The
Water Rights of the Native Americans
The
piece I have chosen for my archive assignment is titled “Arizona Water Rights”
This piece contains numerous letters to the President, Gerald Ford, and
magazine articles arguing for the regulation of water supplied to those that
rightfully deserved it, the Pima-Maricopa Indians, the Papagos, and
Mohave-Apaches, in Arizona.
The
first piece of text in this collection is a letter addressed to the President
of the United States at the time, President Gerald Ford, from Dorothy Wicker
Re. This woman was an advocate for the Native Americans and their rights to the
rivers they required to sustain their way of life. Wicker Re states
The Indians have
been mistreated for too long a time. It is one of Americas saddest errors. We
cannot expect to maintain our freedoms and our way of life, our high standard
of living, if we do not insure it for those whom we have conquored and now
assimilate. (Wicker Re)
Wicker
Re argues that the treatment of Native Americans has been wretched and it is up
to the United States Government to right this wrong by creating a bill that
returns the Native Americans rights to the water ways they once had full access
to. The use of terms “conquored” and “assimilate” suggests that this woman is
one that is very aware of the suffering of these Native American tribes, as
well as the treatment they receive from her fellow Americans in power. Her Wicker Re finds a way to be both demanding and
complimentary in her letter to the President. She managed to push the issue of
the Native Americans and their need for water, as well as professed this
treatment to be one of the “saddest errors” of the United States. Yet, Wicker
Re maintains a level of decorum and respectability throughout the letter, even
defending the President and the unfortunate nature of his work, having to “do
battle within [his] own party after [his] excellent performance as President”
(2). She also suggests that the support of the Native Americans in need may
indeed be beneficial to his backing at the Republican Convention and earn him
more votes. In applying all of these things in such a short letter, Dorothy
Wicker Re maintains her stance in support of the Native Americans and their
right to the rivers that are rightfully theirs to control, yet still managed to
butter up the President in her compliments of his handsome appearance in
dancing with the Queen of England. While Wicker Re’s flattery can be viewed as
sucking up, the fact that she expresses concern for the Native Americans and
their livelihood, which is at no cost to her own, represents her ability to
care for others as well as her willingness to get in touch with those in power
in hopes of making the necessary changes to the system. This piece should be
part of maritime literature because while it may only seem to be a letter to a
President from a concerned American citizen in 1976, it represents the
struggles that were being recognized then, as well as the struggles we still
face today in regards to water rights.
The
article that Wicker Re references and sends to the President in 1976 is titled
“An Arizona Indian Asks Congress to Enact a Water Rights Bill” which was
written by Gerald Anton, was president of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Native
American Community. This article gives more of a background to the issue that
the Native American tribes in Arizona faced at this time, as well as draws
attention to the underlying problems that were caused by this lack of access to
water. The article first begins by giving the reader a bit of background
information on the ways in which the irrigation system aided them in the
growing of food for many years. Due to redirection of these rivers, the tribes
that had always had access to the waters needed to support the growth of food
and cotton no longer had the ability to sufficiently do so. The author is
arguing that the Native American tribes deserve to once more gain their
independence from government-provided welfare and be able to function in an
autonomous manner. The author also argues that while he and others have worked diligently
to push a bill through the system that would give them their legal rights back,
they are ignored and have nowhere to turn to gain the rights they deserve.
The
interesting part of this argument is that these Native American tribes are
making a case for why they would be better benefitted to gain their rights to
the rivers, which would in turn help the government by releasing them from
providing state funding to the tribes. Anton states
[t]he United
States Supreme Court in 1908 held that Indian tribes were entitled to enough
water to make their reservations viable. However, the Interior Department,
charged by law to serve as trustee of Indian water rights, has in the past
actively participated in collusions to violate the law and rob the central Arizona
tribes of their water (Anton ).
