In 1540 Francisco Vásquez de Coronado began his journey north from Mexico seeking the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola. He had with him a force of 330 Spaniards (most of whom were mounted soldiers) and 1,000 native allies. After conquering Zuñi Pueblo, Coronado sent an expedition under the command of Captain Pedro de Tovar to make contact with the Hopi. The Hopi met the Spaniards at the town of Kawaika-a with coldness. The Hopi were in battle formation and drew a line on the ground with sacred corn pollen telling the Spaniards not to cross it. There was a short battle that was won by the Spaniards. At this time there were an estimated 29,000 Hopi who lived in several well-established villages, many of which were defensively located on mesa tops.
For thousands of years the Hopi Indians have lived in permanent farming villages, called Pueblos by the Spanish. In 1847, the Mormons entered what is now Utah and began to proselytize the Utes, Paiutes, and Shoshones who have traditionally lived in this area. Within a decade, the Mormon missionaries began to move south into present-day Arizona and to seek converts among the Hopi. Overall the Mormon missionary work attracted only a few converts, but it was more successful than other Christian faiths. This diary looks at the nineteenth century Mormon missionary activities among the Hopi.
The Hopi have lived in a number of autonomous farming villages in northern Arizona for thousands of years. The designation "Hopi" is a contraction of Hopi-tuh which means "peaceful ones." While each Hopi village has been a self-governing entity, the United States government has always insisted on dealing with the Hopi as though they are a single unified tribe.
A century ago, the residents of the Hopi villages had differences of opinion on how to deal with the pressures from the American government to make them conform to American culture. Those who seemed to be amenable to assimilation were labeled as "friendlies" by the U.S. government, while those who wished to maintain the Hopi way were considered to be "hostiles."
The Forgotten People invite you to a press conference at the Veterans Park in Window Rock on Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 11:00 AM (DST) to announce filing a major lawsuit to get answers about the Navajo Rehabilitation Trust Fund monies to benefit the victims and survivors of the "Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute."
The Forgotten People have been cheated and are taking things into their own hands. We want to know what the stewards of our money did with our money and where it is. These are our funds, set aside by Congress for our benefit. The Freeze has been lifted. While we wait and nothing happens, our people are living in sub-standard, and overcrowded housing, without access to safe drinking water on land contaminated by uranium and coal mining.
Vine Deloria Jr. in God Is Red uses the self explanatory phrases, "spiritual owners of the land" and "political owners of the land." Now, it is the "political owners of the land" who have taken tribal lands by conquest and yet distort the historical record.
Three members from the Hopi Tribe arrived to give their testimonies as show support for their neighbors, The Dine. Their presence dispelled the public relations myth that the traditional Hopi and the Dine are involved in a Range War."
"Springtime" continues, as "BIA Hopi Agency Police and Rangers are patrolling this region (Big Mountain) where a few traditional elders continue to live and also resist federal mandates to relocate."
As we speak, there exist a state of fear and anxiety in a traditional community at Big Mountain in the heart of Black Mesa. And as we speak, the federally deputized officers of the BIA Hopi Agency Police and Rangers are patrolling this region where a few traditional elders continue to live and also resist federal mandates to relocate.
Navajos at Big Mountain resisting forced relocation view the 19th Century prison camp of Bosque Redondo and the war in Iraq as a continuum of U.S. government sponsored terror. Louise Benally of Big Mountain remembered her great-grandfather and other Navajos driven from their beloved homeland by the U.S. Army on foot for hundreds of miles while witnessing the murder, rape and starvation of their family and friends.
"I think these poor children had gone through so much, but, yet they had the will to go on and live their lives. If it weren't for that, we wouldn't be here today.
- snip -
"The U.S. military first murders your people and destroys your way of life while stealing your culture, then forces you to learn their evil ways of lying and cheating," Benally said.
Pauline: Plans and schedules were important and are made in advance. However, such disruption that we had earlier are unexpected and those kinds of events take away the time delegated for priorities and goals. But here, at Big Mountain, we live with a lot of threats from the police and guns of the United States. And unfortunately, we just saw that this morning and you yourself have seen it personally.
Not that long ago, the United Nations performed a Human Rights Investigation of the forced Navajo resettlement from Arizona to Nevada, under Special Rapporteur A. Amor. A law revised and submitted to Congress by Senator John McCain and others before him was determined to be the root cause of violations, which after ratification by President Clinton in 1999 during a globally publicized sit in by Songstress Julia Butterfly Hill at Big Mountain, Arizona.
Esoteric spiritual madness has accompanied me as I have watched the continuing web of land theft spreading, still, from the Arctic to across the United States.
John McCain was out of the torturous grip of the North Vietnamese for approximately one year when Congress passed Public Law 93-531 in 1974. Public Law 93-531 was called the Relocation Act, and was falsely justified by what "Peabody Coal Company's public relations and lobbying firms" falsely constructed as the "Hopi-Navajo land dispute." This "range war" was not true. What was true, was lawyer John Boyden with the assimilated Hopi Tribal Council.
Boyden formed a Hopi Tribal Council that consisted of several First Mesa Hopi who had been converted to Mormonism, based on an election in which about 10 percent of the Hopis on the reservation voted. The newly elected Tribal Council then hired Boyden as their lawyer.
John Boyden with his assimilated Hopi Tribal Council wanted Peabody Coal to strip mine Black Mesa after the natural resources had been discovered. More than 10,000 Navajo and 100 Hopi did not want Black Mesa stripped.
Just what was one method of forced removal McCain used to bring about this?
ACSA study reveals that after assembling a team of "pro-Peabody Western Coal" Indians and obtaining a false "Hopi-Navajo" Tribal Counsel designation by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for these paid Tribal representatives, in the period 1974-1996, Senator McCain was able to get large bands of the Dineh-Navajo relocated off their lands, so that Peabody Western could mine the coal under their farms at nominal expense. Common Cause has suggested McCain was indirectly compensated by street name cash contributions to his Federal Election Fund during three Presidential runs, and through family business with Las Vegas Casinos who benefited from the coal driven power he supplied.
The justification for Public Law 93-531 passed by Congress in 1974 was that the Navajo-Hopi land dispute is so serious that 10,000 Navajos near Big Mountain, Arizona, must be relocated, forcibly if necessary. It would be the largest forced relocation of U.S. citizens since the relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
But tradition-minded Navajo and Hopi claim there never was a land dispute. They say the dispute was invented to get the Navajos and their livestock off mineral-rich land in the Hopi reservation so it could be developed by mining companies such as Peabody Coal and Kerr-McGee.
In honor of my mother, THE FLORA SOMBRERO LIND NAVAJO ENDOWMENT FUND has been set up to accept your donations.
This scholarship endowment has been established at the American Indian College Fund to honor Flora Sombrero Lind, as an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who was born at Inscription House, Arizona of the Many Goats clan circa 1925. This scholarship endowment is funded by Flora's family and friends who want to see Navajo students pursue higher education and carry on their great Navajo heritage.
Please leave a comment here if you donate.
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Native American Netroots
...a forum for the discussion of political, social and economic issues affecting the indigenous peoples of the United States, including their lack of political representation, economic deprivation, health care issues, and the on-going struggle for preservation of identity and cultural history
The Native American Rights Fund (NARF) is a non-profit 501c(3) organization that provides legal representation and technical assistance to Indian tribes, organizations and individuals nationwide - a constituency that often lacks access to the justice system. NARF focuses on applying existing laws and treaties to guarantee that national and state governments live up to their legal obligations.
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Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights News by Brenda Norrell
In honor of my mother, 
