National parks and Native American removal separated people from land. How are these related, and what do we do about it?

The 50-foot arch spanning one entrance to Yellowstone National Park reads: “For the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” Welcome to a park, it says, that protects nature but primarily serves to benefit the people. Not just some people. The People, like an echo of the Constitution (“We the people…). The grandiosity of rhetoric about the American National Park system often tries to emulate that of park landscapes themselves.

Wallace Stegner, for example, proclaimed national parks “the best idea we ever had. […] Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best.” The national park, a space for both conservation and public enjoyment, where no one permanently lives but many temporarily visit, is indeed distinctively American. in human history, sacred spaces have long existed, but these were small and utilized for a specific purpose. Protected areas to conserve resources for sustained human consumption existed long ago but did not isolate the land from human habitation and extraction.

I extend this claim about parks’ soaring rhetoric to artwork as well. Thomas Moran’s painting “The Chasm of the Colorado” embroiders the landscape with vibrant color and sensational lighting. The Grand Canyon as cathedral, shafts of light streaming, color like stained glass. The U.S. Congress purchased Moran’s Grand Canyon landscape and hung the painting in the Senate lobby, where congressmen would stroll by it daily.

The first idea: park, people, and wildlife

The central example of lofty national park rhetoric we shall focus on is the first written conception of the national park, penned by writer and artist George Catlin. An artist who voyaged up the Missouri River several times to the western Great Plains, Catlin envisioned lands “protected by some great protecting power of government in their pristine beauty and wildness, in a magnificent park, where the world could see for ages to come, the native Indian in his classic attire, galloping his wild horse, with sinewy bow, and shield and lance, amid the fleeting herds of elks and buffaloes.” Interesting. As buffalo herds diminished and native peoples were forced west as seekers and industry encroached, Catlin lamented the loss of an essential piece of the nation’s and the landscape’s identity. So he proposed protecting not just land and wildlife but also the native peoples who inhabited the land and hunted the wildlife.

Of course, in our time, Catlin’s description of a sort of human petting zoo, where white people would go to gawk at the Indians pursuing their traditional way of life, is rather racist, regressive, and repugnant. Are the Indians supposed to never change and stay in their fenced-in park while the world around them develops? How inhumane! we object (3 centuries later). However, in his time, an era of erasure of native peoples from the land with insufficient protest from white people, I think that Catlin’s concept here was remarkably progressive. At least he recognized native peoples’ way of life was beautiful, worth protecting. I am glad that the US did not execute Catlin’s concept, but I still wish history listened more closely to Catlin’s perspective.

Catlin continued: “What a beautiful and thrilling specimen for America to preserve and hold up to the view of her refined citizens and the world, in future ages! A nation’s Park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature’s beauty!” Humans, wildlife, and land, all together – a vision unrealized. An American example for the world to emulate – a remarkably prescient prediction. Yellowstone, the first national park, was established in 1872. By 1912, the British ambassador to the United States, James Bryce lauded, “You have led the world in the creation of national parks […] other countries emulate your example.” He cited examples of US-inspired national parks in New Zealand and Australia, These exported overseas parks, likewise were freed from human habitation.

Establishing Yellowstone and clarifying Congress’ misconceptions

Obviously, Congress choose a different vision than Catlin’s. Four decades after Catlin published his work, Congress established Yellowstone, the world’s first national park. A national park to preserve lands and wildlife, for the benefit and enjoyment of the selfie-takers and nature-loop-hikers. No human participation in the dynamic ecology of the park – as had been the case for millennia.

As Congress debated the Yellowstone National Park Establishment Act in the 1870s, the topic of Native American population arose. There was some confusion about whether people lived in the Yellowstone area and whether they could remain in the national park. Catlin, in his last year of life then, might have whispered, “They are essential to the park.” Meanwhile, Thomas Moran’s resplendent landscapes hanging in the Capitol subtly indicated to lawmakers the West was gloriously uninhabited. Moran saved no space on the canvas for cultural landscape.

Testifying on the Senate floor, Henry Dawes of Massachusetts asserted, “the Indians can no more live [in Yellowstone] than they can upon the precipitous sides of the Yosemite Valley.” in fact, the US, through several signed treaties, ceded the Yellowstone region to the Crow, Bannock, Blackfoot, and Shoshone tribes. So Dawes was incorrect on three accounts. One, Yellowstone was tribal land to which the US was reasserting jurisdiction. Two, native people thrived in Yellowstone and had inhabited the region for over 10,000 years. Yellowstone provided an unparalleled source of obsidian for arrowheads. Records from early explorers and hardy tourists in the first years of the park document shelters and hunting traps. Third, native people lived not only in Yellowstone but also in Yosemite Valley (not necessarily its precipitous sides I suppose).

To clarify for Congressman Henry Dawes, much evidence of habitation existed in Yellowstone and Yosemite. Early 20th century anthropologist Alfred Kroeber documented at least 40 sites in Yosemite Valley where Miwok people settled, at least during the summer. One such camp called Awani, was located “near Yosemite Falls […] and recognized as the largest and most permanent settlement in the Valley.” The name “Yosemite” is a corruption of the Miwok word for ‘bear’ that miners heard  when exploring the area. 

