'You Are Standing on the Indian': The Settler Contract, Terra Nullis, and White Supremacy

Abstract:     

“You are standing on the Indian”: Randall Stover spoke these words to me as I entered the revolutionary war cemetery he had restored on a rural hilltop in Central Pennsylvania. He had relocated the fence to include “the Indian,” who was originally buried outside the perimeter. His was a personal story of truth and reconciliation. Other such stories continue to haunt American public discourse about immigration and occupation. In this paper, I examine how the “settler contract” illuminates the current controversy over white supremacists’ attempts to “occupy” Leith, North Dakota. Pateman and Mills trace the “settler contract” to the doctrine of terra nullis, the ancient principle that land which is “empty” does not belong to anyone and hence can be legally occupied and owned. To leave such lands “unoccupied” and “uncultivated” is arguably “wasteful.” Recently, Craig Cobb, an internationally known white supremacist, bought a number of abandoned properties in Leith, North Dakota. Cobb, who is wanted for hate crimes in Canada, planned to create an intentional white community, a safe haven for white supremacists facing perceived racial extinction due to immigration and "race-mixing." The few “original” inhabitants of the town, Native Americans living on nearby reservations, and a wider concerned public have protested efforts to occupy Leith. At this writing, the outcome remains uncertain. Whatever the outcome, I interpret the attempt to occupy Leith as an opportunity to revisit the role of the settler contract in American public discourse. It tells a cautionary tale of a white nation still unsure “where it stands” regarding its past -- and present – claims to racial hegemony.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 43