conservation is more than just putting up a plaque and calling something a park. We embrace conservation because healthy and diverse lands and waters help us build resilience to climate change. We do it to free more of our communities and plants and animals and species from wildfires, and droughts, and displacement . . . We do it because places like this nurture and restore the soul.—-Barack Obama
As the Obama years wind down, it’s time to take stock of the president’s contributions to repatriation through his use of the 1906 Antiquities Act.
This legislation, signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt, came about as a result of the public’s growing awareness of America’s rich archaeological heritage (through venues like the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893) and archaeologists’ concern over the looting of ancient sites by private dealers and collectors.
Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir, above Yosemite Falls.
The Antiquities Act provided for the then-significant fine of $500 for anyone who “shall appropriate, excavate, injure, or destroy any historic or prehistoric ruin or monument, or any object of antiquity, situated on lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States . . . ” The law also specified that the legislative branch would be the final arbiter of any setting aside of public lands for the purposes of preservation: “the President of the United States is hereby authorized, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest . . . to be national monuments, and may reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.“
During its first 75 years, the Act was invoked by presidents from both parties, with William Howard Taft and Jimmy Carter leading the charge, each setting aside more than 30 million acres of public lands for preservation. Since the Carter administration, however, such designations have fallen off sharply. Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush did nothing in this regard. It wasn’t until 1992 that Bill Clinton restarted the practice of presidential initiative in preservation, and he and his two successors have averaged several million acres each. To his credit, George W. Bush contributed more than 5 million acres to the public trust.
Chaco Canyon, “Pueblo Bonito.” National Parks Service. Theodore Roosevelt designated the area Chaco Canyon National Monument in 1907.
Even though the Antiquities Act arose from the archiving ideology we explored in a previous post (see “Indigenous Archives”)—the desire of non-Indians to collect, concentrate, and manage Native American cultural materials—it has evolved into a much more Native-centered mechanism for asserting cultural sovereignty. Under Barack Obama, the Antiquities Act has served the dual purpose of environmental protection and cultural preservation. President Obama has earmarked over 500 million acres of land as national treasures, making his the most proactive president in this area since the act was signed into law. At the end of his term, Obama designated 1.5 million acres around Bears Ears Buttes in southwestern Utah as off-limits to development. More importantly, Mr. Obama’s actions will create a first-of-its-kind tribal commission of representatives from the five Native American tribes that live in the region. The commission will advise the monument’s federal managers.
Bears Ears Buttes. Utah Public Radio.
Russell Begaye, Tribal President of the Navajo Nation, explained the land’s cultural significance to reporters: “We have always looked to Bears Ears as a place of refuge, as a place where we can gather herbs and plants and as a place of sacredness,” he said. “It is a place of safety and fortitude. It is a place where our ancestors hid and survived from U.S. cavalry during the Long War.”
As with so many of Mr. Obama’s proposals, this designation has been characterized by some western politicians as a “federal land grab.” But as the history of the Antiquities Act demonstrates, it is actually very much in keeping with the vision of its originator, T.R. Like the idea of repatriation (see “Iowa’s Place in Repatriation”), cultural preservation got its start in Iowa when Congressman John F. Lacey, a Republican representative from Iowa, pushed to create the Antiquities Act. Republicans from Roosevelt to Lacey and Taft all saw that protection of western lands were a necessary part of legislating for “the greater good.” As Roosevelt said when he set aside parts of the Grand Canyon for protection: “I want to ask you to do one thing in connection with it in your own interest and in the interest of the country—to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is.”
Tribal communities and the Obama administration have been hard at work this past 8 years to answer Roosevelt’s call, but many Americans appear to know very little about their efforts. Perhaps only locals are aware of the Salish Sea, a transnational stretch of water that has been home to the Coast Salish peoples for thousands of years.
Designated the San Juan Islands National Monument by President Obama in 2013, the Salish Sea is home to important American and Canadian fisheries, wetlands, and places of cultural patrimony. As a “bioregional marine sanctuary,” The San Juan Islands National Monument is being preserved as a collaborative endeavor between the U.S. and Canadian governments and those of the First Nations communities whose roots are in the area. It is an effort that has “brought together the 77 different Washington Tribes and BC First Nations . . . to participate in co-management of the resources of the Salish Sea. Co-management means that tribes work with non-Indians in an equal partnership on how resource decisions are made.”
Intertribal group piloting a traditional Coast Salish canoe in the Salish Sea.
The same is probably true of the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, a designation of public lands in Taos County, New Mexico that preserves both the environmental complexity and scenic beauty of extensive volcanic fields and piñon forest and the petroglyphs, stone tools, projectile points and potsherds that document human habitation there from the Archaic period through the modern era, when the Jicarilla Apache, Utes and the peoples of the Taos and Picuris Pueblos inhabited the area. Along with a diverse array of public places deemed worthy of protection—from the site of the Stonewall riots in New York City, to the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers Monument in Wilberforce, Ohio, and as far west as the Honouliuli Internment Camp on O’ahu—the outgoing administration has developed a successful strategy for the assertion of Native sovereignty by partnering with local communities to preserve and protect public places where American history has been made and its ecological diversity has flourished. It is a model of federal and local cooperation that has worked well, as Theodore Roosevelt felt it should, “in the interests of the country.”
Sources
http://www.wwu.edu/salishsea/resources3.shtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Grande_del_Norte_National_Monument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:National_Monuments_designated_by_Barack_Obama
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2016/02/13/Obama-expands-public-lands-more-than-any-US-president/1161455298784/
