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In 1949, some of the Traditionalist faction leaders finally began to recognize the futility of attempting to ignore the force and power of Twentieth Century life. They wrote to Washington and eventually filed a court suit to get some of their traditional lands back. Washington had continued to whittle away around the Hopi lands and at their rights by granting additional territory to the Navajos, who were increasing steadily in population and political influence. In 1905, a block immediately to the southwest of the reservation was granted to the Navajo. The land to the southeast passed into their hands in 1930. Between 1868 and 1934 the Navajo lands were increased 14 separate times by Congressional or Presidential actions. From a starting point of around 3-4 million acres along the northern Defiance Uplift, in Arizona and New Mexico, the Navajo Reservation has grown to 16.5 million acres, sprawling into four states.
During the 1950's, serious attempts were made to settle what had become worsening relations between the Hopi and Navajo. Over a period of many decades, as their population exploded, more and more Navajo had begun to squat on Hopi Reservation land, first to graze their sheep herds, but then, eventually, to settle in scattered homes, then towns, on the Reservation. By the 1950's, this trickle had become a flood. The BIA had initially looked the other way, in part due to the loophole in President Arthur's order that included “other Indians” in the mandate for the Reservation, in part due to repeated budget constraints.
With increasing numbers of Navajo, and the Traditionalist and Progressive Hopi finally uniting in recognizing the threat, this was no longer going to work. Negotiations and court actions grew more active and heated during the 1950's. In the year of 1950, Congress had attempted to improve things in the region with the Navajo-Hopi act, which allocated over $80-Million for improvements in northeastern Arizona, but the Hopi recognized that this avoided the core of the problem, and the Traditionalists, typically, wanted nothing to do with more public works projects that left the Hopi as they were, while improving life for the Anglo invaders of their homeland.
In 1958, Congress authorized a lawsuit between the tribes, and said that the courts needed to settle the land dispute on the Hopi Reservation. In 1962, a US three-judge panel recommended that the Reservation be reduced from its original 2.5 million acres to a 631 thousand-acre area. This tract, including the main Hopi towns and immediate surrounding fields, was the only land that remained for exclusive Hopi use out of the original vast grounds that the Hopi had controlled before the Europeans came.
The remainder of the old Reservation was split, with “joint, undivided and equal rights” for the Hopi and Navajo. It was decreed that since the Secretary of the Interior and the BIA had allowed Navajo individuals to squat on Hopi lands, and not expelled them over the years, that the collective Navajo nation had gained squatters' rights to the disputed flat lands around the Black Mesa. These disputed lands were now referred to as the Joint Use Area. Thus, the Hopi people were to suffer, due to a failure of White officials to protect them. The Hopi saw betrayal at the hands of Washington yet again.
The panel ruled that the Navajo had rights not just to surface use, but a one-half interest in “surface and sub-surface on a share and share alike basis.” This left things in a huge, legalistic quagmire, and led to several congressional actions during the next few years. It was in this climate that the Black Mesa region was bypassed by oil companies in their exploration activities during the 1950's and 1960's.
The legal terms like “joint and undivided,” “equal rights,” and “share and share alike” made it clear that the Navajo were entitled to do things in the Joint Use Area (JUA), but did not specify exactly what they could do, or where, or what rights and titles to land the Hopi retained as their “joint,” “equal,” and “shared” one half of the land and subsurface. The Navajo claimed that they could now move in, farm, or graze just about anywhere they wished in the JUA. The Hopi said that this was ridiculous, and that much of the territory was Hopi clan farm plots which they still owned, and which was obviously still protected for their use. Expanded Navajo sheep-grazing quickly led to damage on Hopi fields.
Talks and negotiations continued over the years between the two nations, to little effect. At one point in 1970, the Navajo offered to buy title to the disputed land from the Hopi. This outraged Hopi Traditionalists and Progressives, alike. It implied that the Peaceful People, who pride themselves in living in harmony with the sacred Land and Nature, would sell their sacred heritage, a key part of their religion, for paper money.
Congress stepped in in 1974 in an attempt to define some limits. They tried to draw up national boundaries within the JUA, but their act had to be modified in 1978 and again in 1980. Partitioning could not work when individuals refused to move from ancestral lands on the wrong side of an arbitrary line imposed from Washington. Congress tried bounties and rewards, provided a five-year window for relocation, paid relocation allowances, and gave the Navajo still more of Hopiland, but still could not solve the problem.
The Reagan Administration initiated an unsuccessful mediation effort in 1985. In 1991, another court mediation attempt was made, this time started by members of the tribes themselves. An agreement was reached in late 1992, and Partition Lines were drawn that met with the agreement of the leaders of both sides. However, in late 1993, Navajo settlers on the Hopi side of the line formally rejected the decision. A new law has been passed by Congress. It remains to be seen what the outcome will be this time.
This saga of this original neglect by the BIA as Navajo started to impinge on Hopiland, followed by the inability of successive administrations, Congress, or the courts to do anything to solve these problems has created still more disgust with the Anglo world for the Hopi.
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Proceed to The Hopis and Minerals
Development
Follow scholar Kokopelli to the Suggested
Reading List
Go back to Welcome to the Twentieth
Century
Return with Kokopelli to the hogan page, the
Table of Contents
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Black Mesa Highlighted in Sunlight on a Stormy Day
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Contents, including illustrations, copyright T. K. Reeves, 1997.
on 5 April, 1997.
