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In 1974, the US Congress passed the "Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act" (PL 93-531, referred to here as the "Relocation Act"), which ordered the division of the 1882 Executive Order Reservation and the relocation of at least 13,000 traditional Diné (Navajo) and about 100 Hopi people. This forced relocation of Indians has been the greatest in the United States since the 19th century. The Diné were to move from ancestral sacred lands, responsibility for which had been handed down to them through centuries of continuous occupancy (many families can date their ancestry on these lands to at least the days of the Spanish Conquest). The lands within the 1882 Reservation have also been of great religious significance for the Hopi, whose civilization has been centered for a thousand years in the villages built on the southern escarpment of the geological formation known as Black Mesa, in the middle of the reservation.
For centuries, Diné and Hopi lived in the region as neighbors, maintaining extensive family friendships and trading partnerships between them. Due to widespread intermarriage patterns, many have relatives on both sides. However, with three cycles of colonial conquest visited upon them both, by Spanish, Mexican and finally United States invaders, their fundamental linguistic and cultural differences were magnified and transformed into visceral forms of struggle, often to serve the interests of the colonizing state. Conflicts were largely between individuals and communities, not between the two peoples at large. In fact, neither Diné nor Hopi existed as politically recognizable "nations," until the United States imposed centers of administration upon them in the present century. Conditions of over-crowding, close proximity, extreme scarcity of resources (especially land), and inter-"national" conflict, all problems that the Relocation Act claimed to resolve, were directly the result of United States domination of the region.
For the Diné, relocation away from lands designated as "Hopi Partitioned Lands" (HPL) has been more devastating than for the many fewer Hopi relocated from the "Navajo Partitioned Lands" (NPL). The essential core of Hopi life remains preserved in their villages, while the Diné have been cut loose from religious and spiritual roots, and their families and communities have been torn apart and destroyed. Extreme poverty, over-crowding, and loss of livestock have caused severe hardships for the Diné, whereas Hopis have largely been spared such experiences. The effects of Diné suffering have been measured in acute degrees of anxiety, alcoholism, suicide, and early death due to depression. The Diné who have resisted relocation have been subjected to a long-term campaign of harassment, surveillance, livestock impoundment, extensive fencing, water diversions, and bulldozing of burial sites, much of this at the hands of the police forces of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Hopi Tribal government.
The majority of Diné slated for relocation have now moved; thousands are currently living like refugees in cities bordering the reservation (at least 560 relocatee families have yet to receive the housing promised to them). However, about 1200 people (in some 253 families) continue to resist forced removal.1 PL 93-531 originally required the completion of relocation by July 1986 (and the 90% reduction of livestock by 1981). The ultimate goal of total removal has never been consummated. Instead, a story has unfolded which today finds the last Diné resisters facing another in a long series of major crises. The intent of this article is to explain the events since 1986 and the present uncertainty regarding whether a just resolution of the situation can be reached.
Fourth World Bulletin • April 1994
Copyright © 1996 by the Fourth World Center
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