Last week I had a chance to float the Green River through the Gates of Lodore and Split Mountain Canyons in Dinosaur National Monument. It’s a trip that has been on my list for a long time but only a small number of permits are issued to boaters via a lottery system and competition is fierce. When a company I work for offered me a spot on a trip, I jumped at the opportunity. I value my experiences in the wilderness above almost everything else in my life, but my perception of national parks as untouched, unpeopled spaces is based on a socially constructed idea of wilderness that is reinforced by the displacement of native peoples.
In his
book Wilderness in the American Mind, Roderic Nash discusses how
American ideas of wilderness have shifted. Early European settlers failed to
recognize that the American wilderness was land managed by Native Americans and
saw it as a challenge to overcome. Christian belief systems supported the
razzing of the wilderness, the bible which includes some of the earliest uses
of the word wilderness depicting the wilderness as a dangerous place: Jesus was
tempted by Satan in the wilderness, the tribes of Israel wandered the
wilderness for 40 years before entering the promised land. By contrast, many non-European
languages have no word for wilderness. Eventually, romantics began to depict
wilderness as a respite for modern man. In Henry David Thoreau’s essay Walking
he says “In wildness is the preservation of the world,” this is the idea that
is generally held by outdoor enthusiasts today and you can find it on many
bumper stickers. Both the puritanical idea that the wilderness must be cleared
for progress and the romantic idea of wilderness as a place of recovery and
escape rely on the displacement of Indigenous cultures, in the former case to
facilitate progress and in the latter to support the idea that the land is in
its natural state and empty of people.
The
idea that the canyons of the green are empty wilderness is supported by the
veneration of John Wesley Powell who explored them on a series of expeditions
in the post-civil war era. Powell gave the canyons the names we use today and
his image and quotes are plastered on park service signs across the west. Much
of the Green River is protected as National Park, Monument, or Wilderness Area
by the federal government, first of course the native peoples had to be
removed. While the canyons I have
floated in the west have been littered with artifacts of the archaic and
prehistoric Ancestral Puebloans and Fremont cultures, I have never encountered
a member of the modern Ute, Pueblo, or Navajo tribes who still call the area
home.
When the
country began to recognize the West's great beauty, many parks and natural
areas were developed to protect specific aesthetic resources. It was assumed
that native peoples lacked the resources and agency to protect these areas
themselves. A prime example of this is Mesa Verde National Park, home to iconic
cliff dwellings. Mesa Verde is entirely surrounded by the Ute Mountain Ute
Indian Reservation, and parts of the park were taken from the reservation under
protest by the tribe. The Ute have
developed a small tourism economy on the reservation focused on visiting
smaller ruins than the ones in the park, but there is no doubt it would be many
times more profitable had they been allowed to retain control of the land now
incorporated into the park.
R. E.
Burrillo catalogs the story of Mesa Verde and many similar tales in his book Behind
The Bears Ears. While the arc of history is long the book discusses how it
has bent towards justice in recent years with the creation of Bears Ears
National Monument. Bears Ears is the
first federally protected land that has been designated at the request of
native peoples and is managed in conjunction with a coalition of local tribes
who have a shared heritage in the region. The area is incredibly rich in
archeological sites, but it is also rich in minerals so shortly after the designation
was complete the trump administration stripped the monument from its original
1.3 million acres down to 201,397 acres. This was eventually reversed by the
Biden administration, but some user groups (mostly ATV riders, and miners), are
still sore over the loss of “their land to the federal government,” a fairly
ironic sentiment considering it was first stolen from the people now requesting
its protection.
In the
West native land rights are perhaps more visible, most reservations are in the
West after all, but it is also important that we recognize that all land in the
US is native land. Here in southern Ohio, a small reckoning is taking place
with the move to rename the Wayne National Forest. The proposed name change to Buckeye National
Forest has the support of many tribes who were removed from this land forcibly
by Anthony Wayne, the general who the forest is currently named to honor.
