Land Back

Land Back is a decentralised campaign that began in the 20th century among Indigenous peoples worldwide who seek to reestablish Indigenous sovereignty, with political and economic control of their ancestral lands. Land Back is part of a broader Indigenous movement for decolonization. The United States federal government's return of land to the Navajo Nation in the 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo was the first major instance of Land Back in the history of the United States. The United States Congress aimed to compensate Tribal governments for their land with money damages rather Land Back when it established the Indian Claims Commission, active from 1946 to 1978. However, Taos Pueblo refused to accept this and launched a nationwide campaign for the return of their sacred Blue Lake. In 1970 the United States federal government returned Blue Lake to Taos Pueblo in the first successful contemporary instance of Land Back and a major success of the American Indian Movement. The return of Blue Lake to Taos Pueblo coincided with a new, contemporary Native Self-Determination Era amongst the Native Americans in the United States. The 1980 United States Supreme Court case United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians was seen as a setback for the movement, as the Court recognized the federal government had taken land from the Sioux Nation but offered monetary compensation, which was declined. Since the 1960s, the Land Back movement has spread to other Native American federally recognized tribal governments, Indigenous peoples of Mexico, Indigenous peoples in Canada, Indigenous Australians, Māori people, Fijians, and many other indigenous peoples in different countries. Land Back's prominence has increased in the 21st century. In the 2010s the Land Back movement was often marked with the hashtag #LandBack. The pace of successful instances of Land Back has accelerated in the 2020s in several...