Why were community lands generally not recognized by U.S. lawyers?

Community lands were generally not recognized by U.S. lawyers primarily because the legal framework and concepts established in the United States did not align with the practices associated with common land usage. In U.S law, land ownership is typically understood in terms of individual, private title rather than communal or shared ownership. This meant that lawyers, influenced by the prevailing legal standards of individual property rights, were less likely to recognize or advocate for the complexities of common land rights that existed in many indigenous and traditional communities.

While other factors may have contributed to the overall disregard for community lands, such as opportunistic motivations or issues with documentation, the fundamental misunderstanding and lack of legal recognition of communal land concepts were at the core of the challenges faced by these communities in asserting their land rights within the U.S. legal system. U.S. law was largely shaped by different historical and social contexts that did not accommodate the communal practices prevalent in many indigenous cultures, leading to a systemic problem for community land recognition.