I have
been able to turn empty wilderness spaces into important places for myself, but
I struggle with what I owe to the people who were removed to make these parks
and wild spaces. Name changes and shared management are at least a good first
step.
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteI found your perspective on space in the American wilderness extremely interesting. I recently visited the National Museum of the American Indian in D.C. and found myself relearning a lot of history I hadn't read about since high school. The inherent violence of colonization is upsetting for many reasons, but the notion of Europeans bringing "civilization" to space that does not belong to them is one of the most frustrating to me. Even if one stray land treaty was agreed upon diplomatically between tribe and settler, the next settler to come around was undoubtedly going to exploit that relationship. I liked your quote: “Both the puritanical idea that the wilderness must be cleared for progress and the romantic idea of wilderness as a place of recovery and escape rely on the displacement of Indigenous cultures.” I think relating the love of the outdoors, particularly in the west, to a notion of liberation is inherently paradoxical. The U.S. prioritization of independence and freedom is based around an obsolete social hierarchy that idealized manifest destiny. A lot of arts organizations share land acknowledgements prior to performances, but I wonder if doing that or renaming a park is really going to change the public perceptions of that space; plenty of schools are named after indigenous tribes or have them as outdated mascots. Is appropriation just as dangerous as erasure? I think the fact that you are wrestling with these paradoxes, despite your love of the outdoors, is admirable. Very few spaces are truly empty, and to appreciate how they came to be, by nature or by manpower, adds greater depth to your interpretation of them as places.
Hi John! I liked your post, especially how many quotes and sources you included to explain how common American narratives about the outdoors are rooted in colonialism and imperialism. Your reference to the displacement of Native peoples reminded me of a few terms introduced in our reading from this week, Spatial Justice: A Frame for Reclaiming our Rights to Be, Thrive, Express, and Connect. More specifically, the example of the Ute people developing a small tourism economy with the remaining land left to them after the creation of the Mesa Verde National Park is not only an example of “spatial claims” but also an example of “spatial power”. On page four of the text, this term “is about how a given place creates the conditions that allow or deny [the capability of doing or accomplishing something.] It can also be the allowing or stripping of the rights of groups to prosper in space.”
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, your final statement about struggling to know what you owe to these removed Indigenous people struck a chord with me. It also reminded me of the essay Indigenous Prophecy and Mother Earth by Sherri Mitchell Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset from the Penawahpskek Nation. This essay is only 11 pages and a great read! In it, the author explains how racist ideologies have led to the purposeful degrading of Indigenous knowledge by mainstream governments, academics, and scientists. Through the silencing and ignoring of the keepers of Indigenous knowledge, “…thousands of years of data on things such as medicinal plant properties, biodiversity, migration patterns, climate changes, astronomical events, and quantum physics…” have been excluded from today’s universe of knowledge. Therefore, one thing people like you and me can do is read Indigenous creation myths and other writings of Indigenous people to understand their profound and invaluable ways of knowing the world. As the author states, “These foundational teachings provide us with a solid framework upon which we can build our lives.” Only once we begin to mend our fractured view of the world can we being to heal the fracturing of Indigenous societies and environment.
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteExcellent blog. I completely agree with what you said about the displacement of Native people. When I visited the five national parks in Utah, I saw the petroglyphs and pictographs left behind by ancient people who lived there long before these parks were established. Those engravings were a reminder that these lands were not the "untouched wilderness" we often imagine, but rather “places” of culturally rich people. The idea that these spaces were empty and wild landscapes only came about through a colonial lens that actively erased Indigenous presence and history.
One of the most telling examples of this erasure and the distortion of Indigenous realities comes from the work of European photographers. Such as Edward Curtis who set out to document Native Americans. When he arrived to photograph Indigenous people, he found that they were not living in the traditional ways he had imagined. Many were wearing sort of modern clothes, living in more contemporary settings. Disappointed that they didn’t fit his romanticized view of “authentic” Natives, Curtis had them dress in traditional clothing and pose in ways that fit his preconceived notions of what Indigenous life should look like. This is exactly what we talked about “doing gender or race”.
