The role of land and landownership in shaping our history

From Bronze Age farmers to New World colonialists, land ownership has been prized, sought after, inherited and fought over. The hunger for land has resulted in wars, class structure, persecution and the displacement of thousands of Indigenous tribes. Today, financial security and adulthood is still marked by owning a house on a plot of soil but is owning private property a sign of a civilized or uncivilized society? Is it time for governments and communities to finally consider how the native people, who originally shepherded the land thoughtfully and soundly, might once again be considered its rightful “owners.”