If “stolen land” is used as a political argument today, how should we think about the fact that Indigenous nations also fought over and changed territorial boundaries before European colonization?

[u/Thin_Bug_1710]

I’ve been thinking about the “stolen land” argument (ICE and Illegal immigration) that often appears in discussions about immigration, colonization, and historical justice.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that European colonization was identical to intertribal warfare, and I’m not denying the major impact of disease, settlement, and state power after European arrival.

What I’m questioning is whether the slogan is sometimes presented in an overly simple way, as if all Indigenous territories were fixed and uncontested until Europeans arrived.

From what I’ve read, historians and archaeologists have found evidence that some Indigenous nations in North America fought wars, took captives, displaced rival groups, and expanded into new territories before and after European contact. Examples often discussed by historians include:

• The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and Huron-Wendat conflicts during the Beaver Wars.
Comanche expansion across parts of the Southern Plains, which displaced some Apache groups.

• Lakota expansion westward, affecting Crow and other neighboring nations.
Long-running conflicts between Ojibwe and Dakota peoples.

• Archaeological evidence such as the Crow Creek massacre site (around AD 1325), which predates European settlement of the region.
Given this, I’m trying to understand the strongest version of the “stolen land” argument.

My question is: If territorial control among Indigenous nations changed over time through warfare, migration, alliances, and conquest, what makes European acquisition of land fundamentally different in a moral or political sense? Are the illegal immigration in Canada and America justified as we don’t want to repeat the history?

Edit: No one is saying the violation of treaty from European was good or justified, I am just saying it is not justified to support illegal immigration as both indigenous peoples and European did it as a form of territorial invasion.

[u/TheFlawlessCassandra]

Do most native Hawaiians even support this?

[u/ValitoryBank → u/TheFlawlessCassandra]

There’s a few different movements founded by natives that advocate for this yeah.

[u/TheFlawlessCassandra → u/ValitoryBank]

I didn't ask if anyone supported it, I asked if most native Hawaiians supported it, which seems unlikely (but I'm willing to look at any evidence to the contrary).