From a social justice perspective, national parks and wilderness areas are much more than just spaces for recreation and wildlife but they are political spaces. The history of these parks reflects a broader pattern of how Indigenous peoples have been dispossessed. While I treasure my experiences in national parks, I believe that national parks shouldn’t just be celebrated as places of natural beauty but they should also be recognized as sites of historical injustice.
I also wanted to mention the Three Patriarchs in Zion and The Gossips in Arches. The Three Patriarchs refers to the three towering rock formations in Zion National Park, named after biblical patriarchs and The Gossips is a rock formation consists of three tall sandstone towers standing side by side, resembling three female figures. The names really show how we "do" gender even in nature. The Three Patriarchs feels like it's all about male authority and power, while The Gossips plays into the stereotype of women. These names and their contrast perpetuate patriarchal ideas, framing masculinity as powerful and femininity as somewhat insignificant.
DeleteHi John,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog post, and your constructive way of explaining the concept of the wilderness, and the relationship it has with social justice. Though I have not been to any national parks or reserves here in America, I have been to a museum in the middle east (Lebanon), and I have seen how beautifully the history of the people who lived there was displaced. This means that for some places today that exist as a tourist attraction had people who call that wilderness their place. As a Christian, I resonate very well with your explanation of the wilderness as a dangerous place or a punishment ground in the case of the Israelites. This dresses my thoughts back to Northeast Nigeria where I come from. For over 15 years now, so many people have been forced out of their homes and villages, due to armed opposition group activities. Their homes and villages are burnt to the ground and those beautiful peri-urban settlements are now but a wilderness as though no one ever lived there. However, with military escorts and rigorous search by Mines Action Group, some of these sites can be accessed by scholars and researchers (not that anyone lives there anymore) because those are now dangerous grounds. It is interesting to understand how much social justice or injustice has on defined places. In a context where there is social justice, places can only develop but where social injustice thrives, those places will be empty spaces.
Hi John, first off I hope you had a fun trip!
ReplyDeleteI took a class on global issues in the environment and the topic of ‘wilderness’ was heavily discussed. The idea of wilderness, essentially the natural world untouched, is mainly false. As you mentioned, Indigenous peoples formed and interacted with the land long before the western expansion took place. The idea of ‘wilderness’ is absolutely a socially constructed concept that has been utilized in power struggles. Forcing relocation on the Indigenous people relates back to the class discussion around spatial and social injustice. By forcibly removing these populations, social injustice is demonstrated by the power held over these Indigenous communities that forced them to move. Spatial injustice, the geographic aspect of forceful relocation is demonstrated through the actual movements of these communities.
The good news is that many of the natural parks are calling for name changes and for indigenous knowledge to incorporate these communities and their knowledge back into these spaces. More and more environmental activist groups as well as social activist groups are fighting for indigenous rights. Although the previous things I mentioned can never undo the suffering these communities faced, it is a step in the right direction.
Hi John, I enjoyed reading this piece, and here is a little piece to add to it; in the United States, social justice, place, and space are closely associated with the idea of wildness. In the past, it has been used as an excuse for uprooting Native American communities and taking advantage of their resources. Because it offers vital ecological functions, wilderness preservation is closely related to concerns about environmental justice. Concerns about marginalized communities' access to wilderness exist because of things like need for more information, transportation costs, and other obstacles. The notion of wildness is also shaped by spatial factors, including ownership and territorial claims. Additionally, wilderness can help shape a sense of place and belonging, especially for marginalized communities. Recognizing these interrelated aspects can aid in addressing the social and environmental issues raised by wilderness preservation and in enhancing its significance.