Anton argues that the
United States government declared these tribes only needed enough water to
sustain their reservations, but by no means allow them to thrive. An
unfortunate fact that can be noted here is that a settlement was put into works
of a very similar kind in Arizona in 2004. David H. Dejong, author of
“Navigating the Maze: The Gila River Indian Community Water Settlement Act of
2004 and Administrative Challenges,” states that “[c]enturies- old BIA policies
create and sustain the obstacles that hinder Indian growers. These
administrative challenges have the potential to undermine the intent of the
AWSA. Land fractionation, leasing difficulties, and financing limitations are
significant challenges” (Dejong 75). These policies put in place centuries ago still
impact the ways in which certain community’s access water, and therefore,
affects said community’s ability to be self-sufficient in their growth. This
article supports the importance of this archive piece because it reinforces the
notion that the problems of the Native Americans in Arizona in the 1970’s is
not a problem left in the past, but is one of the on-going issues today.
The
article written by Gerald Anton points to the not only ineffective and
inefficient regulations on waters that should be accessible to Native American
tribes, but also the unfairness and inequality with which these peoples are
being treated. Anton states
Hearings on the
Kennedy bill were scheduled before the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs
Committee. The five central Arizona tribes were invited to testify next week.
Suddenly everything has been called off. Once more we are denied our
constitutionally protected right to petition for redress of grievances. Where
can we turn when both the President and Congress fail us? (Anton)
Here Anton reiterates
the lack of respect for these Native American tribes and their wishes. They were
meant to testify to the unjust treatment and neglect they have received, as
well as fight for the compensation they deserve, and yet that moment was ripped
away from them without any consideration, just as they have been treated thus
far. This reiterates the importance of this piece and why it belongs in the
canon of maritime literature: it brings to light why the legally rightful water
supplies are so important and yet so easily neglected in terms of these Native
American tribes. In the article “Stepping onto the Yakama Reservation: Land and
Water Rights in Raymond Carver’s ‘Sixty Acres’,” Chad Wringlesworth references
the writings of Raymond Carver due to his focus on the impact of governmental
involvement and management of water. Carver discusses the impact these
regulations have on locals in Yakima Valley. Wringlesworth states
The federal
reclamation of land and water has left behind a long history of injustice
throughout the Yakima Valley and larger Columbia River Basin, actions that
culminated in 1957 with the completion of The Dalles Dam, a vision of progress
that inundated Celilo Falls, the oldest and most productive salmon fishery on the
Columbia River. “Sixty Acres” comments on the consequences of this period of
land and water reclamation… (Wringlesworth 56)
Here Wringlesworth is
arguing that for a very long time the governmental involvement has considerably
impacted the lives of those that exist in the mentioned areas, especially in
regards fishing and salmon production. He remarks that the text “Sixty Acres”
comments on this and how the effect of the government’s involvement is a large
part of this. This piece demonstrates the importance of the knowledge of
governmental involvement in these cases and why it is so important that the
proceedings are fair. This piece deserves to be part of the catalog of maritime
literature because it gives representations of authors that are writing works
to support the argument for the fair water rights of Native American tribes, as
well as focusing on the injustices that have been experienced by those that
must suffer due to the lack of proper water availability.
This archive piece contains a letter to the President
that was redirected, an article clipped from a newspaper, and several other
letters to different authority figures in regards to the unfair disregard to
the water rights of the Native Americans. Due to the lack of concern for their
accessibility to adequate water they lost the ability to function as a community
in a self-sufficient manner, which is not only ineffectual for the Native
Americans but for the nation as a whole. This piece shows that there were those
that were not close to the situation that supported the Native American
communities in Arizona and attempted to give the problem the attention it
deserved. The secondary articles I have used support this argument as well, but
also point to the different areas in which this problem of water rights
touches. On one hand we see the same issues being disputed many years later in
the same nation, and on another we see a writer using his literary skills in
attempts to draw attention to the problems of water rights and the involvement
of the government. Using these secondary articles in conjunction with the
archive piece I located I have worked to address the reasons why I find this
piece deserves to be part of the canon of maritime literature.
http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0142/1103354.pdf
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