Notes on America's National Parks and Indigenous Histories

Overview of America's National Parks and Their Historical Context

  • Author: Dina Gilio-Whitaker
  • Date: April 2, 2019
  • Key Theme: The narrative surrounding the establishment of America's national parks is often incomplete and omits significant historical and cultural contexts regarding Indigenous peoples.

Historical Context of Conservation Movement

  • The conservation movement's origins are often traced back to 19th-century literary figures:

    • Ralph Waldo Emerson
    • Henry David Thoreau
    • John Muir

  • Emerson's work titled Nature (1836):

    • Marks the beginning of transcendentalism, emphasizing the connection between nature and the divine.
    • Transcendentalism, a religious and philosophical movement, is founded by Emerson with contributions from Thoreau.

  • Thoreau and Emerson as Naturalists:

    • Advocated for the intimate experience of nature as a means to achieve spiritual enlightenment.

  • Role of George Catlin:

    • An artist unconnected to transcendentalism, who documented Indigenous tribes in the West.
    • Known for his paintings and the book Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians (1841).
    • Expressed concern over the extinction of buffalo and Indigenous tribes dependent on them.
    • Proposed the establishment of a “Nations’ park” to preserve both wildlife and natural beauty.

Emergence of National Parks

  • Growing national anxiety about modernity led to a more serious consideration of national parks by the early 1870s.
  • National parks are frequently referred to as “America’s greatest idea.”

Critique of the National Park Creation

  • Mark David Spence's critique in Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (1999):
    • Links the establishment of national parks with the federal policy of Indian removal.
    • Highlights the contradiction of designating lands as empty wilderness while they were still occupied by Indigenous peoples.
Specific National Parks Discussed
  • Yellowstone National Park:
    • Established in 1872, originally located within territories of several Indigenous nations:
    • Shoshone
    • Bannock
    • Crow
    • Nez Perce
    • Smaller tribes and bands
    • Treaties of Fort Bridger and Fort Laramie (1868):
    • Ceded lands to the U.S. while allowing tribes to retain rights for hunting and subsistence.
    • Misconception: Early settlers thought Indigenous people avoided the Yellowstone area due to superstitions, rather than acknowledging their historical use of the land for various purposes.
Rationale for Establishing Yellowstone
  • Initially established for its unique features, such as the geysers, with the intention of attracting tourism.
  • Shift to preservation rationale occurred due to threats from private development, mining, and overexploitation of resources.
  • By 1886, the Department of the Interior articulated a purpose of wilderness preservation with military enforcement to uphold the park's integrity.

Legal Implications and Indigenous Rights

  • Lacey Act (1894):

    • Prohibited all hunting within park boundaries, including that of Indigenous peoples, violating treaty rights.

  • Ward v. Race Horse (1896):

    • Supreme Court case concluding that Congress held the authority to disregard Indian hunting rights, reinforcing the erosion of these rights.
    • This decision ultimately nullified some protections for Indigenous hunting within national parks.

  • Subsequent legal cases:

    • 1999 case involving Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians overturned Race Horse.
    • 2016 Wyoming state court case denied the Crow Nation's treaty hunting rights; this case is currently pending in appeal.

Understanding Wilderness and Indigenous Cultures

  • The historical narrative framing national parks often emphasizes wilderness as devoid of human influence, neglecting Indigenous histories and ongoing relationships with these lands.

  • Spence's analysis reveals the complexities of preservationist ideologies that erase Indigenous contributions and presence.

  • Central Argument:

    • The ideal of a human-free wilderness established by early preservationists contributes to current environmental narratives that overlook and marginalize Indigenous peoples.

  • Gilio-Whitaker concludes that the rhetoric used in preservation continues to reflect colonial patterns, replicating white supremacy and settler privileges within environmentalism.

  • The author emphasizes the importance of understanding these historical contexts for achieving true environmental justice.

  • Reference: Excerpt from As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker, published by Beacon Press, 2019.