When explorers and settlers arrived in North America, their diseases and wars reduced the Native American population by an estimated ninety percent over a few generations. This left vast areas of the country unpopulated and ripe for exploitation. Numerous treaties were struck with Indian Tribes giving them rights to their ancestral lands. Unfortunately, the U.S. government repeatedly broke those treaties. The Indians were eventually driven onto relative small reservations in desolate areas. The fiction has been maintained until the present that these reservations are independent sovereign nations within the United States. Indian Reservations in the United States are administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs within the Department of the Interior.
After World War II, the U.S. government was moving forward with both a nuclear weapons program and a commercial nuclear power program. Uranium was needed for both these programs. In 1948, the Atomic Energy Commission created a program to stimulate domestic uranium production. Fixed prices were guaranteed for purchase of uranium, initial production from new mines would be received bonuses above the fixed purchase price and air and ground surveys were conducted in order to locate new reserves of uranium ore. A great deal of ore reserves were located in the Four Corner area, where the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah meet. There Navajo Indian Reservation is located in this area.
Many uranium mines were opened on or near the Navajo Lands. The U.S. government wanted the uranium, the Navajo were desperate for employment and the mining companies wanted the profits. Unfortunately, the contracts for the leases and royalties were poorly written and little money found its way to the Navajo Nation. The workers were not warned about the dangers of working in poorly ventilated uranium mines. Many miners suffered injury and even premature death from radiation exposure. Horrible damage was done to the environment around the mines with pollution of land, surface water and aquifers that fed wells.
The Navajo Nation fought back against the health threat and finally won regulations for radiation exposure after thirty years. They fought over environmental damage and instituted new policies for regulating new mines and reclamation of old mining sites. They also worked on the contracts for leases and royalties to insure that they would benefit from the extraction of resources from their lands.
With minor variations, this pattern has been played out on other reservations where uranium ore was found. After years of exploitation, injury and environmental damage, tribes have fought back with varying success against the impact of uranium extraction and processing on their tribal lands. The U.S. government once again has failed to keep its promises and obligation to the Native Americans who live on reservations. There is much more to be done to redress this most recent injury done to Native Americans.
Great Seal of the Navajo Nation:
