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In 1870, the BIA opened an office right in Oraibi, opening the mesas to more extensive outside influence. In 1874, another office was established nearby, at a new trading post at Keams Canyon, along the foot of the mesa. A number of bureaucrats began to move into the area to staff the agencies. Other settlers were quick to follow. Ranches, missionaries, traders, and teachers now wanted to live near Hopiland. Since the late 1860's Hopiland had been generally recognized as millions of acres, west of the Chinle Valley, extending north to the San Juan and Colorado Rivers, in Utah, to the Grand Canyon, and then to the southeast, along the Little Colorado, to Tsiontugwi (modern Woodruff Butte), due south of Chinle.
However, this “general recognition” was not to do the Hopi much good. In 1878, Mormons founded the town of Tuba City near a new Hopi town, Moenkopi, on the low plateau, west of the main Hopi towns. Moenkopi had been founded in 1870 by a prominent Hopi leader from Oraibi, Tuba, Tuva, or, Toovi. Although this town was established with the complicity of Tuba, as what the Hopi thought would be a trading post, the Mormon goal was the creation of a mission. From this point on, Hopiland would be nibbled at, or swallowed in gulps.
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad would be completed just 70 miles south of the mesa, in 1881. With the railroad came towns like Flagstaff, Holbrook, and Winslow. Thousands of Anglos moved into Arizona, virtually overnight. The inhabitants of these towns put still more pressure on the Hopi nation. The Hopi leadership became alarmed at the inroads, and appealed to Washington for aid and protection. President Chester Allen Arthur heard the plea, and responded. In 1882, he signed an executive order creating a protected Reservation, 2.5 million acres of land, supposedly for the use of the Hopi peoples. The promise would prove to be a disappointment, over the years. Many of millions of acres of traditional lands had been lost, but these lands had been little visited or used by the Hopis of the main settlements, so their loss seemed tolerable.
The executive order would prove to be excruciatingly imprecise. It said that the 55X70 mile, North-South-oriented rectangle was to be for the use of “the Moqui (Hopi) and such other Indians as the Secretary of the Interior may see fit to settle thereon.” This left the door open for incursions onto this land by other Native American nations. Ever since the initial order, the Navajo have been expanding “their” lands, and imposing on the Hopi. In 1884, just two years after the establishment of the Hopi Reservation, the adjacent Navajo Reservation, to the east, was greatly expanded, giving the Navajo a huge block of formerly Hopi land starting at the northern edge of the Hopi lands, and extending north and northwestward to the San Juan and Colorado Rivers.
The Hopi leadership was about to learn, the hard way, that they could not rely on the Great Leader in Washington. From this point on, the lands of the Navajo would expand around, and ultimately, consume some of the Hopi reservation. In 1900, the Navajo were granted the lands immediately west of the Hopi Reservation, then surrounding the Hopi on three sides. During the Twentieth Century, lands to the south were granted to the Navajo, and, eventually, part of the original Hopi Reservation, itself, was lost to Washington's edicts. The conflict continues today, and is, in Hopi eyes, the fault of the White Man.
Competition with the Navajo would take on another dimension during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, but this would prove to be only one challenge to their traditions. During the decades of the late 19th Century, Washington decided that the Native Americans needed to be saved from themselves, and instituted a new policy of “education” for the nations. Official government schools were opened for the Hopi at Keams Canyon, in 1874, and then, later, in each of the major villages. By 1886, the teaching at these schools had proven so offensive to the traditional Hopi that they contacted Washington with an appeal that the children needed to learn from, and understand the ways of, their elders.
Appeals proved to have little effect on Washington. The children were still assigned to the schools, and the administration issued orders to entice the children to attend. If, or when, this didn't work, enforcement policies were used. In 1890, there was an incident where a number of government agents descended on a Kiva during an initiation rite for the local youths, seized all of the boys and took them away for attendance at the local government school. These were key reasons why the initial Hopi hopes in Washington were dashed. The Anglos were now childnappers in Hopi minds.
Washington had a constitution that “guaranteed” freedom of religion, the practice thereof, and separation of Church and State. Nonetheless, these rights were seldom extended to indigenous religions. A number of the evangelistic sects complained to Washington that they were not being granted their “rights” in the Hopi territory. Once again, the Hopi religious practices were forced underground by White administrators. The Hopi oral traditions built another thick file on the Anglos and their abuses of the national traditions.
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Contents, including illustrations, copyright T. K. Reeves, 1997.
on 5 April, 1997.
