What is America? "U.S. National Parks"

In January 2021 we set off on a educational focused, socially distanced road trip that took our little chocolate making family through National Parks and Forests in the so called West over the course of a month. Fortuna chocolate began with the question “What is America?” - a question that has inspired us and encouraged us to look deeper and learn more. With this question in mind we aimed to learn about the land via our own presence and also try to understand the current conditions imposed by the continued settler colonialism on these sacred places. Here is a little of what we learned on our 5,000+ mile journey West and back.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Arches National Park

Our first stop and this is what the NPS / National Park System has to report on its investigations into the EOA / Ethnographic Overview and Assessment: ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

“Tribes described arches as portals in space and time that play an important role in ongoing tribal religious practices. Rock spires are sentient beings who continue to provide help or resources to people”⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Tribes consulted: Pueblo of Zuni (or A:shiwi),⠀the Hopi Tribe, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe-Uintah and Ouray, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians.

Zion National Park ⠀

In 1917 Zion National Park lost its Paiute inspired name Mukuntuweap because the National Parks Service director Horace Albright felt it was hard to pronounce and deterred prospective tourists. In 2019 a record 4.5 million people visited the park, making it the country’s third most visited national park.

One morning we headed out before sunrise to try and find a quiet place to reflect on the sacred energies of this incredible land. We had a couple of hours of quiet then slowly the buzz of cars and people began and even as we were leaving we were complicit in the damage. We are continually learning about how to bear witness and to minimize impact on these sacred places as tourists ourselves.

Mojave Desert

Let us not perpetuate a colonial settler story of erasure. Let us open our eyes and see life thriving in the desert. Here, in the Mojave people have lived since the beginning of what we call time. Using a song to guide them through the desert, to find water and to continue the cultural traditions of their ancestors.

The Mojave people have survived US military occupation since Ft. Mojave was established in the early 1860's. The government sanction violence carried out by the US military was intended to clear the path for illegal settlement and for the flood of prospectors from the east that were crossing the Mojave in search of gold. When the federal policy shifted from annihilation to assimilation, indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and enrolled in a military boarding school set up at Ft. Mojave. One of many that were established across the country at the time, the children at the Mojave boarding school were brutally beaten for speaking their native language. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Mojave poet Natalie Diaz has been a powerful leader in the movement to reawaken the language of her people, writing poetry about her life on the reservation and about the continued US policy of violence today. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

"I watched a lion eat a man like a piece of fruit, peel tendons from fascia like pith from rind, then lick the sweet meat from its hard core of bones. The man had earned this feast and his own deliciousness by ringing a stick against the lion's cage, calling out Here, Kitty Kitty, Meow!⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
With one swipe of a paw much like a catcher's mitt with fangs, the lion pulled the man into the cage, rattling his skeleton against the metal bars. The lion didn't want to do it- He didn't want to eat the man like a piece of fruit and he told the crowd this: I only wanted some goddamn sleep . . . "
When My Brother Was An Aztec (excerpt) by Natalie Diaz⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

⠀Sequoia National Park ⠀⠀⠀

General William T. Sherman was acting US military commander between 1869 - 1883. As an entrepreneur, he used his position to protect and encourage colonial minded settlers and gold prospectors as they illegally expanded west into sovereign indigenous lands. A proponent of 'scorched earth' campaigns against civilians he once wrote to future President Ulysses S. Grant :⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

"We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women, and children... during and assault, the soldiers can not pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age." ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

What would become Sequoia National Park was first established on Native Land in 1890. The main road named the 'Generals Highway' by the National Park Service, winds through the park and into the ancient forest of giant sequoia trees. This road was probably based on the trade route used by at least 5 indigenous tribes as they moved goods across the Sierra Nevada mountain range for countless generations. The road was then used by colonial settlers and prospectors as they moved illegally across California, an expansion that was violently defended by the US military. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

In 1903 Buffalo Soldiers stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco (more on this in the next couple of posts) spent years further constructing the road making it possible for tourists to flood into the upper section of the park called the Giant Forest. It is home to the most visited tree in the park, named to honor General William T. Sherman. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Nothing about this sacred place reflected the US patriotism forced upon it. We call on the US government to change the names and honor those who were steward and cohabitants of these ancient forests we now call Sequoia National Park.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Monterrey & Santa Cruz Coast

In 1770 the Franciscans under authority of the Spanish Catholic Church and with the military protection of the colonial government, identified 21 locations along what is now the California coastline. These locations were considered ideal for the religious conversion and labor motivated enslavement of the *thriving* native people. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

The resulting missions, accompanied by the establishment of military Presidios at each site, constituted the Camino Real (Royal Road) no more than a days ride on horseback between them this road connected the colonial settlements to each other. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Under the direction of the well documented genocidal Friar Junipero Serra, thousands of indigenous people were kidnapped, raped, murdered and forced into slavery. September 23, 2015 Junipero Serra was canonized by Pope John Paul II, honoring him as a Catholic saint. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

"It is as if we, the very people whose lives and deaths made Serra the priest into Serra the saint, are inconsequential." Miranda, a member of the Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen Nation of the Greater Monterey Bay Area in California.

