Jackson Barnett, a full-blood Muscogee Creek,¹ epitomized the exploitation of many Indian people during the allotment of tribal lands between 1887 and the mid-1920s. Caught in the capitalist web of the white world, the Creek and other allotted Indians found their lives chaotic and threatened upon being assigned individual lands by the government. From all sides, greedy whites and selfish mixed-bloods pressured and cheated the full-bloods, lusting after their royalties and their oil and gas lands. Allotment of tribal lands under the Dawes Act of 1887 and subsequent amendments divided tribal members and created factions for and against the allotment...

The murders of the Osage for the royalty money they had received from oil has been called the “reign of terror,” and they represented the most blatant expression of the greed for Indian lands. In one notorious case, more than a dozen murders occurred within one family. Following a three-year investigation, the federal government linked the killings to one master criminal—William K. Hale, self-proclaimed “King of the Osage.” During the mid-1800s, white settlers pushed the Osage from their native lands, leading to their removal to Indian Territory. According to the allotment policy, after the tribe was given a reservation,...

Indian communities in the Southwest have depended on water from the Rio Grande since prehistoric times. Called “the Great River” by the Spanish, the 445-mile Rio Grande is the second longest river in the United States and serves for a lengthy distance as the international boundary between the United States and Mexico. Following the Paleo-Indian cultural periods of Sandia, Clovis, and Folsom of the big game hunting tradition, later domestic traditions of Native Americans became dependent on the assured supply of water from the Rio Grande. In subsequent centuries, early Native Indians developed horticulture to advance their way of life,...

Located in southeastern Oregon, the Klamath Reservation is blessed with thick, green stands of timber and embraced by the Cascades sloping from the Rocky Mountains. Tall ponderosa pines and white fir trees drape the land belonging to the Klamath in a natural basin of marshes and streams alive with fish, mussels, and waterfowl. This southern part of Oregon contains the Klamath Basin, named after a people whose lives, ironically, were both blessed and cursed by the plethora of trees.

In the 1940s and 1950s, local people from outside of the reservation wanted to harvest the timber of the Klamath when...

During the 1980s, a long-dormant issue concerning Indian fishing and hunting rights exploded in the state of Wisconsin. Battles in the courts, fistfights at lakes, and racial slurs yelled at Indian people plagued the state as racism caused hostilities pitting whites against Indians. Indian-white relations reached a new low, reminiscent of a frontier past when whites hated Indians and Indians fought back. This period of racial unrest became an ugly chapter in the history of Wisconsin, and the real issue of Chippewa fishing and hunting rights was lost in the turmoil. Furthermore, the historical importance of wildlife resources and their...

The Black Hills rest on an extraordinary site of natural beauty with two monuments—Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Mountain—commemorating the long and troubled history between Indians and whites in this area. Indian and white interests differed, and their attitudes clashed. Their cultures were opposites, reflecting diverse ideologies and life values. This sacred area of the Lakota was sought by the whites for its mineral resources, primarily gold, and the Indians desired it as a religious site, for it represents the heart of the Lakota people. Towering and majestic, this mystifying area is where East meets West. Eastern...

More than 100 years ago, Indian tribal leaders were forced to negotiate with white Americans and the U.S. government for possession of Indian lands. Today’s tribal leaders face a similar situation, due to the growing energy crisis and increased demands for natural resources. Depletion of America’s mineral reserves has caused energy companies to look toward reservation lands to replenish needed oil, coal, gas, and uranium supplies. Even water has become a precious resource for transporting coal in slurry pipelines. In almost every Western state, Indian and white interests are competing for this priceless commodity.¹ And as a result of the...

The long history of the exploitation of Indian tribes for their natural resources provoked great concern among Native Americans and ultimately led tribes with natural resources on their lands to organize. In the 1970s, after more than seventy-five years of losing their resources to whites, the tribes formed the Council for Energy Resource Tribes to protect those commodities. In the years ahead, CERT would face many obstacles and challenges as it attempted to deal with a market that was hungry for fossil fuels.

As the industrialization of America during the late 1880s created a new demand for fossil fuels, tribes...

Since the turn of the twentieth century, American Indian tribes have learned new ways to defend the natural resources on their reservations. The days of sending warriors against the U.S. Army have faded into history, and Indian leaders have adopted new tactics as the battleground has shifted. A long history of exploitation has rudely taught today’s sophisticated leaders to depend on the law, for they now understand that trust relations with the United States are their best weapons to use in defending their rights and resources in the federal courts. This approach was tried before, but success for the tribes...

In the history of Indian-white relations, the ownership of land has been greatly contested, with almost 2,000 wars and hostile engagements being waged. The outcome became one-sided by the late nineteenth century, and the legacy of exploitation continues today. The essential problem is one of capitalistic greed—a quality that the American mainstream frequently views as mandatory for success. Indeed, this ideology is one of the driving forces of American capitalism. Such a value orientation is incongruent with the fundamental values of Indian tribal life and tribal leadership in regard to environmental issues on reservations.

Like their predecessors of more...

Long ago, the many Indian tribes of the Americas learned to live with the various climates, flora, and fauna of their environments. They developed a relationship with nature, characterized by harmonious respect. Few generalizations cover all of their philosophies, but there are basic points that are relevant when contemplating the future of this planet and its limited natural resources. One observation is that the tribes, representing various levels of civilization, ultimately understood their relationship with their environments. In general, they accepted the premise that the environment was something greater than the mere capabilities of humans. With this in mind, Indian...

Although human beings are fond of marking each fin-de-siècle with great fanfare (as well as angst), the earth, unfettered from calendars or clocks, knows no difference between the current and previous centuries. In earth knowledge, human measures of time are less relevant. Imagine that instead of a clock we marked time by the rhythms and patterns of life. Cycles of seasons and the instinctive migrations of animals are part of this earth knowledge, and careful attention to such non-human epistemologies provides insight not offered by mechanical timekeepers. If we pay attention, the earth provides ample warnings not to violate nature...