It does not belong to individuals.

It belongs to all the peoples who have lived on it since the beginning of time, and who will live on it into the future.

No single person, no single group, no single generation has the right to sell what belongs to everyone.

This was not a new idea in Indigenous political thought.

Various forms of the principle that land belongs to the community rather than to individuals were widespread across Native American cultures.

But Tecumseh extended the principle in a specific and politically powerful direction: the community that holds this collective right is not a single nation but all Native peoples together.