The Language That Won The War And The Veteran That Lead An Oppressed Reservation To A Self-Determined Nation
A. Engelstad Peter MacDonald, Sr. February 22, 2010
Table of Contents
Inerviewer/Interviewee Release Form………………..…………………………………………...2
Statement of Purpose……………………………………………………………………………...3
Biography…………………………………………………………………………………………4
Historical Contextualization—“The Evolution of Native Americans from WWII to the 1990s”..6
Interview Transcription…………………………………………………………………………..24
Time Indexing Recording Log…………………………………………………………………...57
Interview Analysis…………………………………………………………………………….....59
Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………....66
Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………...80
Statement of Purpose
The purpose of this oral history document is to achieve a better understanding of the experiences of Native Americans, especially the Navajo people, including their experiences in
WWII as code-talkers and their experiences with the United States government since then. The document provides a historical contextualization of primary and secondary sources documenting the occurrences and historiography on the topic and compares these to an in-depth interview with
Peter MacDonald, a Navajo code-talker himself and the former Chairman of Navajo Nation from
1970-1989. Furthermore, the project analyzes the effectiveness of oral history as an accurate way to study the past.
Biography
Peter MacDonald Sr. was probably born in the early spring of 1928. Because he was raised in the traditional way of the Navajo, the largest Native American tribe in the United
States, he does not know the exact date of his birth. He was raised in Teec Nos Pos, New
Mexico, by his mother and his grandparents, having lost his father at age two.
He began his formal education at age six in a BIA day school, one of many set up by the federal government and Bureau of Indian Affairs to offer Native American children a primary and secondary education more typical of schooling outside the reservation. On his first day at the
BIA school, he was given the name „Peter Donald‟ to replace the Navajo name his parents had given him. Within his first week at school, he became Peter MacDonald after the other children learned the song “Old McDonald.” After finishing at the BIA day school in second grade,
MacDonald graduated to attend a BIA boarding school where children were punished for speaking English and for refusing to abandon their traditional practices and culture. MacDonald dropped out of the BIA school after sixth grade to return home and be trained as a medicine man by his grandfather. After seeing other men from the reservation leave to find paying jobs elsewhere,
MacDonald, 15, followed and found work. In 1944, he was drafted into the Marine Corps at fifteen years old and trained as a Navajo Code-Talker. He sailed with other Marines to Hawaii where he waited to be deployed. But, after missing the ship to Guam, he was not deployed from
Hawaii until the end of the war when he served in the south pacific and north China with the 6th
Marine Division. He was honorably discharged from the Marines in 1946 with the rank of corporal.
After the war, MacDonald returned to school, first attending Bacone Junior College and then the University of Oklahoma where he studied electrical engineering and graduated to become a member of the Polaris Missile design team. After his work with Polaris, Peter
MacDonald returned to Navajo Nation to start and lead the Office of Navajo Economic
Opportunity. Developing programs encouraging self-determination among the Navajo.
After resigning from the ONEO, MacDonald ran for tribal chairman, the only elected position in the Navajo tribal government. As chairman, MacDonald led the movement toward self-determination for the Navajo, and MacDonald pushed for a senate investigation of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs and their shortcomings in helping with the movement for self- determination. In response, MacDonald‟s purchase of the Big Boquillas Ranch was investigated by the Senate, resulting in MacDonald being sentenced to years in prison until eventually being pardoned by President Clinton in 1999.
