Spence - Dispossessing the wilderness: Indian removal and the making of the national parks

DISPOSSESSING the WILDERNESS

Indian Removal and the
Making of the National Parks

Mark David Spence

Oxford University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Spence, Mark David.
Dispossessing the wilderness : Indian removal and the making of the
national parks/by Mark David Spence.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-19-511882-0
1. Indians of North AmericaRelocationWest (U.S.)
2. Wilderness areasGovernment policyUnited States. 3. National
parks and reservesGovernment policyUnited States. 4. Nature
conservationSocial aspectsUnited States. I. Title.
B98.R4S64 1999
978.00497dc21 98-27456

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America
on acid free paper

Wallace Spence, may this help to close the circle.
Therese Mary Johnson, for making this possible.
Amanda Kate Allaback, for seeing it to the end.

MANY PEOPLE HAVE ENCOURAGED and supported my long fascination with the subjects of this book. My family and friends have all contributed more than I can possibly acknowledge here. Some expressed genuine interest in my work while others just politely feigned a mild concern, but all have tolerated with much patience and good humor the social deficiencies of a young academic. My very deepest thanks to all.

Colleagues and mentors have also become friends along the way, and I would like to acknowledge a number of professional and personal debts that I shall long struggle to repay. Michael OConnell of the University of California, Santa Barbara, first introduced me to the challenges and rewards of serious historical study. I owe much to the University of California, Los Angeles, where Ellen DuBois, Susanna Hecht, Melissa Meyer, and Theodore Porter provided a great deal of encouragement and insight. Tanis Thorne also gave a portion of the manuscript a valuable critique at an important juncture. Likewise, Hal Rothman, Elliott West, Susan Rhoads Neel, Stephen Aron, and Peter Nabokov offered kind criticism on various portions of the manuscript. Jim Sherow read an entire draft, as did a number of anonymous referees, and all provided invaluable suggestions for improving this book. Besides offering wonderful advice and commentary, Marguerite Shaffer, Louis Warren, and Karl Jacoby generously shared their own scholarship. My greatest thanks go to Norris Hundley Jr. of the University of California, Los Angeles. His diligence, wise advice, and elegant use of language make him a model advisor. I can only hope my work justly reflects his great attention and care.

A number of institutions supported the research and writing of this work, including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Huntington Library, the UCLA Department of History, the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, the UCLA American Indian Studies Center, and the Carey McWilliams Awards Fund. All illustrations were acquired with the financial assistance of Knox College.

Portions of the material in appeared in the Pacific Historical Review (1996), published by the University of California Press.

I have had the good fortune of conducting research in a number of excellent archives and libraries in some extraordinary places. Beth Gunnison and Deirdre Shaw at Glacier National Park, Tom Tankersley and Lee Whittlesey at Yellowstone National Park, and Linda Bade at Yosemite National Park graciously shared their knowledge of park history and pointed out dozens of crucial documents that I could never have found on my own. I also benefited greatly from the expertise of Peter Blodgett at the Huntington Library, Caroll Sommer at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Magdalen Medicine Horse at the Little Big Horn College Archives, and Joyce Justice at the Denver Federal Archives and Records Center. Likewise, I owe a great debt to the expert staffs of the National Archives I and II in Washington, D.C., and College Park, Maryland, the Seattle Federal Archives and Records Center, the Bancroft Library, the Merril G. Burlingame Special Collections at Montana State University, the Montana Historical Society, the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, and the Special Collections of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Some of my deepest thanks go to Barbara Sutteer, Ted Hall, David Ruppert, and Craig Bates of the National Park Service; Chief Earl Old Person, Mike Swims Under, Marvin Weatherwax, Curly Bear Wagner, Joyce Spoonhunter, Ramona Hall, Darrell Kipp, and other members of the Blackfeet Nation; Genevieve Edmo, Tony Galloway, John Fred, Larry Bagley, Diane Yupe, and other members of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes; Jay Johnson and other members of the American Indian Council of Mariposa County; and Mick Old Coyote, Darrel Old Horn, Francis and Celise Stewart, John Pretty On Top, and other members of the Crow Tribe. All have generously provided guidance, assistance, and invaluable knowledge.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to three people: Wallace Spence, whose strange life long ago cemented my own connection to many of the places and personalities discussed in this study; my mother, Therese Mary Johnson, whose integrity, love, and pride are the source of endless inspiration; and my wife, Amanda Kate Allaback, whose love and encouragement made this work just one of lifes many great joys.

DISPOSSESSING the WILDERNESS

I wonder if the ground has anything to say? I wonder if the ground is listening to what is said? I wonder if the ground would come alive and what is on it?

We-ah Te-na-tee-ma-ny,
or Little Chief (Cayuse), 1855

SHORTLY AFTER THE ESTABLISHMENT OF Badlands National Monument in 1929, the Oglala Sioux spiritual leader Black Elk expressed profound consternation with the idea of wilderness preservation. For him, the creation of the national monument adjacent to his home on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota seemed only to confirm a disturbing trend. Wind Cave National Park had already been established in the nearby Black Hills, and large areas of land surrounding the park had recently been incorporated into a national forest. Remembering his youth and the time he spent in these areas, Black Elk recalled that his people were happy in [their] own country, and were seldom hungry, for then the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds lived together like relatives, and there was plenty for them and for us. Although a considerable portion of this Sioux country received federal protection, native peoples were largely excluded from their former lands. As Black Elk observed, the Americans had made little islands for us and other little islands for the four-leggeds, and every year the two were moving farther and farther apart. In short, Black Elk understood all too well that wilderness preservation went hand in hand with native dispossession.