Tribal Reservations of Our Age

Which Native Americans?

Tribal Reservations of Our Age

Basic Rights Withheld

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

     The words were laid out there for all to see.  “Andrew Johnson, President of the United States of America, to all and singular to whom these presents shall come, greetings.”

     On that June day in 1868, General William Tecumseh Sherman and Samuel F. Tappen acting on behalf of the United States, sat down with Barboncito, Armijo, and 30 other Navajo chiefs and head men and signed “the treaty” that declared peace and set forth the future of the Navajo Nation.  The Diné were henceforth bound on the north by the 37^th degree of north latitude and on the south by an east west line passing through Old Fort Defiance.

     The Treaty

    Article 1 of the treaty detailed how the Navajos were protected from bad white men on authority of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington.  Likewise, any subject of the United States was protected from bad Navajos on authority of the appointed agent.  The United States pledged to build a warehouse, an agency building and residence for the agent, a carpenter shop, a blacksmith shop, and a schoolhouse.  The cost of the structures was not to exceed $11,500.

     Protocol for heads of family, non heads of family, and school aged children was outlined.  Planning for the distribution of seed for planting and agricultural implements was made.  The purchase of sheep and goats was detailed, and the head men were reminded that they should never again kill or scalp white men nor would they carry off women or children from settlements. 

     Article 13 described how the Diné rights, privileges, and annuities conferred by the terms of the agreement would be revoked if the tribe elected to leave the reservation or engage in war with the United States.  Following that article, the parties to the treaty signed their names.  Among the headmen and chiefs were Manuelito, Many Cattle, Jugador, Many Kids, Red Horses, A Former Colonel’s Name, Beard the Second, and Harrison Lapahie Jr’s great-great-great grandfather.

     The Record

     The rest is history.  Today, one hundred and forty three years later, the Navajo Nation unemployment is higher than 60%, alcoholism remains unchecked and debilitating, committee chairmen still attempt to run the government for their own benefit, tribal enterprise boards appoint themselves to life long terms, discussions and meetings are more important than actions, and cattle graze freely on the grounds of the government complex at Window Rock.

     To those who witness for the first time the chaos of the reservation life for the Diné, reactions vary from pity to disgust, but always with incredulity.  “We” must help these people is the reaction, but our brand of help doesn’t seem to work. 

     Perhaps the problem all along has been the missing Treaty articles  . . . those unwritten articles that defined just how the Navajos would become free and independent men set forth in the model that our forefathers envisioned for all equally created men. 

     The Modern Tribal Reservation

     The “U.S. Treaty with the Navajos, 1868” is a road map that has been repeated time and again.  It follows the very methodical steps of outlining the authority from the lands held in trust by the United States all the way back to Washington where the headman sits at his desk of heap big power.  That model of misdirected authority has been repeated all across this country, and the West has endured the most profound consequences.

     If the Navajo Treaty is studied, the reader is struck with the overwhelming array of articles defining what can’t be done rather than what can be done.  The modern corollary, an ever expanding array of environmentally and socially driven laws defining what can’t be done and imposed on communities, creates the same framework of oppression. 

     The reality is there are modern tribal reservations all over the West.  The majority have not been created by congressional act.  They have been created by the authority not vested in Congress that has progressively and systematically choked the independent existence of citizens and their municipalities.

     Two of the most striking examples of modern tribal reservations are New Mexico’s Rio Arriba and Catron Counties.  Both are profoundly affected by restrictive land designations imposed by the federal government.  The tribal agents in charge are not what you might think.  They are the Forest Service supervisors, the Fish and Wildlife Service officials, the State Game and Fish agents, the NM Environmental Department, that state’s Department of Health, and other social and human services headmen who have taken up the cause to help or direct the affairs of people.

    Those counties have been stripped of self reliance.  Many of the citizens have become wards of the state.  In Catron County, one of the largest and most sparsely populated counties in the nation, federal wilderness has dominated existence since before 1964. It has created a population dynamic that doubles the index of older folks relative to the state and halves the same index for youth.  For any degree of success, the youth must leave.  There are too few jobs and far too many of those are derived and fueled solely through federally transferred tax revenues.

     The Missing Articles of Defense

     Unless the argument can be made that tribal reservations must exist similarly to zoos where the elites can come and view the natives in their perpetual state of poverty, the 143 years of failure emanating from the “U.S. Treaty with the Navajos, 1868” must be terminated and redirected.  That treaty exists in hard copy where it can be viewed and read.  There are no underlying documents, though, that have created the myriad of other unofficial modern reservations.  Their existence is more systemic.  The underpinnings of why they exist must be rooted out and stripped of funding.   

    The question of how people respond when they have no history of creating wealth and jobs has huge implications on any road to recovery.  The fact it has never happened does not preclude it from being allowed to happen.  Quite the contrary, those people deserve every opportunity to seek equal footing with every citizen existing under the intent and spirit of the Constitution. 

     Suppression of the right to create and hold wealth is an act of tyranny.   We must remember that our Founding Fathers lived in a perpetual state of such tyrannical rule.  Their aptitude for creating wealth and jobs was latent and unpracticed.  What they had was insight into the moral and ethical acceptance of God given rights.  That remains our best tool in resolving the failures of historic tribal reservations. 

      Likewise, the modern tribal reservations, the Catron, Rio Arriba, and other counties of the American West, must act similarly if they are going to shed their yoke of hopelessness.  They must come to grips with their perpetual limitation of capital and human resources within their depleted communities.  The question arises.  How do they alter their course and build islands of robust economies? 

     First, there is a dire need to free those counties from the umbilical cord of government.  Secondly, the moral and ethical acceptance of God given rights must be resurrected.  Thirdly, these people need to be allowed to venture forth with neither the constraints . . . nor the safety net that has kept them in bondage. After all, the world’s “most perfect” union was formed on the basis of these most basic principles.    

     Free men standing independently for their survival become capable and productive men.  The Revolutionary War was fought and won for that simple premise.  If it was good enough for our founding fathers . . .  it should be good enough for all equally created men.  

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico.  Double, triple, quadruple the federal spending and the reservation syndrome will not be fixed.  The real fix is far too easy for logical debate.  Read aloud the arguments of the Framers regarding tyranny and it is eerily reminiscent of the federal government today.