The Taking, Giving Back, Taking Again and Finally Returning What Doesn’t Belong to Us.

Learning about American Indians in high school and primary school taught me many things about their cultures, beliefs, history and interactions with the colonists and settlers. Ever since we landed near Plymouth rock, in my opinion, we have been taking away the Native Americans’ rights and land. They lived in this country for hundreds of years before we arrived and took away everything they had. We took their hunting and fishing grounds by the BILLIONS of acres and placed all the different tribes on a total of 56,200,000 acres which is only about 2.5% of the total land mass in the United States. What was done to the Tohono O’odham Nation was wrong. We initially gave them 22,000 acres by the executive order of President Chester A. Arthur in the 1880s. Within a few decades, problems arose as a conflict of interests between Indians and American Farmers to gain access over water and land around and President Taft removed almost half of the land and returned it to the state for Euro-Americans to use. Toward the end of the century, a dam was completed and flooded 9, 000 acres of land which was later returned as private land to the Reservation. Although we gave The Tohono O’odham Indians land to freely live their lives, we repeatedly took away from them and broke promises to them just because we wanted their land for water rights. Again, in my opinion, these Indians and the other 120+ Indian populations around the United States should be given more than enough land, water, and other natural resources for two reasons; they were here first, and we took away their livelihoods and made them endure many hardships by kicking them out of their territories (think about the Trail of Tears).

After doing the reading for this module, I have come to the conclusion that the Tohono O’oodham have been compensated for their losses in some ways by the United States government, but there are still many actions that have been taken that are unfair and continue to be a struggle for the native nation.

The Tohono O’oodham nation is nestled in Arizona in the desert which experiences less than ten inches of rainfall each year. Their tribe is known for successfully farming despite the improper conditions due to their sophisticated form of floodplain irrigation. For this reason, water resources have always been extremely important to this tribe’s success.

The Gadsen Purchase drew a new border between the US and Mexico that cut the traditional Tohono O’oodham homelands in half. Despite this, the tribe was eventually able to live practically unharmed by the new border until many settlers started coming in and creating competition for the tribe. Apache attacks and raids were a huge threat to the tribe’s various small settlements and their tradition was being messed with and changed by outsiders. With all these negatives side effects of the Gadsden Purchase, the US government did make an honest effort and tried to make it right by reserving over three million acres for the tribe’s reservation. The Winters v. United States case had given a lot of groundwater rights to the tribe in the lands where they lived, and so that caused a lot of torment from Arizona cities like Tucson because they relied on that water and began using unfair tactics to take it. They would dig wells that were deeper than the tribe’s so they could get to the water first. Since then, The Central Arizona Project has been proposed to bring water in from Colorado. But that plan has never been executed, and the Tohono O’oodham nation is left with constant water crises putting stress on their relationship with nearby communities.

Overall, I think many of the laws put in place over water rights are ethical and fair. It seems unfair to me that the Native Americans don’t fall under the common water laws and require their own rules, but those rules are not necessarily too unfair themselves. In my opinion, it’s not so much the laws as it is the actual treatment the tribe is receiving since the Gadsden Purchase that is unfair.

The Tohono O’odham Nation has been treated unfairly since the Gadsden purchase of 1853. Their land was cut in half when the U.S. and Mexico border was created, and were forced onto a reservation after violently getting pushed out of Mexico. Ranchers began taking up the Southern Arizona grasslands to feed their cattle and directly competing with the O’odham farmers. Armed conflicts constantly occurred with Mexican citizens and the Tohono tribe, on the U.S. border farmers constantly complained about the Tohono cutting their fences.

The Tohono O’odham Nation was eventually granted three million acres to the West of Tucson, Arizona. After facing constant adversity the people of the Tohono O’odham Nation were able preserve their traditions and gatherings while building up a community. The Tohono O’odham Nation were able to create their own sovereign government, but in the mid-1980s tribal lawyers discovered the Winters Doctrine that gave the tribe most of the groundwater in the Santa Cruz Valley. The city of Tuscon relied heavily on well water and constantly bought farmland to get access to more groundwater. Eventually the federal government gave the Tohono O’odham Nation thousands of acres feet of water from the Central Arizona Project.

Ethically speaking, I do not believe the Tohono O’odham tribe was completely compensated for their losses when the U.S. annexed their land in the Gadsden purchase. I think they were fairly treated when they received three million acres dedicated to them. I believe the U.S. government also severely hindered the ability of the Tohono O’odham to establish a stable community. Ranchers constantly allowed cattle to graze on their lands, they received little help when being constantly raided by Apache warriors and also by Mexican citizens.