I never thought my path would lead me to be around Navajo tribal members who were on or near Big Mountain, but fate arranged it. After a couple years of returning to the same location, I’m being vague, I became curious as to whether or not elders who I was in the midst of were on Big Mountain. My mother didn’t raise me to be shy, though I stuttered severely as a child after my tonsils were removed and still stutter occasionally, so I was not shy about asking for statements about current events with regards to Peabody Coal and the forced relocation, especially after my wife and I were married where we were on the reservation among them.
I didn’t have a recorder or notepad when I asked them about “the largest forced removal of rural Americans since that of Japanese Americans during the Second World War” in its current situation. However, after talking with a couple Navajo Elders from Big Mountain on the Navajo reservation, in which one specifically asked I not reveal their name, it’s time for one final attempt (I had obtained their permission) to post what they’d told me on some powerful liberal blog called Kos. I have made a decision.
One elder, who was supposed to give my email to someone to give me a statement said, “We don’t get much press.” That written statement never came, so I’m telling what little they told me. First, a non-elder said Peabody Coal Mine closed on Big Mountain, then an elder told me about the status of the Bennett Freeze.
(bold mine)
When then-Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Commissioner Robert L. Bennett enacted the Bennett Freeze in 1966, it was ostensibly to quell an ongoing land dispute between the Navajo and Hopi tribes after the Hopi Tribe sued to claim the acreage. Some Navajo residents of the area say there wasn’t a problem that warranted federal intervention. Don Yellowman, Navajo, who grew up in the area, believes the freeze was not an answer to the land dispute with the Hopis—but a divide-and-conquer tactic that would make it possible for outside industries to gain access to the land.
Although they hadn’t heard of the Bennett Freeze, they said it didn’t affect them on Big Mountain, “They’re in a different area.”
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — The Navajo Nation Council approved legislation that would provide $225,000 from the Unreserved, Undesignated Fund Balance to carry out a pilot project to construct 10 homes in the Former Bennett Freeze area.
The legislation would still need to be signed into law by Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye.
Legislation sponsor Council Delegate Tuchoney Slim, Jr. (Bodaway/Gap, Coppermine, K’ai’bii’tó, LeChee, Tonalea/Red Lake), along with the Tonalea Community Development Committee (TCDC) and representatives from the Tonalea Chapter, presented the proposal outlining a project that would begin housing construction in the former Bennett Freeze area.
“We have spent a lot of time planning on how we can get our leaders to begin helping with the former Bennett Freeze area,” Slim said. “It is our goal to bring our people back and change the life of the children in that area. For far too long, our people have suffered in that area and they have been waiting patiently for the Navajo Nation to help them.”
One particularly strong statement an elder said was, "The ones in the city think they can speak for us - and they can't." Another elder was extremely concerned when they said, “There aren't that many of them (elders) left.” Think about it.
Here is the most current article I could find, and afterwards are diaries I've written about it explaining it in more detail.
Native Sun News Today: Navajo elders continue long fight on disputed land
Dineh elders: ‘We are protesting on behalf of global society’
40-year-old Navajo battle is compared to DAPL standoff
By Talli Nauman
Native Sun News Today
Health & Environment Editor
nativesunnews.today
BIG MOUNTAIN, Ariz. –– Comparing themselves to the water protectors who defend the Missouri River from the Dakota Access Pipeline construction in Lakota Territory, relocation resisters recently observed their 40th anniversary here in Navajo-Hopi lands with a call for volunteers to help elders keep traditions alive.
“If you are experienced from other battle fields, like Standing Rock, North Dakota, and seeking to continue your learning and contribute to peace, this is one of the places – Big Mountain,” they said in a written missive.
“This 40-year Dineh experience may be equal and similar to the fight at Standing Rock,” they told the Native Sun News Today.
Located in the Four-Corners plateau of the U.S. Southwest, Big Mountain encompasses most of the northern portion of the so-called “Hopi Partitioned Lands,” an area in which a 1974 Presidential Executive Order called for forced eviction of traditional, non-English-speaking Navajo, or Dineh, under the Navajo-Hopi Relocation Act or Public Law 93-531.
Forced Navajo Relocation Continues on Big Mountain (Update)
Forced Navajo Relocation Victims Need Help (Update)
McCain & The Forced Navajo Relocation Law
America's West Bank (Edited and New Info.)
Navajos Resist Forced Relocation (extra, I did not write this one)
Continuing, one elder, who said it was their job to tell the following, emphasized this was investigated by the United Nations.
These traditional resistors strongly believe that the sacred lands must be maintained in a natural order. The traditional Dineh are aware that Peabody Western Coal Company, which is currently mining nearly 80, 000 acres adjacent to Big Mountain, will expand further into these sacred lands once forcible removal is completed.
The IITC and the Dineh resisters remind the members of the Commission on Human Rights and NGO Delegates that this situation is, now, beyond crucial. The year 2001 can bring about a volatile state when the U.S. Attorney begins enforcing removal of individual traditional residents. In the words of one resister “We, the Sovereign Dineh resistors may politically be powerless but spiritually our focuses are adamant, and we will be prepared, again, to hopefully stop the U.S. government and its energy companies with their intentions to annihilate our ancient existence.”
This is why this is “the largest forced removal of rural Americans since that of Japanese Americans during the Second World War.”
Mr. Amor, please bear in mind that this forced relocation of over 12,000 people whose ties to their customary use areas (that is, their land) have very strong religious, political, economic and psychological ties may well be the largest forced removal of rural Americans since that of Japanese Americans during the Second World War.
The “largest forced removal of rural Americans since that of Japanese Americans during the Second World War” has a great deal of propaganda enabling it. However, “There aren't that many of them (elders) left.” Think about it.
Comparing themselves to the water protectors who defend the Missouri River from the Dakota Access Pipeline construction in Lakota Territory, relocation resisters recently observed their 40th anniversary here in Navajo-Hopi lands with a call for volunteers to help elders keep traditions alive.
3:25 (My 1st being at a different location about 4 years ago is not me saying I was here below at the time this video was made) Go to 3:25
The hurricane that leaves few elders left on Big Mountain hit with deliberate US manipulation and propaganda, Peabody Coal raping the Earth Mother, and continues with apologists minimizing the persecution they endure (Updated 4:32 p.m. MT April 6, 2017).
BIG MOUNTAIN – Billowing clouds rolled in and out over Big Mountain, bringing wind, rain, snow and sun when beloved Navajo matriarch and activist Katherine Smith said goodbye to the land she loved and defended.
“In our beliefs, when a death occurs the weather will tell you how blessed they were,” said Smith's daughter, Marykatherine Smith. “We see rain, wind and snow as prosperity. So she was very blessed.”
The elder Smith, who once met federally employed workers with a shotgun during the infamous and protracted Navajo-Hopi relocation, died March 29. Officially, her age was listed at 98, but family and friends say she was more likely over 100.
I’ve made a decision. By analogy, I had a jazz trio gig in ‘96 that turned to a jazz duet, and when the hotel bought a $20,000 music system, it turned to me out the door. Peace.