At least four million people participated in “No Kings Day” protests on June 14, 2025, against Donald Trump and his policies. Protests were held in 2,100 places across America. One of the most common signs at the protests was “No One is Illegal on Stolen Land.” That was true even in deeply conservative states such as Mississippi and Alabama, where calling America “stolen land” may have alienated people witnessing the protests.
“‘No One is Illegal on Stolen Land.’ There were *a lot* of signs” saying that at “the NoKings protest in Hattiesburg, Mississippi,” notes Ashton Pittman of the progressive Mississippi Free Press. “See my full gallery,” he says. His gallery can be seen at this link: https://www.mississippifreepress.org/photos-no-kings-day-protests-in-hattiesburg-mississippi/
We do not all live on stolen land, contrary to the claim made by these signs. A great deal of land in America was voluntarily sold to settlers by Native Americans. Legal historian Stuart Banner’s book “How the Indians Lost Their Land” explains this. Some land changed hands through “consensual transactions,” and other land through “violent conquest.”
Banner is a mainstream, well-respected law professor at UCLA who was probably surprised by what he discovered about the large scope of voluntary transfers of land from Native Americans to whites. But the large number of land sales by Native Americans makes sense because North America was a much emptier place after European diseases wiped out most of the Native American population, leaving many Native Americans with plenty of land even if they ceded some of it to white settlers.
Since Professor Banner’s book does not appear to be readable for free online, it is useful to also view other web sources debunking the claim that we all live on stolen land, such as this Prager University video, “Are We Living on Stolen Land?”
