You cite Chochenyo territory as an example, but I've never met a Chochenyo person who recognizes the so-called Right of Conquest...
You misunderstand. I didn't offer an opinion on what Chochenyo people recognize.
Well, first and foremost, if you're talking international law, then it matters what the nations involved do or do not recognize. Do you have some particular reason, other than sympathy with one side over another, to disregard the absence of mutual recognition out of hand?
"Sympathy with one side over another"? What sides of what dispute are you even talking about? I was talking about the problem that you personally appeared to be de facto recognizing right of conquest, which is something you ought not to do; then you brought up all this extraneous material about what other people recognize; as far as my dispute with you is concerned I'm disregarding it because it's extraneous.
Dwelling in a place is not the same thing as owning it, certainly not from a Chochenyo perspective. I don't consider "Alameda County" to be Chochenyo territory, but the patch of it that I live on is, and long has been.
Sorry to jump to conclusions, then. Which patch of Alameda County do you live on, and why do you consider that patch to be Chochenyo Territory?
The reason claiming Alameda County is Chochenyo Territory constitutes endorsing Right of Conquest is that Alameda County used to be occupied by the Esselen tribe. About 1500 years ago the Chochenyo's ancestors drove them out and seized the land. The Esselen now mostly live down in Monterey County.
Another very fanciful retelling of history. You, of course, have no evidence whatsoever to support your notion that this was an instance of conquest in the first place (no one knows anything about the circumstances),
Wikipedia uses the term "displaced". Archeology indicates that up to about 500 AD the area was occupied by Esselen, and afterwards it was occupied by Ohlone. (The Chochenyo are an Ohlone subset.) So you're right -- for all I know, maybe when the Ohlone arrived the Esselen just all walked off in a huff.
let alone that this conquest was used as legal pretext for ownership of land (it definitely was not).
I expressed no such notion.
(* Of course, if any of the Chochenyo also claim they have "indigenous" title, then those specific individuals are endorsing Right of Conquest too. But if as you say land ownership wasn't recognized in the first place then that doesn't sound like they're claiming "indigenous" title.)
"Indigenous title" is actually a precept within British Law, not Chochenyo custom. Do you want to have a conversation about what indigenous title is, and to what it applies? Because I should warn you, it does not favor your point of view.
You can't know that -- you've shown no sign that you have any bloody idea what my point of view is. So yes, by all means, tell us what "Indigenous title" means in British Law; and then tell us why you made an "allusion to the idea of recognizing indigenous title in any way". Are British Law precepts somehow pertinent to whose Territory your patch of Alameda County is?
...There were violent episodes in history, but not for land, nor was the conclusion of a battle considered "legal" justification for just perching on that land forever after. If it were, the mission at San Jose would never have been permitted, they were badly outnumbered in the early years. But there was no customary law that would justify expelling the Spanish from the town...
But there was no customary law that would justify expelling the Spanish from the town; good neighbor, bad neighbor, the land wasn't anyone's to govern absolutely, and indeed there were no defined borders to apply governance within.
Sounds like somebody's culture wasn't static for 1200-odd years.
This is a really bizarre comment. Who said that it was?
Didn't say you said it; I was expressing skepticism at your implication that the observed Chochenyo toleration of Spanish presence qualifies as support for your contention that there were no violent episodes for land,
1200 years earlier.
I think it would be fair to describe the area as Esselen territory as well,
That's the most enlightened thing you've written in this thread. So, since you think it can be fairly described as more than one ethnicity territory, can we perhaps agree that it's Esselen/Chochenyo/Hispanic/Anglo/All-Other-American Territory?
If everyone involved recgnized right of conquest as a valid legal principle, the US federal government would possess sole ownership to every archaeological site and its contents. But that has yet to be proven as a true legal principle even within the US' own laws, which leaves you making a very strange argument.
Like I said, you appear to have no idea what argument I'm making. I'm not the one who claimed somewhere in the U.S. is Ethnicity-X Territory.
What the heck are you on about? No, counterfactual mythic history is not a good, sound basis for making any kind of claim. Where do you see me using that sort of justification? England? I already told you straight up "Not how I'd set up a system of government". I was reporting what English law is, not claiming it was justified.
No, you retold a very inaccurate rendition of a propogandistic fantasy concerning the foundation of England, and invited me to assume with you that this constituted "Law".
What the heck are you on about? I didn't say a darn thing about the foundation of England -- the foundation of England happened when a bunch of petty local kingdoms united to fight off the Vikings, a hundred and fifty odd years earlier than the events I referred to. And the thing you call a propagandistic fantasy is still the law of the land in England (and Wales); I don't approve of it any more than you do but that doesn't change the fact that Parliament hasn't ever done away with it.
I'm not even going to try and tackle the racist nonsense in the rest of your post,
It wasn't nonsense, and it wasn't racist, and you don't have a reason to think it was. You call it racist simply because that's the go-to ad hominem your religion supplies its believers with for application to anyone who disputes its dogma. It's the religion's self-defense mechanism: it uses it to make its believers feel self-righteous for not applying critical thought to the baseless assumptions it trains you to accept.
as I don't see how it relates to the topic in the slightest.
You don't see a connection between picking out one ethnicity in a multi-ethnic country and calling some piece of the country That-Ethnicity-Territory, and picking out one racial grouping of ethnicities and calling that subset of ethnicities First? Try harder.