Friday, October 31, 2025
The 1491 Project
The premise behind the land acknowledgment craze is that everything that’s happened since 1492 was a ghastly error that must be completely reversed. All arrangements must be returned to the status quo ante of 1491. Call it “The 1491 Project.”
Take, as an example, my own complicated lineage. It turns out that my ancestors came from across Europe. Unfortunately for me, lands my ancestors had occupied in Germany, France, and Wales are now the property of the newcomers, which have fled to Europe in recent years seeking “asylum.”
Since that fateful date, western civilization in the misnamed “New World” sits on land stolen from the “rightful” aboriginal owners. The true owners were those in place as of 1491, notwithstanding the events occurring in the prior 21,000 years.
The immediate conflict comes in reconciling that goal with the system of property rights within the English-speaking world dating back at least 800 years, to Magna Carta (1215).
Extending this logic, all of the “settlers” and their descendants must return to their aboriginal lands so that the aboriginal peoples of what is misnamed as North America can re-occupy their rightful property.
It turns out that in Europe, the property claims of the newcomers outrank the property claims of the native inhabitants, and far outweigh any claims made by the diaspora of the aboriginal Celtic and Germanic peoples of western Europe and the British Isles.
My only recourse would then be a “return” to Poland, a nation I have never visited where they speak a language I do not know. Again, unfortunately for me, the “Poland” my ancestors left occupied a land several hundred miles east of the nation’s current location.
Of course, at the time my ancestors left, “Poland” was controlled by the Russian Empire. So, should I “return” to Russia? Or should I go all the way back to the Eurasian Steppe, the land from which my most distant ancestor’s likely emerged?
Okay. Who do I get to kick out of Europe?
