Turning a New Leaf: The Hidden History of Mesa Verde National Park
Written by Eliana Meza-Ehlert Yellowstone; Glacier; Arches; these National Parks are often recognized as an important part of American history. The National Park movement was sparked by some of America’s greatest thinkers of the 1800’s: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir. They believed that transcendence and divinity could be found in nature. This led to the idea of an “uninhabited wilderness,” or that nature, by definition, could not be considered a wilderness unless it was unoccupied. This idea was romanticized, eventually leading to what is now known as the “depeopling” of native lands. Mesa Verde National Park is one such example of a park that was founded because of this way of thinking. It sprawls over 52,074 acres of Colorado desert and is home to over 5,000 archeological dwellings (Block). On their website, the National Park Service advertises the park’s critical role in preserving the history of the Ancestral Pueblo people who built the dwellings (Helmuth). They write, “On June 29, 1906, President Roosevelt established Mesa Verde National Park to ‘preserve the works of man,’ the first national park of its kind. Today, the continued preservation of both cultural and natural resources is the focus of the park’s research.” While the park provides information about the land’s history, they neglect to tell the story of the Ute people, whose reservation Mesa Verde now occupies. The National Park Service should do more to acknowledge the Ute people’s long standing history with the land their park sits on, as well as the forceful manner in which the park was founded. Though some tribes were forced off of their land in order to form the national parks, the Ute, were able to “negotiate” the trade for their land. This might not be an issue if it weren’t for the power imbalance between the two negotiating parties. According to a law review by Isaac Kantor, the Ute initially refused to sell or trade land on their reservation. However, when President Roosevelt signed the Mesa Verde National Park bill, much of their reservation land suddenly became a part of Mesa Verde National Park. After learning that many archeological sites existed outside of the newly minted National Park, the government began trying to acquire more of the Ute’s land. The tribe continued to refuse to sell or trade their land, until congress pointed out that they could simply take their land for nothing. Reluctantly, they agreed to trade some of their land for other land on Ute Mountain. When additional sites were discovered, congress took another 1,320 acres without notifying the Utes. The National Park Service didn’t end their quest to acquire more land for the park until 1970. Though the Utes have now received $32 million in compensation for the land that was taken from them, the National Park Service continues to slight the Ute tribe. They do little to promote Mesa Verde’s sister park, which operates on the Ute reservation, and offer little information to their visitors on the Ute people. Though the park itself should remain unchanged, the National Park Service needs to do a better job of promoting what they so often boast of promoting: cultural and historical preservation. Like it or not, the narrative of the Ute people is interwoven with that of Mesa Verde’s national park, and all it takes are simple steps to share the true story of the land. It goes without saying that reservations and the way the divide between Native American tribes and National Parks has been handled is highly problematic, but we can begin to retell the narrative by acknowledging the issueㅡ learning about the native tribe that previously occupied a park before you visit it is a great way to start. Works Cited Block, Ira. “Soar Over the Elaborate Cliffside Villages of the Pueblo People.” A Guide to Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park, 11 Apr. 2018, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/national-parks/mesa-verde-national-park/. Helmuth, Laura. “In the Cliffs of Mesa Verde.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 Jan. 2008, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/in-the-cliffs-of-mesa-verde-10863419/. “History & Culture.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/historyculture/index.htm. Kantor, Isaac. “Ethnic Cleansing and America's Creation of National Parks.” Public Land and Resources Land Review, 2007, https://scholarship.law.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1267&context=plrlr. Gilio-Whitaker, Dina. “The Story We've Been Told About America's National Parks Is Incomplete.” TIME , 2 Apr. 2019, time.com/5562258/indigenous-environmental-justice/.
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