Reported and Written By
Suzanne Marcus Fletcher

Photographs:
Suzanne Marcus Fletcher

First published as an exclusive by SENAA International, January 2001.
Reprinted with written permission from the author November 2014.

 
In the decade following, more than12,000 Dineh were forcibly relocated from their ancestral lands at a taxpayer expense in excess of $300 million, capping the largest, most controversial land dispute in U.S. history. And it’s not over yet.

At midnight, February 1, 2000, a new wave of Dineh were deemed eligible for eviction. Reservation zoning called "HPL" (Hopi Partitioned Land) changed hands, leaving the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (B.I.A.), and moving to the legal jurisdiction of the Hopi Tribal Government. Dineh residing on HPL who have not signed a controversial agreement to remain, are scheduled for eviction pending final approval from the U.S. District Court in Phoenix.

Like Dineh Traditionalist, Pauline Whitesinger, Bonnie’s mother, refusal among many elders to abandon their homes is only part of the story. Unwillingness to defy a holy promise to protect Black Mesa is at the core of the issue.

Still, others take a different view. Resistance, say some, is a final act of conscience for more than 12,000 Dineh previously relocated. With the advent of HPL zoning 27 years ago, many became trespassers on land to which they are inexorably bound, refusing to sever ties with ancestral burial sites, religious shrines and the soil that has sustained Dineh religion since the Navajo emerged in the region centuries ago.

For the Dineh, meaning "The People," the Navajo’s self-chosen name, bearing out their fate as protectors of the natural world is a Traditionalist imperative, despite bitter opposition and more than a century of relocation. Some assert that the Dineh path is simply "manifest destiny" in action. Others maintain it’s business as usual, the inevitable outcome of a prophecy gone bad. Poverty, alcoholism, depression and suicide are some of the vestiges of what some have coined, "The war without end," America’s unresolved conflict with the First Americans.

Since the early 1970’s, an obstructive law called Bennett Freeze has been in effect on HPL and other portions of the Navajo reservation, making it illegal for the Dineh to fix their homes -- such as mending a broken window or repairing a leaky roof. The majority of Dineh hogans now appear frozen in decay, much as the Freeze suggests.

With a per capita income lower than that of many third world countries, the Dineh are among the nation’s poorest. Like most Big Mountain residents, Whitesinger has no running water, no indoor plumbing, and no electricity.

Navajo Nation spokesman, Mellor Willie, suggested that some Big Mountain residents have access to solar power, yet few seem positioned to utilize it. Much of Big Mountain life is spent on survival. Whitesinger’s weekly rigors, which include child rearing, are further complicated by kidney failure, requiring her to travel hundreds of miles for dialysis treatment. "We used to live with my mother," she says. "We moved in here so my children could get the school bus."

Whitesinger points to the ceiling while adding, "There are wall mice here, and the smell of feces is bad during monsoon season." Used to bucking up, Whitesinger brightens: "I’ve got a few dollars for dinner, but I need gas to get to the store."

Getting to the Black Mesa store is a pilgrimage unto itself. Many Big Mountain residents travel miles of ungraded dirt roads daily for basic water and food. "We won’t let go of who we are," Whitesinger says. "We’ve lived with so much stress for so long."

Glancing at the soil beyond her door, she adds, "I work for my children’s future. I went to the International body (United Nations) to make a stand for my people. We have to keep going, there’s no place else to go."

Massive siphoning of the Navajo aquifer has reportedly left the Navajo and Hopi tribes of Black Mesa with critical water insufficiency. Since Peabody Western Coal opened the Black Mesa and Kayenta strip mines between 1970-1973, coal operations annually consume approximately 1.58 billion gallons of pristine water from the Southwest’s largest natural aquifer. The ground water is utilized to slurry coal via pipeline 273 miles to the Mojave Generating Station, a coal-fired plant in Laughlin, Nevada. Black Mesa coal provides electricity for much of the U.S. Southwest, including Los Angeles. According to leading environmentalists, Peabody’s operations have significantly depleted the ancient N-aquifer, leaving surface wells dry and in some cases, polluted by the mine’s contaminates. According to the Department of Interior, Office of Surface Mining, strip mining is expected to continue until at least 2011.

In 1951, a team of savvy, connected lawyers coupled with their energy clients descended on Black Mesa with deep pockets and an unquenchable zeal to tap into the land: The coal rush was on. Though several conglomerates would reap the benefits of oil and uranium mining, Peabody Western Coal Company, the world’s largest producer of coal energy, emerged as the dominant force in the region. Peabody ultimately established two adjacent coal operations: the Black Mesa and Kayenta mines, now covering more than 63,000 acres of tribal lands.

