Fall 2021
Even if you have never heard of the natural man stereotype towards Indigenous peoples, you can probably still picture what it is: an Indigenous American wearing stereotypical clothes, living “closer to nature;” as opposed to current western society, where most wear expensive clothes and live in urban cities. Despite Indigenous peoples living on the North American continent much longer than Europeans, and doing so in a supposedly more “natural” manner, there is something foreign about Indigenous lifestyles, compared with the familiarity of western culture that most accept without question. One of those aspects of western culture is the history of how the United States was formed. In order for this country to have been formed, indigenous land ended up in the hands of Europeans, and that fact seems taken for granted. So how did it happen?
Although one blog post cannot completely answer that question, a large part of it was due to treaties. If in 1823, you asked John Marshall, an early and impactful member of the Supreme Court, what a treaty is, he would explain his Doctrine of Discovery: if a European power “discovered” land, it was theirs to claim or to transfer it to other powers. Interestingly, when land that was used by Indigenous people was “discovered,” they lost their own claims to it (Case 2018, 7–8). In other words, this doctrine justified land acquisition for the US and forced out Indigenous peoples, and treaties acted as the documentation. As unusual as Marshall’s logic seems, at least some treaties between the US and Indigenous nations resemble formal agreements between the two parties; yet in the 1903 case Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, the Supreme Court ruled the US could legally break their treaties with Indigenous nations (Minnesota Humanities Center n.d.). What do treaties even mean then? Are treaties just formalities for the US to justify the taking of Indigenous land?
Despite how much it seems that treaties favor American aspirations at the expense of Indigenous nations, it is still important to remember that the Constitution states that they are the law of the land (Native Land Digital n.d.). This means that groups of Indigenous people must be recognized as their own nations. This then begs the question: how do Indigenous peoples view treaties with the US?
What you may not have learned in your history classes was how Indigenous people viewed treaties. There are hundreds of Indigenous nations, each with their own sets of beliefs. The Nishnaabeg nation, located in Mississauga, Canada, is an example of a nation with starkly different perceptions of treaties than Marshall (Simpson 2008, 32–38). First, there is Bimaadiziwin, which is the practice for humans and the natural world live in balance. Bimaadiziwin applies to politics of treaties and agreements, which contains two parts: “Chi-debah-(in)-Nee-Gay-Win,” meaning an agreement that is subject to adaptation, and “Bug-in-Ee-Gay,” meaning letting it go. To illustrate, the 1850 Robinson-Huron Treaty with Canada was viewed as amendable by the Nishnaabeg. Finally, treaties were made with other human nations and even animals, an idea that is unusual in western ideology, because animals can be viewed as having their own nations. This means humans and animals could make treaties that were to be respected when people went hunting, which applies all of those practices and agreements. Once a treaty was made, this last practice of ”Gdoo-naaganinaa,” meaning “our dish,” comes into play. This is the idea that when making an agreement over land, two parties have a responsibility to take care of the land because they sharing it, therefore they must coexist (Simpson 2008, 32–38).
However, when it came to treaties with the US, these practices were violated. As previously stated, the goal of colonists was land acquisition. Americans believed they had a God-given right to claim land and they could use natural resources better than Indigenous people (Case 2018, 7–8). However, considering the decline of natural resources and the polluted state of the environment today, these views towards land are clearly not sustainable. Yet, Indigenous peoples will suffer more from these issues despite not significantly contributing to those problems (Whyte 2013). This is where Nishnaabeg practices start to make more sense, although it is important to acknowledge these practices are not fixed ideas of the past, but rather they provide us alternative ways to connect to the land (Murdock 2018). No matter what national boundaries exist, we all still share the Earth’s air, water, and the land. It does not take a “natural man” to realize coexistence is the only option because we are all in one “dish.”
References
Case, Martin. 2018. “The Lay of the Land.” In The Relentless Business of Treaties: How Indigenous Land Became U.S. Property, 7–8. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press.
Minnesota Humanities Center. n.d. “Why Treaties Matter.” Accessed November 18, 2021. http://treatiesmatter.org/exhibit/.
Murdock, Esme. 2018. “Storied with Land: ‘Transitional Justice’ on Indigenous Lands.” Journal of Global Ethics 14 (2): 232–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449626.2018.1516692.
Native Land Digital. n.d. “Mississauga.” Accessed October 5, 2025. https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/mississauga/.
Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake. 2008. “Looking After Gdoo-naaganinaa: Precolonial Nishnaabeg Diplomatic and Treaty Relationships.” Wicazo Sa Review 23 (2): 29–42.
Whyte, Kyle Powys. 2013. “Justice Forward: Tribes, Climate Adaptation and Responsibility.” Climatic Change 120 (3): 517–30.
