The beginning international law premise is that indigenous status is proper when a group of people establish an historical continuity' with the land. This UN doctrine was established in 1989, when the U.N. Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities appointed Dr. José R. Martinez Cabo a Special Rapporteur.

Dr. Cabo was entrusted to define what criteria makes up an "Indigenous" person and group. Dr. Cabo's research staff studied the many varying types of Indigenous tribes and thereto called upon all of the states to give comments to the conclusions of his staff contained in his Draft Report.

The findings and consensus of the states concluded, " Indigenous people are "first peoples", tribal peoples, aboriginals and autochthons. According to José R. Martinez Cabo, 'historical continuity' set out a series of criterion to determine indigenous status.

The Subcommission found that some autochthon indigenous societies have a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies; while others have no historical continuity with the land in pre-colonial times, but were developed or created on the land during a later period. This has been especially applicable in cases of massive group slavery, kidnap, and colonialization.

The findings of the Subcommission laid down a 5-point indigenous analysis:

• a) Common ancestry with the original occupants of these lands;
• b) Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such as religion, living under a tribal system, membership of an indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle, etc.)
• c) Language;
• d) Residence in certain parts of the country, or in certain regions of the world;
• e) Other relevant factors

The 5-point criterion of the Subcommission means that historical, archaeological, linguistic and genealogical tracings develop the evidences of an American "autochthon" and "aboriginal" identity. It is these combinations of factors, which are necessary to trigger the international rationale for restitution, rehabilitation, compensation and indigenous land rights under the reparative analysis.

Accordingly, the Indigenous African-American Tribunal posits this question to the slave descendants in the form of a plebiscite in order for them to determine their rights to indigenous land within the borders of present day America.

We do so forthwithly because historical, anthropological, paleontological and archeological research has afforded us irrefutable evidence that the Africans sailed to the Americas and continuously lived in the Americas 11, 500 to 25 thousand years prior to the arrival of Columbus, and are arguably aboriginal to the land now know as the United States, and most certainly have accrued autochthon indigenous land rights because of the transmutations during the slavery period.

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