The Navajo Hopi Struggle Of Protect Black Mountain

As the white settlers began building cities along the East Coast and Manifest Destiny dictated America’s entitlement to all lands West, Native Americans were pushed out of their homelands towards less inhabitable lands. The United States, mighty from their victory against Great Britain, increased their targeting of Native American lands. As Cochise described, “where an Indian has been killed, there has been none to come in his place, so that the great people that welcomed you with acts of kindness to this land are now but a feeble band that fly before your soldiers as the deer before the hunter” (p.579). Native American’s were forced to live in land deemed undesirable by settlers. Today, Native Americans living on tribal lands have compared it to living in a third world country. Jobs are scarce, acute housing crisis’s leave many homeless, and most residents live well below the poverty line. In addition to this, unfair legislature which forces the burden of proof onto victims have left many communities with little recourse to the corporations that build industrial sites nearby. For example, the inhabitants of Ponca City live well below the poverty line and have few to no options to relocate. Many depend on tribal housing to avoid homelessness. Ponca tribal members living in Ponca City, Oklahoma have struggled to prove that the increase in heart, lung and respiratory health issues in the community coincide with the operation of the Continental Carbon Company. The company produces carbon black, a fine, powdery substance used in tires and other rubber products. It also spreads easily through the air and has been identified by the CDC as a possible carcinogen. And although Continental Carbon Company has had almost a thousand formal complaints filed against to the Oklahoma Department of

What molds a nation or group of people? As a member of the Navajo Nation, I’ve wondered how our history has impacted our nation. This research paper is a reflection of my curiosity. Throughout this paper I will explain how The Navajo Long Walk and The 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo contributed in shaping what the Navajo Nation today. During the mid 19th century tensions with the Navajo, U.S. government, and white settlers were tense. The third wave of the Navajo Wars would ultimately lead to the U.S. government’s decision to create a campaign against the Navajo and thus impose the Navajo Long Walk (Brooks 95). General Carleton, a U.S. Army General, had Kit Carson, the well-known Indian fighter, deliver his demands to the Navajo, he said, “Say to them: Go to Bosque Redondo or we will pursue and destroy you. We will not make peace with you on any terms. You have deceived us too often and robbed and murdered our people too long to trust you at large in your own country.” (Acrey 39). Thus, in 1864, Navajo people were forcibly removed by the U.S. federal government from their traditional homelands to eastern New Mexico. U.S. Army records indicate that at least 11,468 Navajos were forced to walk three hundred to five hundred miles to the internment camp called Bosque Redondo (Spanish translation is Round Forest) or Fort Sumner (Cheek 18). For four years, Navajo people were forced to stay in Bosque Redondo where starvation, disease, and restriction of their culture was prevalent.

At first, it came as a surprise to me that there are still many tribes who are trying to become federally recognized and colonize land again just like before to continue their culture and identity. By now, I would had imagined that the Native Americans are at peace and can continue their traditions. However, I have come to discover that Natives Americans are still fighting for social justice when they have existed here way before Christopher Columbus discovered their land and called them, Indians. The impact that these social justice issues has on me is that the issues in which Native Americans face cannot be entirely solved. It is an impossible action to fix.

By 1940, Native Americans had experienced many changes and counter-changes in their legal status in the United States. Over the course of the nineteenth century, most tribes lost part or all of their ancestral lands and were forced to live on reservations. Following the American Civil War, the federal government abrogated most of the tribes’ remaining sovereignty and required communal lands to be allotted to individuals. The twentieth century also saw great changes for Native Americans, such as the Citizenship Act and the Indian New Deal. Alison R. Bernstein examines how the Second World War affected the status and lives of Native Americans in American Indians and World War II: Toward a New Era in Indian Affairs. Bernstein argues

Throughout Indian Country tribes have their own courts to address legal matters. However, the Navajo Nation has a court system that stands apart from other tribes. Howard L. Brown Esq. wrote, “The Navajo Nation’s Peacemaker Division: An Integrated Community-Based Dispute Resolution Forum” which was published in the American Indian Law Review 1999-2000 issue and was reprinted in the May/July 2002 issue of Dispute Resolution Journal. As a former judicial law clerk for the Supreme Court of the Navajo Nation, Brown gained firsthand experience with the Peacemaker Division within the Navajo Nation’s Judicial Branch. He details the history, development and ceremonies associated with this resolution forum. Two

The 1960’s and 70’s were a turbulent time in the United States, as many minority groups took to the streets to voice their displeasure with policies that affected them. During this time period a large movement for civil rights, including Native American’s, would seek to find their voices, as largely urbanized groups sought ways in which they could reconnect with their tribe and their cultural history. In their book, Like A Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, Paul Chaat Smith, and Robert Allen Warrior take an extensive look at the events leading up to the three of the largest civil rights movements carried out by Native Americans. Beginning with the takeover of Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay by Indians of All Tribes in 1969; the authors tell in a vivid fashion of the Bay Area activism and Clyde Warrior 's National Indian Youth Council, Vine Deloria Jr.’s leadership of the National Congress of Indians, the Trail of Broken Treaties and the Bureau of Indian Affairs takeover, the Wounded Knee Occupation and the rise of the American Indian Movement.