The 1950’s coal rush provided a new slate of enterprise, as the lure of lucrative mineral commissions proved a highly effective motivator for attorneys who would face years of government bureaucracy. Two powerful attorneys were made representatives for the Navajo and Hopi Tribes. Together, they urged Congress to rule on which tribe had authority to issue mineral leases. Congress suggested the two tribal councils engage in a "friendly lawsuit" in federal court to determine mineral rights. Years of legal bidding, negotiating and maneuvering produced the pivotal Healing vs. Jones, in 1958, where both tribes claimed rights to the 1882 reservation. Attorney Norm Littel represented the Navajo interests, his contract then stipulated 10% of all future coal revenues. Against the will of Hopi Traditionalists and without the majority of the Hopi Tribe’s approval, an ambitious, Salt Lake City lawyer named John Boyden maneuvered legal representation of the Hopi’s by appealing to the financial interests of Hopi Progressives. Fueled by the promise of immense coal royalties coupled with B.I.A. approval, Boyden nearly single handedly resuscitated the Hopi Tribal Council, despite vehement opposition from Hopi Traditionalists who enjoyed a long tradition of successful self-governance.

Beyond Boyden’s formidable legal background, he served as counsel and Deacon of the Mormon Church. The Mormon Church then held an 8% interest in Peabody Coal. In a stunning conflict of interest, it was later learned by Charles Wilkinson, attorney and professor of law at the University of Colorado, that Boyden represented both Peabody Coal and the Hopi Tribal Council in Healing vs. Jones. A charismatic negotiator, Boyden and other counsel portrayed the Navajos as "appropriators" of Hopi culture, "takers" of Hopi land. Boyden’s defining argument positioned the Hopis as direct descendants of the Anasazi, the earliest of the Southwest Pueblo Peoples.

Boyden further argued that the Navajo were comparatively recent immigrants to the region, concluding the lion’s share of coal leases belonged to the Hopi. The court agreed. Healing vs. Jones would rule that 100% of coal revenues from an area known as District 6 would belong exclusively to the Hopis; the rest of the 1882 reservation would be a Joint Use Area. The Hopi and Navajo tribal governments were ordered to split mineral rights to the Joint Use Area.

Ultimately, John Boyden staged one of the largest land heists in U.S history when Peabody Coal reportedly obtained subsurface rights on Hopi territory and subsequent coal leases for a fraction of their value elsewhere.

Fueled by arguments of a growing "range war" between the two tribes, coupled with the powerful support of several energy concerns as well as Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, Boyden persuaded Congress to pass PL - 93-531 in 1974. The law resulted in further land divisions, increased corporate access to coal reserves and marked a grim new chapter in Navajo relocation.

As Healing vs. Jones proved, the ancestral genesis of the Hopi and Dineh and the dates of their Southwest emergence played a pivotal role in land entitlement nearly a thousand years later. Though the Hopis are one of the oldest links to the Anasazi, Anthropologist David Brugge, author of the "Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute," says new advances in DNA testing provides highly credible evidence that the Navajo tribe is actually a synthesis of the ancient Anasazi and the Athapaskan tribe of Canada. The Athapaskans migrated to the Southwest approximately 1500 AD, though some suspect earlier. This puts Navajo emergence in the region far earlier than the latter 18th century theory successfully employed in Healing vs. Jones. Though many anthropologists affirm the new DNA findings, it has not thwarted evictions.

Eviction deadlines for the Dineh have come and gone for years, yet for many, February 1, 2000 symbolized more than relocation. It was a global declaration of the Navajo record, a legacy rife with conflict and struggle.

To be sure, the Dineh have endured one of the darkest paths in Native American history. In 1863, Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson implemented a scorched earth policy that saw federal troops torch thousands of acres of Navajo corn. Watering holes and hogans were completely destroyed. Navajo livestock were slaughtered en masse crippling the tribe’s economic base. With no place to hide and ripe for capture, the stage was set for the "Long Walk," perhaps the darkest chapter in Navajo history. In 1864, under orders of General Carleton, Carson set out and succeeded in capturing thousands of Navajo from their ancestral mesas, many surrendered on their own. Ultimately, more than 8,000 children, women and men were chained and forced to walk 300 miles in freezing temperatures to Central New Mexico’s Fort Sumner internment camp. Some historians noted that pregnant women who could not keep pace were shot. Thousands more died of exposure during the five year imprisonment.

