Whyte, a professor at the University of Michigan and an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, also noted that the number of Native American professors is relatively small, and that few non-Native scholars are interested - or qualified - in documenting complex situations of land dispossession. "That's a limitation in the study, and why we see this collection as more of a start than a finish," Farrell explained. He also noted that most of their historical sources came from settler colonial records. The project took seven years, and meant having to navigate myriad methodological and ethical challenges.įor example, Farrell said that accurately representing the ways in which Indigenous nations see their relationship with land meant resisting the more traditional academic approach of imposing strict boundary lines on tribes (and instead allowing for the fact that multiple tribes may occupy the same land).
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They classified each tribe's land base data within the historical and present-day periods, then turned to statistical models to answer their driving questions: What was the full extent of land dispossession and forced migration for tribes, and did their new lands offer improved or reduced environmental conditions and economic opportunities over time? This data is now publicly available in the Native Land Information System.
To arrive at their findings, the researchers examined everything from Indigenous nations' archives and territory maps to federal records and digitized treaties.
could build this massive industrial economy, that we now know contributes to increased concentrations of increased greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere," he said.įarrell said there was no knowledge of rising temperatures at the time, but that settlers' economic interests motivated them to push tribes to areas they viewed as "less important" to the building of a nation. tried to remove them and get them out of the way, so that the U.S. "The reason why tribal nations are located in the places they are is because the U.S. When it comes to the climate change vulnerabilities of today, Kyle Whyte, one of the study's co-authors, said many people mistakenly perceive the situation as one of tribes being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Researchers say this isn't necessarily a coincidence And about half of tribes saw an increase in their proximity to federal lands, leaving them limited in how they can manage and use the land. The study also found that Native lands are less likely to include economically valuable oil and gas resources.
have lost 98.9% of their historical land base since European settlers began colonizing the continent, the researchers found. The study offers one of the most complete accountings of that history, and presents a stark illustration of how, more than two centuries later, the legacy of displacement has compounded the challenges faced by Indigenous groups as they confront the growing threat posed by climate change. We know that European and American settlers forced Indigenous people off their lands and that settler colonialism laid the groundwork for systemic inequalities that persist to this day.īut experts have not previously been able to fully quantify the extent of that displacement, or measure how contemporary Indigenous lands compare to those that they lost in terms of environmental conditions and economic potential. there's less attention to, how is this an ongoing story about current climate risk? How is this an ongoing story about future climate risk?" Many tribes are facing more extreme heat, less precipitation and increased risk from wildfires "And so when we're talking about Native land dispossession forced migration, in the American narrative at least, it's this story of past harm done.
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