Historical Contextualization:
The Evolution of Native Americans from World War II to the 1990s
In 1948, during his second year at Bacone College, a Baptist college originally founded as a missionary school for Cherokee students, Peter MacDonald was asked to deliver a speech at the Southern Baptist convention to encourage continual support for the school:
A long time ago, we Native Americans lived on this continent with everything
provided for us—the Mother Earth, the Father Sky—and everything put on earth
for our use…Then along came the white men. They didn‟t have anything, so we
helped them by teaching them about…surviving in what, to them, was a strange
land. Then, in return, the whites gave us tuberculosis… They brought us war to
protect…everything we had. The white men came. Now we‟re out here, no longer
a happy people. We‟re out here like hungry wolves on the prairie… Now that
we‟re on the prairie like lonely, hungry wolves, we need education. We need to
speak and write like you. We need the religious education that you provide for us
at Bacone. (MacDonald 94)
MacDonald‟s words reflect a feeling shared by many Native Americans of the time period. He and others his age came from a generation that would be the last to have a chance to experience the old traditions of their culture, uncontaminated by white ways. However, after the involvement of Native Americans in WWII, it was clear that the traditions of their ancestors, and perhaps the desire to participate in these traditions, were taken from the young Marines, who answered Uncle Sam‟s call to duty by creating a code derived, not from their education in the
Christian schools they were forced to attend, but from the language of their ancestors which had almost been forgotten. However, as a consequence of their heroic efforts during the war, the veterans had seen life beyond the impoverished reservations and scientific fact that contradicted the nature of their religious beliefs. These veterans could not ignore what they had seen and from here a new era of Native American culture, an era dominated by whites through education and government, evolved. Therefore, in order to understand the evolution of Native Americans from
World War II to the 1990s, it is important to understand the experiences of these veterans and the life on the reservations during their deployment and upon their return, as well as gain a first-hand perspective of someone who was there and led his people in the years afterward.
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, Native Americans responded quickly.
The Navajo, the largest Native American tribe in the country, were facing extremely hard economic times. After the Long Walk in 1846, a relocation of the Navajo from Fort Defiance to
Fort Sumner, New Mexico to “exterminate the Navajos…covering 300 miles in the snow to a concentration camp in the dead of winter” (Eastlake 2), the Navajos lost 9/10 of the 30 million acres they considered their land. Arizona State University professor, Peter Iverson, recounts that it was not the terrible treatment of the Navajo that was the worst aspect of the Long Walk, but the trauma of being taken from their sacred land, “You have to remember that the people did not know whether they would be able ever to return and they had been brought up to believe that they must live within the boundaries of these sacred mountains” (Navajo Code Talkers). Two decades later, the Navajo were granted the right to leave this confined area and a larger territory was mapped out for the Navajo in a treaty of 18681 (MacDonald 36). However, these maps meant nothing to the Navajos, who had never learned to read maps, and they returned to the land of their ancestors which they considered sacred and theirs by natural right. Because this land was not desirable to white settlers, they rarely noticed that the Navajo had expanded past their
1 1868 Treaty: See Appendix 2 mapped out area. When notice was taken, a representative from the tribe would request the land from the government and, because no one wanted it, it was usually granted to them. In the 1920s however, the government saw inhabitance of the land outside the Navajo‟s restrictions growing.
The government set formal boundaries out of which the Navajo‟s could not live and implemented livestock reduction, commanding that each Navajo family reduce their livestock to almost a fourth of what they originally had. By 1934, Navajo Nation was confined to 17 million acres, about half the amount of land the Navajo had before the Long Walk, and after the reduction of their livestock and source of wealth, the land was poverty stricken (MacDonald 37).
Some to defend the land of their ancestors and some to escape the hardships at home, many Native Americans enlisted for war or went to work at the numerous jobs the war was providing, all leaving the reservation and their distinctive culture for the first time. Navajo WWII veteran Sam Billison was motivated to enlist in the war because the Japanese atrocities reminded him of atrocities committed against his ancestors by the white men, “When I read about Asia, the
Japanese occupation, Eastern Asia where they were raping children…killing practically everybody. It reminded me of the Long Walk” (Navajo Code Talkers). Keith Little, also a veteran, had a very patriotic response to Pearl Harbor, “being a Native American has a lot to do with protecting your country… you were told that this is your land, this is what you have here.
And you protect that” (Navajo Code Talkers). Some Native Americans unknowingly registered for the draft when they sought jobs outside the reservation and were registered by authorities at the job sites. Lying about a person‟s age was common when trying to find work, so many soldiers were drafted although they were much too young to fight. Commissioner of Indian
Affairs, John Collier, wrote at the time, “strange as it may seem the Indians have responded earnestly and even enthusiastically from the challenge of war” (Collier 29). Likewise, in Reader’s Digest, Donald Peattie wrote of the statistical difference in the percentage of Native
American soldiers and soldiers of other minorities, “the Amerinds [American Indians] have put
15,000 braves into our fighting forces—more per capita than any other racial group in the country, white, yellow, or black” (Peattie 78). This is especially impressive because many Native
Americans who enlisted for service were turned down because they did not fit the education requirements of the military.
