by Winter Rabbit | 2/09/2008 08:29:00 AM
How does history repeat itself? Let’s count some of the ways.


One.




Source

The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy. During the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839, the Cherokees were forcibly moved west by the United States government. Approximately 4,000 Cherokees died on this forced march, which became known as the "Trail of Tears."


In 1974 the U.S. Government legally endorsed genocide when Congress passed Public Law 93-531, which enabled Peabody Coal Company to strip mine Black Mesa by ripping the traditional Navajo and Hopi peoples from the land.


Two.




The Dawes Commission” by Kent Carter. p. 208.

The debate continued and shifted to the controversial subject of what to do with the valuable coal deposits in the Choctaw Nation that had been segregated from allotment. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin objected to the provision in the bill that authorized selling the deposits because he believed the railroads would gain control.






Source

The Dineh (otherwise known as Navajo) were stripped of all land title and forced to relocate. Their land was turned over to the coal companies without making any provisions to protect the burial or sacred sites that would be destroyed by the mines. People whose lives were based in their deep spiritual and life-giving relationship with the land were relocated into cities, often without compensation, forbidden to return to the land that their families had occupied for generations. People became homeless with significant increases in alcoholism, suicide, family break up, emotional abuse and death.




And on and on, ad infinitum.


The ACSA challenges Senator McCain on his legislative history of Human Rights Violations: "a Skeleton in his closet: UNFIT to hold public office!"


A public research website: http://www.cain2008.org has brought together diverse historical elements of factual proof that Senator John McCain's was the key "point man" introducing, enacting and enforcing law that removed Dineh-Navajo Families from their reservation on the Black Mesa in Arizona. The McCain revised law relocated them to Church's Hill, Nevada (a Nuclear Waste Superfund Site, called "the New Lands" in PL 93-531). The Dineh-Navajo, a deeply spiritual and peaceful people, engaged in only peaceful resistance to being moved off lands they'd owned since 1500 A.D. Nonetheless, the Public Press and UN depicted brutalization, rights deprivation and forcible relocation.






Perhaps everyone’s hopes and prayers for peace should be, “Please don’t let them find natural resources on our land.”









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2 Comments:


Blogger PhDinHistory on 2/09/2008 11:21 PM:

I think you mean Diné. The Dineh are an Athabascan tribe that lives in Canada. I have never heard of this relocation of Navajo families to Nevada. The only relocation I have heard of is when Navajos were moved to the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation in AZ in 1945. What other sources do you have for your information?

 

Blogger Winter Rabbit on 2/10/2008 8:50 AM:

Good hearing from you PhDinHistory. Here’s some links that will clarify what you’re asking, including the Dine(h).

This was from the UN website with the following contact information afterwards.

The Black Mesa region in Arizona, USA is home to the indigenous communities of the Dineh (Navajo) and Hopi peoples. This region also contains major deposits of coal which are being extracted by North America's largest strip mining operation. The coal mines have had a major impact on families in the region. Local water sources have been poisoned, resulting in the death of livestock. Homes near the mines suffer from blasting damage. The coal dust is pervasive, as well as smoke from frequent fires in the stockpiles. Not coincidentally, the people in the area have an unusually high incidence of kidney and respiratory disease. "


(Contact information is there that I'm not reposting that includes address, phone, email, and fax)
Link for video.

*Paths Concerning Hopi/Dineh(Navajo) Reloction ~ Big Mountain/Black Mesa ~



Navajo (Dineh, Navaho)

The Navajo tribe is the largest in the United States, with some 200,000 people occupying the largest and area reserved for Native Americans - 17 million acres in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. The word Navajo derives from the Spanish word for 'people with big fields.' At the time of the arrival of the white man they had developed agriculture, though on a smaller scale than the nearby Hopi and Pueblo peoples. The Navajo were less sedentary than the Hopi and Pueblo tribes, but more so than the Apache of the same region.


The official Navajo website spells it Dine and it means “The People.”

I would have made that distinction but quite frankly; I was so upset and it is so urgent I didn’t make the distinction between the spellings. Not a good thing at all, since that’s how names were lost in the Dawes Roles because agents were in a hurry when they did them and felt in a rush, among other reasons which were much more sinister.

I decided to go with this because it was on the UN website, the video I linked to, and the contact information that was in that link above.

Let me know if you'd like more on it, I'm sure Navajo at NANR would be a great source of additional info.