ReplyDeleteHi John,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post and how you have presented the idea of “wilderness” being shaped by colonialism and the removal of Indigenous groups. Your discussion is a clear example of spatial power that indicates space in ways that is beneficial to some groups while excluding others. The removal of indigenous groups not only grasped land from them but also stripped them of their ability to live and manage those spaces in certain ways that were meaningful to them. Your post also reminded me of my own thesis on the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Ohio. Historically, Ohio's Indigenous communities used these earthworks as significant ceremonial and cultural sites. But as you've already mentioned, these sites were also taken from Indigenous people, just like a lot of other historical and holy places. Like Western national parks, the area was reconstructed as "empty" or accessible for preservation after these communities were removed. At present, the Hopewell Earthworks are celebrated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, but the history of Indigenous displacement behind that preservation is often ignored. The idea of long-term preservation of these places for their beauty and historical significance is important, but it’s also crucial to remember the people who were forced off the land to make that possible. Your post really helped me think more about these connections and the political discourses behind this.
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experience on the Green River. I haven’t had the chance to go out West yet, but I look forward to the day I do. Two things stuck out to me from your post. First is your discussion of the term “wilderness.” Last fall, I took a course, Wilderness Literature, where we read many books about the outdoors, including some you mentioned, and discussed the meaning of wilderness. By the end of the course, the class could not come up with an explicit definition. You would think we would be able to define a key term of the course, but actually, we discovered that wilderness was too hard to define. The more we discussed wilderness, the more we realized how subjective it was. Everyone had a different definition, and we also realized, as you discussed above, that our definition was vastly different than that of a Native American. This discrepancy reminds me of the beginning of our class, where we discussed space vs place, what we may see as an empty space a Native American may have seen as a specific place. In fact, many Native American tribes refer to places or times by a certain experience. In the book Black Elk Speaks, Black Elk discusses a battle. To non-Native Americans, the battle is known as Custer’s Last Stand or the Battle of Little Bighorn, but to the Lakota tribes, it is known as the Battle of the Greasy Grass because of the texture of the grass at the site. This illustrates the different interpretations of space and how that space becomes a unique place for different people. As Croswell says, “When humans invest meaning in a portion of space and then become attached to it in some way (naming is one such way), it becomes a place” (2004). What we need to remember is that this place has different meanings for each person who experiences it.
Another element that interested me is Native Americans’ view on land ownership. They did not view land as something that could be bought but as something they had the right to use. This caused many issues as Europeans began to move further into the Americas. Native Americans would roam the country, utilizing resources wherever they found them, as they had done for generations. When Europeans established homesteads that did not agree with this practice. They would prevent Native Americans from entering their land, and disagreements could turn violent. This was a drastically different framework than the Native Americans were used to, and it dramatically changed the way land was dealt with in the country. For the first time, territories had strict boundaries, and violating these boundaries was dangerous. This was one of the earliest spatial injustices in American history. It also is the beginning of white men creating spatial injustices in America. This legacy of spatial injustice laid the groundwork for modern-day inequities in land use and urban planning. This mentality of control is what has affected marginalized communities over the past century and longer.
Black Elk, & Neihardt, J. G. (1961). Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of The Oglala Sioux. Albany, N.Y.: Excelsior Editions, State University Press of New York Press
Cresswell, Tim. 2004. Place: A Short Introduction Download Place: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Pp. 1-12
https://blog.nativehope.org/battle-of-the-little-bighorn
https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/manhattan/different-views-land/different-views-land.cshtml
Hello John,
ReplyDeleteI was really touched by your blog post. I have never given much thought in regards to the native people that were forcefully removed from these beautiful landscapes. Tourists will see these areas as untouched nature reservations, but in reality the history of these lands remain rich. I like how you included the bit on the management at Bears Ears, as it is a positive step towards justice and inclusion. I also enjoyed hearing about local locations like Wayne National Forest. The changing of the name would at least acknowledge the history and the cultures that were displaced by Anthony Wayne. Thank you for your insightful blog post as it enabled me to see National Parks in a different perspective.