| | From Ayn Rand Answers, pp 103-104
Now, I don't care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country. And you're a racist if you object, because it means you believe that certain men are entitled to something because of their race. You believe that if someone is born in a magnificent country and doesn't know what to do with it, he still has a property right to it. He does not. Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights--they didn't have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal "cultures"--they didn't have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using. It's wrong to attack a country that respects (or even tries to respect) individual rights. If you do, you're an aggressor and are morally wrong. But if a "country" does not protect rights--if a group of tribesmen are the slaves of their tribal chief--why should you respect the "rights" that they don't have or respect? The same is true for a dictatorship. The citizens in it have individual rights, but the country has no rights and so anyone has the right to invade it, because rights are not recognized in that country; and no individual or country can have its cake and eat it too--that is, you can't claim one should respect the "rights" of Indians, when they had no concept of rights and no respect for rights. But let's suppose they were all beautifully innocent savages--which they certainly were not. What were they fighting for, in opposing the white man on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence; for their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched--to keep everybody out so they could live like animals or cavemen. Any European who brought with him an element of civilization had the right to take over this continent, and it's great that some of them did. The racist Indians today--those who condemn America--do not respect individual rights.
(The statement is from the West Point Q&A, 1974, the text is cut and pasted from wikiquotes which I believe is largely accurate to the published text.)
This is perhaps Rand's most problematic public statement. She doesn't distinguish clearly between the moral and the political, the individual and the collective. The statement is incredibly naive in its broadness. For example, did the US have the right to unilaterally abrogate treaties which Indian Tribes made with it in good faith? Her view of "Indians" seems to be limited to the stereotype of warrior plains tribes that rode horses and scalped people. That was limited mainly to plains Indians (mostly Sioux and Apache) who, ironically, learned those crafts (definitely horseback raiding, possibly scalping) from Europeans. Settled agriculture was the most widespread way of native life south of Canada and east of the plains. The Indians did not fence the land since they did not have livestock, not because they did not recognize ownership. They hardly lived as "animals or cavemen."
Before jumping on Rand you have to look at this quote in context. It was off the cuff, unrehearsed and unedited. Rand's personal life and health were not at their best. Marxist and anti-White native movements were in the news. The Pine Ridge Reservation shootings would occur the following year. But Rand does not qualify her statements or say that she does not have enough knowledge to make an informed statement.
I think the question is open as to whether she was denying the political rights of individuals or political entities (tribes) based upon what ideas they supposedly lacked.
This map does not reflect the settled lifestyle of west coast Salmon and Acorn harvesters who were settled and whose population density and wealth rivaled that of old-world agriculturalists.
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