“For land, the mixing of one’s effort to improve and live on it is called homesteading. Rothbard’s homestead principle is that whoever uses/improves/lives on otherwise unowned land becomes its owner. No one else has authority over that land.”

This was the same argument presented in two treatises and was used by colonizers to “claim” what Locke defined as “unused” or vacant land from AmerIndians.

Others have argued that hunting and land-clearing certainly consti- tute use and occupation and, therefore, Amerindians have title to their traditional lands: they 'hunted all the country over ‘and for the expedition of their hunting voyages, they burnt up all underwoods in the country once or twice a year.

To circumvent this defence, opponents deployed the argument that only sedentary agriculture and improvement constitute the kind of use that gives rise to property rights and, therefore, hunting and gathering lands may be looked on as vacant wasteland.

It seems Rothbard believes the same thing and takes it another step beyond that and justifies the continuation of these claims. Which is convenient when dealing with a population without any written record of ownership, or who did not in anyway need to use the same institutions for record keeping.

I point out these things to highlight that these men whom many point out as heros for the sovereignty of the individual and personal freedoms, in fact used their definitions property to do the opposite of what they claimed to be doing. If we are to use their very definitions, one’s they used to asset their freedoms in Europe, then it’s difficult to see how they could justify their actions in the colonies.