How The West Was Lost!

My previous post reflected the adverse result Manifest Destiny has had upon the western states by comparing the land (in acres and percentages) taken from the states in the West compared to that taken from the States in the East.

This map reflects the same inequity pictorially as the effect of the taking appears today. It is time the western states, Indian Tribes and heirs to Spanish and Mexican land grants came together and said: GIVE US BACK OUR LAND!

A return of land taken by the federal government between 1845 and 1910 would be an economic boon as it would give back to the states, tribes and heirs the opportunity to increase money for education, return natural resources to the states and assist the Tribes and heirs of the land grants in expanding their economic bases. At the same time it would shrink the federal government's managerial responsibilities to protect land that lawfully belongs to the states and their residents. It is time to TAKE BACK THE LAND!

I have published Trespassers on Our Own Land, which is a comprehensive history of the manner in which the federal government took millions of acres from decades old Spanish and Mexican Land Grants, but that is only a small part of the land which the federal government took from the eleven western states and Alaska as well as the millions of acres it took from Indian Tribes under the Dawes Act and subsequent legislation.

Please feel free to join this blog and post the histories of the millions of acres the government improperly took from the states of Alaska, California, Arizona, Colorado,Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon, Montana, Nevada, Washington, Wyoming and Utah and from the hundreds of Indian Tribes during the same time period.

There is no time like the present to force a national dialog on what the federal government is willing to do to RETURN THE LAND!