The main historic trajectory in property rights to land was the development of more exclusive rights by the dissolution of common property. In the Swedish lappmarks the opposite occurred, and by the end of the nineteenth century the old system with privately assigned land finally disappeared when Samis obtained lawful common user rights to large areas for reindeer herding. Earlier research focused on the role of the state. We bring together three previously rather neglected perspectives-self-governance, ecology, and the functionality of large-scale reindeer nomadism-to explain changes in property rights. By analysing how Samis from two types of villages in Lule lappmark using different ecological settings between 1550 and 1780, we show that the older property-rights system dissolved due to the emergence of largescale reindeer nomadism. Grazing land became one of the most valued economic assets, and a common-property regime evolved. The institutional change that spurred the development was new trading patterns during the seventeenth century. By taking a self-governing perspective in a common-pool resource (CPR) context we identify the microlevel interactions between users through which property rights evolved in early modern Sami communities. How indigenous people during this time created and negotiated property rights is highlighted. On a higher level, the CPR perspective facilitates a discussion about Sami property rights in the context of property rights elsewhere, especially regarding common property. We emphasize the importance of addressing self-governance in the analysis of historical property rights of indigenous people.

Fish were absolutely necessary for survival for many households in preindustrial societies. Because fishing waters are considered a common-pool resource, it is difficult to exclude users, and the catch is subtractable. To learn what strategies were in place to avoid fish-stock depletion and secure continuous harvests, we investigated how Indigenous Sami households in Lule lappmark, Sweden, used low-productive freshwaters between 1660 and 1780. Our aim is to show how they conducted fishing and how it was linked to rules for fishing. Our sources are contemporary 17th-and 18th-century accounts and local court rulings. Rules for fishing were developed in a self-governance context. Users and fishing areas were well defined, and users often had exclusive rights to fish. Inheritance was important but not a sufficient prerequisite to obtain access. Our research covers a period during which abundant but low-yield fishing waters per household declined, making it more difficult to survive.

Hunting was one of three pillars, along with fishing and reindeer husbandry in the early modern Sami economy, and understanding of Sami hunting has increased during recent decades. However, most research has concentrated on time periods before AD 1600. After AD 1600 and the initial formation of modern Nordic countries, hunting ceased to be the backbone of the overall Sami economy but continued as an integral part of household economies. Our aim is to advance understanding of early modern hunting in northwestern interior Fennoscandia. Using source materials including court rulings and historical accounts, we set out from a self-governance perspective focusing on how actors solved resource distribution with regards to hunting. We show that ecological differences between mountains and forest impacted decisions about hunting. From the 1500s to the end of the 1700s, hunting led to the extinction of wild reindeer and depopulation of fur animals, while small-game hunting for subsistence continued to be important. In the forest region, strong property rights to game developed when skatteland (tax land) was established and hunting became a private enterprise. We suggest that the institution of skatteland was a response to changes in Sami economy, and the transition from collective to individual hunting was a contributing factor.

In the concluding chapter, we synthesize the results and discuss how changing land-use regimes among Sami in interior northwest Fennoscandia interrelated with the development of property rights between 1550 and 1780. During this period, a new tenure system, reindeer pastoralism, developed. For households that had amassed large reindeer herds, it became crucial to access both large pastures in the mountains and in the boreal forest to have enough grazing. This led to the establishment of common-property regimes in both the mountains and the boreal forest, where grazing became a CPR. The emergence of this kind of common-property regime is best described as a bottom-up process as it assumes that local users design and implement institutions for common use that all or most users adhere to.

In this chapter, we stress the fact that households’ incomes were complex and came together by a mix of activities. To fully understand how households managed their livelihoods, activities other than fishing, hunting, and reindeer herding also need to be considered. Diversification was an active and systematic choice for these households, not something they did occasionally. Some of these activities were for subsistence, some for exchange. What households could produce was to a large extent determined by their main mode of production, which in turn was linked to rights or access to resources. The more engaged users were in reindeer pastoralism, the less time they had to spend on other activities, and the more they traded.