In 1868, despite a sharp depletion of the Navajo tribe, the Dineh emerged from Fort Sumner a force to be reckoned with -- demonstrating a powerful will to survive -- and a steely will to return to their soil.

Most informed Congressional officials consider the forced relocation of over 12,000 Dineh a tragic failure -- even those who supported the Settlement Agreement. Barry Goldwater, who championed the Agreement through Congress later confessed,

"The relocation of the Navajo was the worst mistake of my career."

Prior to resigning his post as Director of the Government Relocation Commission, Leon Berger was more explicit, "The forcible relocation of the Navajo is a tragedy of injustice that will be a blot on this country for many generations." Relocation expert and Cal Tech Anthropologist Dr. Thayer Scudder agrees, "For the Navajo, relocation is about the worst thing you can do to them, short of killing them. It’s one of the worst cases of involuntary community resettlement I have studied throughout the world."

Legal fallout from what has been coined "the last Indian war" rages on. In March 2000, the Associated Press reported that the Hopi Tribe joined the Navajo Nation in a lawsuit against Peabody Coal and several utility companies deriving coal energy from Black Mesa. The tribes allege they were defrauded out of full and fair compensation for coal resources in recent renegotiations for coal mining leases.

Resistance has its price. The family has experienced livestock confiscations more times than they care to recall, each time with more devastating results. Livestock in "excess" of theirHPL grazing allowance are subject to seizure without remuneration. During livestock impoundments, the 80-year-old elder sustained a broken wrist, a twisted neck and a permanent back injury due to entanglements with Hopi Rangers while protecting her turf.

The Lanes have incurred major livestock seizure in recent years. On one occasion, their prized sheepdog disappeared. The family suspects the dog was killed while defending the herd.

For what is arguably a large sum, Lane was permitted to buy-back her own livestock from B.I.A. impoundment yards, a feat made possible by an East Coast friend who stepped up with the funds. Told a cashiers check was unacceptable by Keams Canyon B.I.A. officials, Lane’s friend reportedly wired funds at an additional expense to the Keams Canyon Hopi B.I.A. before Lane’s livestock would be eligible for pick-up.

Fred Chavez, Land operations manager for the Keams Canyon, B.I.A., views the matter from another perspective. While not confirming or denying individual incidents, Chavez maintains that grazing permit laws must be enforced on Hopi Partitioned Land. "We give them a five day notice of the action to be taken," says Chavez. They have two weeks to collect [the livestock] before we begin advertising in the papers or send them to auction. Excess livestock should be moved off the land."

Chavez summarized the situation this way, "How would you like it if I was squatting on your land? I’ve spoken to Pauline Whitesinger and others on HPL, I have listened to them, but I can’t change the laws. If it were me, I would move to my side of the fence."

Rena Babbitt Lane breaks a stoic veneer after nightfall. The smell of Juniper remains in the air, compliments of the Mesa. She recalls a friend, Sonny Manygoats, who froze to death returning home on foot after his horse was confiscated. She speaks her native tongue through a translator,

  
Some have called Black Mesa a microcosm of the world, wherein numerous factions warring over land epitomize the ideologies of opposing cultures: The Traditionalists vs. the Progressives.

For others, Black Mesa embodies America’s widening spiritual divide. For Dineh and Hopi Traditionalists, their position might best be summarized by Thomas Banyacya, a translator of the Hopi Prophesies. "The Dineh and Hopi are bound for a reason. We are the natural stewards of the Four Corners area, guardians of its colossal resources until America understands how to use the land’s power for positive ends."

Hopi Prophesies which date back more than a thousand years predicted the energy/land conflict and, according to Hopi Instructions, warned that should Black Mesa be destroyed, and should the world’s indigenous protectors perish, the earth would no longer be in balance. If this comes to pass, say Traditionalists, the earth will respond in kind with a process called "Purification," purging all life.

In the interim and as history would prove, protecting the land’s eco-future has its price, as Black Mesa continues to propel the Southwest’s massive energy consumption while forging some of the most pivotal chapters in Native American history.

For "The People" known as Navajo Dineh, the conflict that is Black Mesa is a morality play of such immense proportions, some say, it could have only been staged by the Creator himself.

Please contact the author at  thebodypoliticmedia@gmail.com with feedback and comments.