When most people hear of Native Americans, they cannot help but think of elaborate headdresses, red skinned warriors, and lively dancing. Although these aspects of Native American culture are fascinating, more important is where they fare in our society 's past and present. Restrictive laws and acts such as the Indian Removal Act, the Indian Reorganization Act, Fort Laramie treaties, and the Trail of Tears forced Native Americans from their lands. When settlers and the American government saw the resistance of Native Americans to forced assimilation, they resorted to racial discrimination and relocation to reservations. This history of discrimination has fueled calls for the United States government to pay reparations and the return of Native Americans to their indigenous lands.

During the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had formed policies which reduced land allotted to Native Americans. By enforcing these laws as well as Anglo-American ideals, the United States compromised indigenous people’s culture and ability to thrive in its society.

When first considering the Navajo-Hopi land dispute as a topic of research, I anticipated a relatively light research paper discussing the local skirmishes between the two tribes. However, my research has yielded innumerable volumes of facts, figures and varying viewpoints on a struggle that has dominated the two tribes for over 100 years. The story is an ever-changing one, evolving from local conflict to forcible relocation to big business interests. The incredible breadth of the dispute's history makes it impossible to objectively cover the entire progression from all viewpoints. I will therefore focus on current issues - and their historical causes - facing the two tribes as they mutually approach

The Hopi Indians are Native Americans who lived on 1.5 million acres of reservation in Northeastern Arizona. In the beginning, the Hopi Indians were a hunting and gathering group divided into small groups that lived in pit houses. (A pit-house is a building that is partly dug into the ground and covered by a roof.) Around 700 A.D. the Hopi Indians became an agricultural tribe by growing blue ears of corn by using runoff from the mesas.(A mesa is an isolated flat-topped hill with steep sides.). In the late 1200’s a ginormous drought forced 36 of the 47 villages on the Hopi mesas to be abandoned. Following the massive drought, the 11 remaining villages increased in size where then three new villages were established in Northeastern Arizona.

From its birth, America was a place of inequality and privilege. Since Columbus 's arrival and up until present day, Native American tribes have been victim of white men 's persecution and tyranny. This was first expressed in the 1800’s, when Native Americans were driven off their land and forced to embark on the Trail of Tears, and again during the Western American- Indian War where white Americans massacred millions of Native Americans in hatred. Today, much of the Indian Territory that was once a refuge for Native Americans has since been taken over by white men, and the major tribes that once called these reservations home are all but gone. These events show the discrimination and oppression the Native Americans faced. They were, and continue to be, pushed onto reservations,

The Hopi tribe is located in northeastern, Arizona. The Hopi tribe encompasses more than 1.5 million acres. It is made up of 12 villages on three mesas. The Hopi people have lived as peaceful and humble farmers respectful of the land. Hopi means peaceful person or hopeful.

One tribe, the Shoshone, were promised “everything necessary to comfortable living” in exchange for fulfilling their side of the Indian Removal act [Document 8]. They remained civil even when adjusting from originally thriving in “every foot of what you proudly call America” to being “content with the little patch allowed”. They were originally promised seed, farming tools, food, and cattle during the arrangement, but the United States did not carry out their side of the bargain; killing their game, stealing their furs, and using the Shoshone meadows to feed their

Our nation’s history has been deep rooted in the conflict involving Native Americans, ever since the beginning of America and it is one hard to get rid of even as the days go by. The impact of colonialism can be seen in Native American communities even today, and it can only be understood through a cultural perspective once you experience it. Aaron Huey, who is a photographer, went to Pine Ridge reservation and it led him to document the poverty and issues that the Sioux Indians go through as a result of the United States government’s long term actions and policies against them. One must question all sources regarding these topics because there is a lot of biased and misinformation about Native American struggles, and sometimes schools do not thoroughly teach the truth so students can get an insight. There are also different sociological perspectives in this conflict, along with many differing opinions on how to approach the problem and deal with it. This is where ideas clash because people believe their views are right regarding how to handle it.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe currently fights to save its only water source from natural gas and oil contamination. This troubling current event has a somewhat forgotten historical analogue where very similar themes presented themselves. The Kinzua Dam Controversy, which took place in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, resulted in the displacement of over 600 Seneca Indian families and the acquisition of a large tract of traditional Seneca Land for dam building. Additionally, the acquisition of Seneca land represented a breach of “The Treaty with the Six Nations of 1794,” which explicated prevented such action by the US Government. The dam and its construction, which primarily benefitted Pittsburg, inspired a heated discourse concerning the ethics of native relocation.