A pattern of violence and relocation

The Native American removal and erasure in national parks is a mere microcosm of the centuries-long pattern of displacement, killing, false promise, broken treaty, war, and resettlement that characterized settlers’ – certainly the US government’s – treatment of native people since Christopher Columbus. Catlin himself lamented this pattern and ironically, saw the national park as a solution, not a contributor. “The Indians of North America,” Catlin wrote in 1832, “were once a happy and flourishing people, enjoying all the comforts and luxuries of life which they know of. […] Their country was entered by white men […] and thirty millions of these are now scuffling for the goods and luxuries of life over the bones of twelve million red men, six million of whom have fallen victim to the small-pox, and the remainder to the sword, the bayonet, and whisky […] all of which were visited upon them by acquisitive white men.” Yikes. The acquisitive white man was not finished acquiring. Even Catlin’s national park concept would be folded into the acquisition.

In Yosemite, an early group of settlers called ‘Savage’s Mariposa Battalion’ ventured into Yosemite Valley 1850-1851, fought the group of Miwok there repeatedly, fought a battle, and moved them to a San Joaquin Valley reservation. These settlers preempted the government to removal. 10 years after the establishment of Yellowstone, Congress charged the Secretary of War with “keeping the peace”  in the national parks. Following this directive, the Secretary of War deployed the army to Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks, where they remained until 1913. Many of the soldiers stationed at the parks arrived from assignments relocating native people. Throughout the 1800s, the United States had fought or signed treaties to relocate just about every tribe in the country.

It is no surprise, then, that the army practiced military tactics within national parks, often against the Native Americans, who in Yellowstone, were still present. In Yellowstone, the army forcefully clamped down on activities such as firewood collection and hunting, then instituted war-like programs in the 1890s such as winter campaigns and scouting parties. Though generally, the army focused their efforts on white settlers and poachers more than on native people, the Indian presence in Yellowstone decreased because of the hostile army control. In both Yellowstone and Yosemite, army occupation thus ended habitation by native people. And in the subsequent national parks formed throughout the 20th century, native people had already been relocated to reservations prior to the establishment of the park.

Tension

So national parks are not forever uninhabited, “pristine” lands. Each has some history of native land use, migration, or settlement. We must remember this.

Because rather than facilitating coexistence as Catlin hoped, in the end, the national park divorced people and land – specifically native peoples and their homelands. I think we Americans often imagine ourselves as separate from the environment, as users, or at best, stewards, but not participants. The national park furthers this mythos – but not if we can remember people were components of those landscapes for much longer than the National Park Service existed.

Furthermore, the national park, “the best idea we’ve ever had,” is inescapably complicit in the United States’ shameful mistreatment and removal of native people. For the most part, native peoples were not removed explicitly for the purpose of creating national parks, Yellowstone being the exception. They were removed to open lands for settlers to farm and harvest resources, for ‘Manifest Destiny.’ Conservation, after all, was a minor national priority in the 1800s. Catlin himself had grieved the cruelty: native people “are almost universally the sufferer, either in peace or war […] because justice is […] invariably too late; or is administered at ineffective distance; and that too when his enemies are continually about him, effectively applying the means of his destruction.”

Though national parks may be a small contributor to the large-scale erasure of people and cultures, they played a role and, by continuing the myth of being undisturbed by humans apart from the modern tourist, continue to do so. They educate well about geologic history but less about native peoples who were a part of the landscape long before the United States of America or the national park. They discuss even less the brutal Indian removal policies that cleared the land for”conservation” and tourism. They educate about ecology but remove humans from the ecology.

Where do we go from here? Despite my sarcastic use of the phrase two paragraphs ago, Stegner’s “best idea we’ve ever had” claim carries some important truth. National parks are beautiful, publicly accessible, mindful of environmental conservation but for the People. These invaluable open spaces would surely be developed or privatized if not for the national park system. I wish to add nuance, not condemnation to the discourse on this incredible system of parks. I have personally made 45 visits to national parks and countless more to national monuments, historical sites, national forests, and wilderness areas. These are wonderful spaces that, in the present, can only do so much about their histories.

Ways to move forward

Nothing that we do now can atone for the sins of the past. No amount of reparations to displaced tribes could compensate them. No amount of education about the cultural history of national parks could possibly replace the cultural history that has already been erased. No action, including inaction, would be satisfying or just. Yet there are still ways to move forward, recognizing that closure is illusory.

We can follow the advice of Paula Allen: “America needs […] to use history as renewal, not denial.” It is easy to forget that the national parks I cherish are contested and brutal sites. First, we remember this. Then, since native peoples bore the cost of national park creation, we can consider methods of compensation that I will roughly sketch here. These emerged from a conversation I had with anthropology professor Bill Durham, who should get credit for them. Idea one: Distribute tourism revenue, especially entrance fees, to tribes Since tourism is a profitable industry on the lands historically occupied by native people, native people should receive more of the proceeds. Idea two: at certain times of the year, land within national parks could be used by native groups for grazing or timber collection. This would create some overlap between tribal land and national parks, reintegrating humans into the environment. It also would require close partnership between tribal governments and the National Park System, a great thing in my mind. Idea three: inventory the protected areas that native peoples historically created. Work with tribes to manage these culturally signigicant protected areas more sensitively.

Again, these ideas do not solve the problem I have outlined, but they orient the national park system in the direction of acknowledging wrongdoing, making some restitution, and partnering closely with tribes. They go much farther but are much more difficult than just renaming racist place names. I think this would take the good concepts from George Catlin’s description of the national park without the racist petting zoo part. Most importantly, this might reduce, in some small way, the divide between us modern Americans and the land. Finally, it would clarify that national parks are for the benefit of all the People – including for the benefit of their original inhabitants.