Big Sur Coastline

In 1821 the brand new Mexican republic secularized the missions along the Camino Real, ending decades of brutality and genocide. The new government did not however return the Indigenous land stolen by the Spanish but instead issued enormous private land grants.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

In 1848, as a result of the Mexican - American war, the US took control of a large part of Mexico, including California, and thousands of colonial settlers, fur trappers and gold prospectors flooded into the Central Coastline. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

In 1850 the local and state governments of Monterey County offered cash for Indian scalps and this led to horrific mass violence against native people. The federal government established military reservations where treaties were signed restoring some indigenous land rights. By the time the treaties arrived to the US Senate for ratification a powerful California business lobby convinced the Senate to stall ratification for 50 years, sealing the treaties in secret. This allowed time for the land promised in these treaties to be sold to California settlers, leaving those tribes not living on the reservations landless. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Tribes have petitioned congress for federal recognition and to honor the treaties signed with them as sovereign nations with mixed results. They continue to demand the United States government uphold its commitment to Article VI Section 2 of the US constitution where it names treaties "the supreme Law of the Land"

Joshua Tree National Park

Let's talk about appropriation. Have you seen photos of the Coachella Music Festival? Have you attended the festival? If either is true then you have seen the common fashion trend at the festival, so ubiquitous it has made it to the main stage on a number of occasions. Feathered headdresses have become so popular with non native people attending the festival that entire websites are devoted to their production and sale - one that I reviewed were selling warbonnets made in Bali, Indonesia and claimed to be "honoring the beauty of American Indians" with their products. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

The valley, home to Joshua Tree pictured here, remains the ancestral home of several communities of native people who have survived three genocidal colonial governments, beginning with the Spanish in 1772. The Chemehuevi and the Cahuilla groups have seen miners and trappers decimate local plant and animal life, illegally claiming territory that has made generations of settlers wealthy. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Among the sacred resources carefully managed by native people for thousands of years, ensuring their continued survival, water may be the most vital. Today, despite years of drought (which is an entire conversation in itself) water is diverted from the rivers in the valley to private land used in export oriented ranching and farming. Ground water is used for subdivisions of retired non native citizens looking to 'get way from it all' and to keep non native grasses the perfect shade of green for elite games of polo and golf. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

This includes Empire Polo Club, where the Coachella music festival is held each year. Do you think with this knowledge in mind, it is an appropriate fashion choice to wear a warbonnet manufactured and transported from Indonesia while partying for a weekend at Coachella? Is this a respectful way to honor "the beauty of American Indians"?

Four Corners & Dine Land

"How do we acknowledge our shared humanity? How do we think about our relationship to place in terms of relationality and not in terms of extraction or ownership?" - Form & Relation / Contemporary Native Ceramics curated by Jami C. Powell & Morgan E. Freeman at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth University⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Teec Nos Pas is a trading post and small town in northern Arizona close to the Four Corners Monument and Navajo Land. Trading posts have been a sales point for Native artists resisting cultural genocide and a method of maintaining the ancestral traditions and skills of native artwork. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Far from neutral spaces, the majority of trading posts were operated by non native entrepreneurs and as a result were prone to the unethical business practices that were empowered by a racist US federal agenda. Some trading posts are now operated by native people and purchasing artwork, jewelry or ceramics directly from native artists at prices that reflect the labor and skill involved is one of the ways non native people can oppose appropriation and stand with native communities who continue to fight genocide today. It is a way to affirm the life and value of the indigenous people who first occupied this land we now call the United States.

Mesa Verde National Park

Museums have long been an instrument of colonization. In the United States, regardless of the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) countless native bodies and sacred objects 'found' by archaeologists are kept in university collections and museums across the country. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

In the name of science ancestors remain unearthed and land appropriated for the purposed value offered to *entrance fee paying* tourists. In most cases the 'artifacts' put on display present native people as extinct and therefore the institution is absolved of ongoing theft. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Mesa Verde National Park is an intense example of this, a site visited by more than 500,000 admission paying tourists each year. Modern US science reports the original construction began in 7500 BC - more than 9,500 years ago according to the federally recognized calendar in use today. Conflicting theories describe the following time line leading to the 1868 US treaty designating the area as Ute lands. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Sienna Trapp BowieFebruary 1, 2021Comment