moment, set aside the fact that individual land ownership in Canada doesn't really exist anyways, since property taxes ensure you can never truly escape renting. At best your landlord is the government and, if you fail to make the payments (yearly now instead of monthly), eventually you will be removed from your home by men with guns and threatened with imprisonment if you don't pay up. 2. I am not arguing in favor of government support for reserves. I am arguing against it, while simultaneously arguing for the land title of the reserve to be handed over to the band. If we're going to call them Nations, let's treat the concept seriously. In short, I am proposing a state of true independence for those First Nations who would want it (this part is important; not all would want it, and I'm not suggesting that we kick whole tribes out of Canada against their will). Give them the full, unilateral rights to the land that was set aside for them by those who conquered this continent and divided it up into parcels. As distasteful as it may be to speak so bluntly of this, let us not mince words: An invading force came in and changed the political landscape of this place. When I say "force" I don't mean it in the unified, organized sense of a military unit. This was a heterogeneous, disorganized, incremental force composed of many different nations, diasporas, and agendas, spanning multiple centuries. Atrocities were committed, lands were expropriated, and people were displaced. The invaders and the invaded are both long dead, except in the sense that the "invasion" continues to this day by people from all over the world, sanctioned by the federal government. The discomfort that I and many others feel with the scale and indiscriminate nature of modern immogration is in the same vein as the discomfort that the indigenous would have felt with the arrival of my ancestors. These two things can both be true and justified at the same time. Some of those on the invading force saw fit to set aside parcels of land upon which to resettle the invaded, but were unwilling to give up full rights to these lands. I think it is worth reconsidering this now. If we claim to care for the dignity and sovereignty of these once-conquered peoples, let us take action that actually reflects this. We would not be stripping current landowners of what they have lawfully bought and paid for, simply handing the title of ownership of the reserve lands over to those who already inhabit them, while simultaneously ending federal funding, so that they might freely determine their own destiny. In their current state, both owned and subsidized by others (although, notably, not the same others [English monarch vs Canadian taxpayers]), this is simply not possible. In such a scenario, the map of Canada would then become dotted with a plethora of micronations, many landlocked, independent from both Canada and one another. Free to make use of the land as they saw fit, some would thrive while others would fall into decay as a function of the quality of leadership (controllable) and the quality of the land (chosen by those who first drew the borders of the reserves). It is worth noting that many reserves were set up on comparitively poor quality land, for precisely that reason. In most cases, this would probably have to be an incremental transition over an extended period of time. Crippled by generations of enforced lack of agency and subsidization (to say nothing of corruption and mismanagement or embezzlement of federal funds), many of these reserves are already in a state of advanced decay and would collapse under their own weight if life support was removed suddenly. I grew up on reserve land and I have seen it with my own eyes (I am not indigenous, but there was a single street of lots that were leased out to others to generate sorely needed income for the reserve. The lots were "owned" and leased out by the band, but the homes were owned by the individuals. If you've ever wondered how much a house is worth compared to the land it sits on, the answer is very little). The levels of poverty and squalor in some of these places is horrific, and unknown to many in the broader population due to the remote locations of many reserves, and the insular nature of many bands. This is not a light switch that can just be flicked and then we're all off on our separate ways. This is where we come to a precipice of nuance that I am not qualified to opine on. But I think this path towards more decentralized political power in Canada is one worth assessing by those more educated on the subject than I. Indeed, the reserves are but a microcosm for the problem faced by the provinces and territories more broadly, wherein different jurisdictions are subject to different levels of taxation, subsidization, and Crown land ownership. In the fullness of time, I can imagine a future in which the nation of Canada has disappeared off the world map, as provinces and territories (perhaps as coalitions) exit the Commonwealth and seize their independence, while indigenous bands have those lands that they inhabit to the exclusion of others restored to them. Some (both bands and provinces) would thrive, some would scrape by, and some would fail, and over time, especially if similar dynamics played out in the United States, we might finally see a decentalized, meritocratic North America again, just as it was when only the indigenous tribes inhabited this land.