Washington Democrats were surprised that Native Americans were not rejoicing with them when Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland seized control of the Navajo Nation land surrounding the Chaco Culture National Park in northwest New Mexico. They were shocked when members of the Navajo Nation kept Secretary Haaland from celebrating her actions at Chaco.
What will Washington Democrats be if the Nation Navajo files suit against Secretary Haaland and her seizing control of land belonging to the Navajo Nation?
In my forty years of experience working with members of the 19 Pueblos, Hopi, Dine, and Apache, I learned of the many challenges they faced individually and as communities.
I quickly became acquainted with the competing interests within their communities, among the surrounding native communities, and with local and state governments. I learned, never to become enmeshed in Native American Politics.
In 1853 the federal government forced the Dine off their land, and they marched over four-hundred miles to an unfamiliar land in the dead of winter. The Dine still referred to this as, “The Long Walk.” In 1868 Washington allowed the Dine to return to eastern Arizona, also home to the Hopi people. What was once a friendly relationship between Hopi and Dine became a bitter rivalry. It took almost 150 years, hundreds of millions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of acres of land to settle the conflict between the Hopi and the Dine that the federal government created. Now Deb Haaland as Secretary of Interior is behaving with almost just a heavy a hand.
Haaland rekindled old conflicts between the nineteen Pueblos and the Navajo Nation when she unilaterally seized control of over 350,000 acres of Navajo Nation Land and BLM land surrounding Chaco on behalf of nineteen Pueblos on June 2, 2023. UNESCO website states, “Chaco Canyon, a major centre of ancestral Pueblo culture between 850 and 1250, was the focus for ceremonials, trade and political activity for the prehistoric Four Corners area.”
The nineteen Pueblos and the Navajo Nation have been discussing how to manage energy development in the area surrounding Chaco and protect the rights of the Dine who live on those lands. Haaland usurped the ongoing discussion and seized control of the land, which favored her Laguna Pueblo and the other eighteen Pueblos.
Haaland has demonstrated that she is no different from any other secretaries of the Interior who preceded her. She seized control of native lands without regard for agreements and Native sovereignty. I believe this is why Native American leaders across the nation have not voiced their approval of her actions. They understand they could be next.
Washington leaders, bureaucrats, and lobbyists still view the West and its inhabitants in terms of nineteenth-century caricatures, and believe that they are as benevolent as the Wizard of Oz, which could not be further from the truth. This needs to change now. President Biden should start by rescinding Secretary Haaland’s unilateral order and encouraging the Navajo Nation and the nineteen Pueblos to create an agreement that addresses their competing interests on their lands. The federal government should continue with President Trump’s decentralization of the Department of Interior.
Image: Shane Balkowitsch