Healing Our World
Weekly Commentary
By Jackie Giuliano

How The West Was Lost

There is a stillness On the tops of the hills. In the tree tops You feel Hardly a breath of air. The small birds fall silent in the trees. Simply wait: soon You too will be silent.
Goethe

As the new millennium approaches, it is time to clean house and rid ourselves of many of the false assumptions upon which we have based our lives. One of the assumptions that must go is that the American West was opened with the pioneer spirit and the hard work and toil of many people seeking freedom. The truth is that a meddling United States government and a few powerful and greedy businessmen thwarted attempts of settlers to make a new life, butchered Native Americans and set the tone for the environmental abuses taking place today.

The site at Black Mesa, Arizona, home of the Hopi Indian Reservation and a few thousand Navajo (known as Dineh) is a classic example of the abusive ethic that is destroying our world. Because the largest coal strip mine in the U.S. wants to expand, the U.S. government has been leading the forced relocation of the Dineh who remain at the site, a place they have inhabited since the U.S. Army tried to wipe them all out in 1863. The May 2, 1999 Healing Our World article at: http://www.ens.lycos.com/ens/may99/1999L-05-02g.html detailed this tragedy. Nearly 12,000 Dineh have been forcibly moved from their tribal land to a contaminated site in New Mexico, home of the largest radioactive waste spill in U.S. history. Efforts continue to remove the remaining 3,000 Dineh, mostly elders, from Black Mesa.

Faulty Assumption #1: The remaining Native Americans were given large tracts of land to live on as a compensation for the damage we had wrought in invading the West. As revealed in an article by Judith Nies in the Summer 1998 issue of Orion, President Chester Arthur in 1882 created a reservation for 1,100 Hopis, 300 Paiutes and a few thousand Navajo. Many have wondered why such a wealthy friend of business would give a piece of land three-fourths the size of Connecticut to these groups. Sadly, history has revealed that this gesture had nothing to do with compensating these people for the atrocities wrought upon them. It was all about protecting timber, copper and coal.

In 1879 when a resource survey was done for the government, it was reported to the President that about 20 Mormon families were living on the land. President Arthur understood that if the white families remained, they would be able to buy 160 acres for $1.25 per acre and gain title to the resources of the area. But if the land was designated an Indian Reservation, then it would no longer be open to white settlement and the government would control the mineral rights.

Faulty Assumption #2: Coal is rarely used in the modern world. Over 55 percent of the nation's electricity is generated by the burning of coal. Few know that a large percentage of the coal used to generate that electricity comes from strip mines on Indian Reservations. Here is how it came to be:

1950s - Utah lawyer John Boyden creates a new tribal council for the Hopi. He then gets a bill introduced into Congress that allows the Hopi to sue the Navajo for title to the coal lands. He begins negotiation with Peabody Coal Company to develop the land.

1966 - The puppet tribal council secretly signs mineral leases with Peabody, with no discussion from either the Hopi or Dineh people.

1970 - Mohave Generating Station opens, followed by the Navajo Generating Station in 1974. Combined, the two plants require 12 million tons of coal a year and are the largest polluters in the country. The coal mine needed to expand and the remaining Dineh needed to be removed.

1974 - With the help of John Boyden again, Congress transfers nearly a million acres of land to the Hopi, who live many miles from the strip-mining. Now the remaining Dineh become trespassers on Hopi land, making it legal for the U.S. government to act to remove them. Mohave Generating Station uses 18,240 tons of coal per day at full load (Photo from SRP Generating Stations) It is no surprise that this legislation passed. Bechtel, Peabody's parent company, basically ran the government. Its former president was Secretary of State George Schultz. Its former legal council was Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and the former director of Bechtel Nuclear was Ken Davis, the Assistant Secretary of Energy. Even the president of Peabody Coal was on President Ronald Reagan's Energy Advisory Board. But corporate polluters and greedy power companies exist because we buy their goods and use their electricity. The battle is not between environmental groups and utilities. The real fight is with ourselves and the consumption mentality we have been brought up to accept.

We must pressure Congress to stop the human rights abuses continuing against the Dineh and stop the pollution from the power plants. But we must also curb our insatiable appetite for an endless supply of cheap electricity and fuel. Whenever anyone turns on a light switch in most of the West, much oF that power is coming from coal stripped from Black Mesa.

I wish that each time we flipped on a light switch we could feel the pain of a noble people whose lives are in a shambles, who fear getting up each day and who equate relocation with disappearing. Maybe then we would decide that enough is enough.

So it seems that the West was never won - it was lost, and the price we pay for that loss is our souls. How will we get them back?

RESOURCES

1. The complete article by Judith Nies can be found at http://www.orionsociety.org/nies.html

2. For updated status reports on actions against the Dineh, visit http://www.solcommunications.com/bigmountain/bigmtnreports.html

3. To get a video about the Dineh relocation and inquire about what you can do to help, contact Steve Sugarman, executive director Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, Tel: 310-456-3534. You can email Steve at SEE8541@aol.com

4. The Dineh Resistance page is at http://www.theofficenet.com/~redorman/pagea~1.htm and more info can be found at http://www.migrations.com/ and at the Southeastern Native American Alliance at http://members.xoom.com/senaa/index2.html

5. Email Kevin Gover, the head of the U. S. Bureau of Indian Affairs at kevin_gover@ios.doi.gov and tell him this exploitation must stop.

6. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Demand that the harassment of the Dineh end and that steps be taken to help these people that the U.S. has persecuted since its beginning. Demand that coal-fired plants be closed or cleaned up. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html or you can search by state at http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html. You can also find your representatives at http://congress.nw.dc.us/innovate/index.html

7. Get help getting off the consumer treadmill from Adbusters at http://www.adbusters.org./campaigns/index.html and get help challenging your assumptions from PR Watch at http://www.prwatch.org/prw_issues.html

8. Seeds of Simplicity will help you reduce consumption at http://www.slnet.com/cip/seeds/default.htm and check their links for many ideas.

9. Turn off lights you don't need, drive less and use less water. Do you really need a sparkling clean car and a green lawn in summer? That's drinking water, you know.

10. Listen to the Native America Calling radio program at http://nativecalling.org/circle.html

11. Read the EPA report on the Mohave Generating Station at http://www.epa.gov/region09/air/mohave.html

12. Learn about the issues. A great alternative bookstore is Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon at http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/associate?assoc_id=212 where you will find a wonderful alternative to the massive chain bookstores taking over the market.

Visit the Healing Our World Archive and check out the many resource links in past articles.      

This Healing Our World article appear courtesy of Jackie Giuliano (copyright 1999)
and is printed with the permission of the Environment News Service.

Jackie Giuliano, a writer and a Professor of Environmental Studies, can be found in Venice, California, feeling ashamed, outraged and embarrassed by his country's actions. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@healingourworld.com