We “Stole the Land”? No — History Is Messier Than a Slogan

A Morality Slogan Isn’t a Land Deed.

Introduction

There’s a line I keep hearing that sounds righteous, simple, and morally satisfying: “We stole the land. Mexico still owns it. The American Indians still own it.”

I’m going to say this plainly but politely: that claim, as a statement of current legal ownership, is nonsense.

It’s not “brave” to repeat it. It’s not “educated.” It’s a bumper-sticker worldview that collapses 500 years of human history into a morality play where only one country is required to pretend borders don’t exist. And the moment you take it seriously as a global principle, it detonates almost every map on Earth.

That’s not a defense of every conquest, every broken promise, or every injustice. It’s a defense of reality. And if you care about real outcomes for real people today, you should care about reality.

What People Mean When They Say “Stolen Land”

Usually, two different arguments get mashed together:

1. A moral argument: terrible things were done in the building of the United States. Indigenous peoples were displaced, treaties were broken, wars were fought, and power often decided the outcome.
2. A legal/ownership argument: because of that history, the land is still owned today by Mexico or by specific Native nations, and the United States is basically a squatter with paperwork.

The moral argument deserves serious discussion.

The legal ownership argument is where the wheels come off.

Because “who owns land” in the modern world is not decided by vibes, guilt, or who was there first in an unbroken chain. It’s decided by sovereignty: recognized governing authority, jurisdiction, and legal continuity—usually established through treaties, state formation, and international recognition.

That’s not a uniquely American idea. That’s how the world works.

Mexico “Still Owns It”? That’s Not How Treaties Work

If someone says Mexico still owns the American Southwest, they’re ignoring the central mechanism by which borders change in recorded history: treaties—sometimes after war, sometimes after negotiation, sometimes after both.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) ended the U.S.–Mexico War and included Mexico ceding a massive territory to the United States—what became California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and more.

You can dislike the war. You can argue it was unjust. You can point out that outcomes often reflect power. Fine. But “Mexico still owns it” is not a serious claim after a treaty recognized by both governments and embedded into subsequent legal and political reality.

If “Mexico still owns it” were true, then the concept of treaties itself is meaningless. And if treaties are meaningless, then all borders are just fan fiction.

“The American Indians Still Own It”? Morality and Ownership Aren’t the Same Thing

Indigenous peoples absolutely have moral claims—often very strong ones—because of forced removal, violence, and treaty violations. And many Native nations also have legal rights today: treaty rights, reservation land held in trust, and forms of sovereignty recognized under U.S. law.

But that’s different from saying “they still own all of it,” as if the modern U.S. is simply trespassing on 3.8 million square miles and the last 200 years of governance is just a clerical error.

Here’s the hard truth: if your rule is “whoever had it first owns it forever,” you don’t get a tidy resolution. You get an infinite regression problem.

• Which tribe?
• Which era?
• Before or after migration, conquest, inter-tribal war, alliance shifts, and displacement that occurred long before the U.S. existed?

History did not begin in 1492. Humans have been moving, fighting, trading, and taking land from each other since the beginning of time. Pretending otherwise is not compassion. It’s selective storytelling.

That doesn’t excuse wrongs. It just means you can’t run a modern legal system on a myth.

If This Principle Were Applied Globally, Borders Would Explode

Let’s take the slogan seriously for five minutes and apply it everywhere.

If “stolen land must be returned to prior owners,” then what happens to:

• Most of modern Europe, shaped by centuries of wars, shifting empires, and redrawn boundaries?
• The Middle East, where borders were drawn and redrawn repeatedly under imperial powers and modern conflict?
• Africa, where colonial borders became post-independence national borders largely to avoid endless territorial war?

International law has a concept for why post-colonial borders typically remain intact: principles like uti possidetis juris, which—put simply—treats existing administrative boundaries as the starting point for new states to prevent permanent chaos. The International Court of Justice has discussed this idea in frontier disputes, precisely because without stable borders you invite constant conflict.

So if someone wants to claim borders are illegitimate, they should at least be honest about what they’re proposing: a world where nearly every nation’s legitimacy is up for debate, permanently.

That’s not justice. That’s geopolitical nihilism.

“We Stole It” Is Often a Shortcut Around Harder Questions

The slogan gets used because it’s emotionally powerful and intellectually lazy. It lets people:

• condemn the present without proposing workable solutions,
• posture morally without understanding policy,
• and reduce complex history to “good guys” and “bad guys.”

Meanwhile, the questions that actually matter—the ones that could produce real improvement—get shoved aside:

• How do we honor treaty obligations that are still binding?
• How do we address poverty, addiction, housing, infrastructure, and education on reservations?
• How do we resolve water rights fairly in the West?
• How do we preserve Native languages and cultural continuity?
• How do we handle land stewardship and co-management in practical, legal ways?

Those are hard. They require effort. “Stolen land” as a blanket statement is easy.

The Modern Rule: You Don’t Get to Redraw Borders With Vengeance

The world learned—painfully—that if every grievance becomes a territorial claim, you get endless war. One reason modern international norms emphasize territorial integrity is to reduce the incentive to settle disputes by force.

The U.N. Charter’s core principle prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of states.

In other words: we can acknowledge ugly history and still agree that we’re not going to rip open the map every generation and replay old wars.

And if your answer is “but the U.S. started it,” congratulations—you’ve rediscovered that history is full of violence.

That’s not a plan for 2026.

So What’s the Better Way to Think About It?

Here’s a framework that doesn’t insult reality and doesn’t excuse wrongdoing:

1. Acknowledge history accurately.
   No fairy tales. No “America perfect” propaganda. No “America uniquely evil” propaganda either.
2. Separate moral claims from legal ownership.
   You can say, “This involved injustice,” without claiming, “Therefore Mexico currently owns Arizona.”
3. Focus on enforceable obligations.
   Treaties, rights, jurisdictional agreements, and specific legal commitments are real levers—not slogans.
4. Pursue practical remedies.
   Better outcomes: economic opportunity, infrastructure, education, health systems, accountable governance, and respectful collaboration. Those move lives, not hashtags.
5. Stop pretending borders are optional only in America.
   If you want a world without borders, say that. Just don’t pretend it’s a coherent claim about ownership that only applies to the U.S.

Why This Matters

Because ideas shape policy—and sloppy ideas create stupid policy.

When people repeat “Mexico still owns it” or “Indians still own all of it” as if modern sovereignty doesn’t exist, they’re not helping Native communities, and they’re not making immigration debates smarter. They’re turning serious issues into symbolic theater.

If you want progress, you need truth. Not slogans. Not moral grandstanding. Not the fantasy that you can unwind history like a tape measure and reset the world to whatever year feels emotionally satisfying.

The past matters. The present matters more. And the future is the only place we can actually build something.

References

• U.S. National Archives. (n.d.). Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848).
• U.S. National Archives. (n.d.). The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Education lesson page).
• United Nations, Office of Legal Affairs. (n.d.). Repertory of Practice of United Nations Organs: Article 2(4) (non-use of force / territorial integrity).
• International Court of Justice. (n.d.). Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso/Republic of Mali) — case overview (uti possidetis juris context).
• Oxford Public International Law (Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law). (n.d.). Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso/Republic of Mali) — discussion of uti possidetis juris purpose and stability rationale.
• Justia U.S. Supreme Court. (n.d.). Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. 1 (1831).

Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this post are opinions of the author for educational and commentary purposes only. They are not statements of fact about any individual or organization, and should not be construed as legal, medical, or financial advice. References to public figures and institutions are based on publicly available sources cited in the article. Any resemblance beyond these references is coincidental.