unceded land
Never formally surrendered
Unceded land is territory that Indigenous peoples never surrendered through treaty, sale, or conquest—land whose original inhabitants retain a claim of sovereignty regardless of who now occupies or governs it.
The term appears frequently in land acknowledgments and discussions of Indigenous rights: We gather today on the unceded land of the Coast Salish peoples.
The concept challenges assumptions that colonial settlement extinguished prior claims.
- indigenousOriginating in a region
- Native AmericanOriginal inhabitants of America
- territoryLand under jurisdiction
- sovereigntySupreme independent authority
- treaty rightsPact-secured legal entitlements
original peoples · colonization · settler colonialism · treaty · native · stolen · ancestral · tribal · dispossession · First Nations · Aboriginal · traditional territory · occupation · settlers · traditional · homeland · sacred · displacement
- indigenous landsancestral territories, ancestral territory, traditional territories, traditional territory, indigenous reserves
- land rightseasement, easements, freehold, right of way, leasehold
unceded landreserve land
Designated protected territory
reservation land · federal land · state land · private property · crown land
unceded, cede, ceded, ceding, cedes, cession, cessions, accede, accedes