Native Americans and the Environment: A survey of twentieth century issues with particular reference to peoples of the Colorado Plateau and Southwest (page 2 of 10)

Author: David Rich Lewis. Adapted from: Lewis, David R. 1995. "Native Americans and the Environment: A survey of twentieth century issues." American Indian Quarterly, 19: 423-450, by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Visit the University of Nebraska Press website at nebraskapress.unl.edu/.

Agriculture and Ranching

By the beginning of the twentieth century, land use in the form of agriculture and grazing had fundamentally changed the face of native America. Indian cultivation, irrigation, and field distribution systems had shaped the land Euroamericans claimed as wilderness. Later, under the direction of agency farmers, intensive replaced shifting cultivation, row agriculture replaced variable mound planting, monoculture replaced inter-cropping, and leveled fields replaced flood plain farming.  Well drilling, irrigation, dry land farming techniques, and unbounded optimism helped government officials and Indians expand cultivation into the arid zones of the Southwest. Fences, pest and weed controls, and introduced cultigens flattened once-diverse field biota. Where Indians would not take up farming, whites bought or leased their fields.

Eventually, over-cropping marginal arid lands without adequate rotation or fertilization diminished field productivity. Improper irrigation brought alkali to the surface of thin western soils, rendering tens of thousands of acres sterile for all but the hardiest sagebrush or saltweed. In the late 1920s and 1930s, drought, dust, depression, isolation, and wild fluctuations in crop prices and the larger market economy led to the widespread abandonment of Indian farming. The lands themselves remained disturbed and unproductive, or else were leased to non-Indian operators who saw them as commodity rather than as cultural inheritance. Modern technology has rendered some of those lands productive again. Water flows where it never did, machines clear land once too difficult to prepare, and petrochemicals combat pests and poor soils. The use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers has, in some cases, poisoned residents.

Along with tillage, the ready adoption of domesticated animals radically altered the landscape and biotic diversity of reservation lands. Livestock competed with and replaced native animal species, including bison, changing Indian land use patterns, subsistence preferences, and lifestyles. Predator control, fencing, water and range reclamation projects, assimilationist policies, and market forces ensured that change. If some Indians resisted becoming farmers, they appeared more willing to become cowboys. This expansion of Indian ranching ran headlong into the ecological nightmare of the 1930s. In response, federal officials instituted drastic livestock reduction and reseeding programs on a dozen western reservations, particularly in the Southwest. Range scientists introduced new plant species and livestock breeds into fragile ecosystems, but were unable to solve problems of overgrazing in drought-ravaged places such as the Navajo and Tohono O'odham reservations.

On a cultural level, the programs backfired because they ignored native ecological explanations and methods. Tohono O'odhams insisted that keeping too many horses had not hurt their range, but that the range was in bad shape because too many horses were being killed. "The horse is endowed with magic powers," they told investigators, "and the white men are only asking for trouble when they slaughter sick animals." Peter Blaine Sr., a Tohono O'odham assistant forester in the 1930s, recalled, "I say we never overgrazed! The thing that cut down our cattle was drought. If the drought hits, grass dies. We leave it up to the drought, he'll cut down on cattle. We didn't get rid of our cattle just because someone told us to.... we took our chances with the rain.... If cattle are going to die, let them die. But they will die right here on their reservation. Right here in their own country."

Since 1940, Western tribes and rural communities have dealt with issues of overgrazing and erosion, invasive noxious plants, high reclamation costs, and decisions about proper land use. Given past experiences, tribes are beginning to weigh the advantages of leasing lands to non-Indians against developing their own livestock operations that might be more sensitive to sustainable agricultural alternatives. The White Mountain and San Carlos Apaches offer successful examples of sustainable long-term ranching operations on reservation and national forest lands. Throughout the West, the debate continues over private grazing and the health of the public range.

Follow these links to:
Forest and Watersheds
Hunting and Fishing
Water
Natural Resource Mining and Pollution
Waste Storage and the Atomic Threat
Tourism
Stereotypes and Interests in Conflict
Conclusion
Selected References