Native American education had gone through rapid changes in the years prior to WWII.
The treaty of 1868, which granted the Navajo a larger area to live in after the long walk, in turn, granted the United States government the right to regulate Native American education. The treaty demanded that the Navajo must “pledge themselves to compel their children, male and female, between the ages of six and sixteen years, to attend school” (1868 Treaty Art. VI) and informed the Navajo that an Indian agent had the duty of making sure that the “stipulation is strictly complied with” (1868 Treaty Art. VI). As a product of this treaty, schools were created by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), a branch of the US Congress created by John C. Calhoun in 1824, to educate Navajo children in a Christian, white, English environment.
Some families chose one of their children to “sacrifice” to BIA education. When the
Indian agent would come to take their children, parents would admit to only having one child while their others hid so that they might be taught in traditional ways (MacDonald 41). BIA schools were typically day schools for younger children and after the first or second grade, children would be sent to attend the BIA boarding schools. In the BIA schools, children were severely punished for speaking the Navajo language. Navajo historian Zonnie Gorman recounts a story she was told by her father of his experience in the BIA schools, “he was punished. He was chained in the basement of the hospital of the chuch. They left him there for three days, fed him bread and water” (Navajo Code Talkers). Harry Walters, the director of Dine College Museum, relays what he heard in his BIA school, “your religion is pagans. You‟re language will not get you anywhere. Learn a trade. In other words, be a white man” (Navajo Code Talkers). Children were given pants, sweaters, and new shoes to wear at the schools. Their traditional pony tails and long hair were cut and they were constantly told that their religion and language was ridiculous
(MacDonald 42). When enlisting for service, the only Native American men who fit the army requirements were those able to speak English. Consequently, it was the Navajo who had been educated in the BIA schools and had already experienced life and culture outside the reservation who were able to serve in the armed forces.
Native Americans proved themselves to be good soldiers because they were raised to be disciplined, hard workers and partly because of the stereotypes they faced in training. Peter
MacDonald speaks of his experience at training camp saying, “The calisthenics and other physical activities that were meant to toughen us were so easy for us that we were always sitting around waiting for the Anglo units to finish” (MacDonald 59). Historian Dr. Tom Holm writes in his book, Code Talkers and Warriors that John Collier wanted to make separate military units out of the Native American soldiers. This was based on a stereo type that Indians were
“especially warlike, stealthy scouts, and physically capable of enduring the rigors of combat”
(Holm 32). Holm theorizes that Native Americans accepted this stereotype and worked hard to
“conform to the scout-warrior image” (Holm 33). In an interview conducted by Taylor Stanton for the American Century Project, Dr. Tom Holm said, “the stereotype was that Indians could do these kinds of things: hear things that no one else could hear, see things that no one else could”
(Holm 23). Beginning in late December of 1941, U.S. forces were fighting against the Japanese who had invaded China and “was rapidly consolidating a large Asian empire” (Holm 40). Only days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. was defeated in a Japanese assault on the Phillipines, an assault that historian Tom Holm believes was the “most humiliating and horrific U.S. defeat in the first months of the war” (Holm 42). When Japanese troops landed in the Philippine capital to fight the U.S. in December of 1941, General MacArthur retreated to the Bataan Peninsula where they would have a stronger line. However, the line was not strong enough to oppose the
Japanese and the United States was forced to surrender in April of the following year.
Twenty two Navajos were taken by the Japanese as prisoners of war. These Navajo men, along with the other prisoners were forced to march about 80 miles from one concentration camp to another. Along the journey they were allowed small bits of rice but no water. Keats Begay, a
Navajo soldier who fought on the Bataan Peninsula and endured the forced march, recalls farmers along the journey leaving food and water for the captives. However these were kicked into the dirt or spilled by the guards of the prisoners. Many captives died along the way from diseases such as malaria and food poisoning. Those who fell ill along the way or could not move on were whipped to death by the guards “his body simply left where he died” (Holm 47). Begay survived not only the forced march but three additional years of torture at a prison camp in
Manchuria before he was liberated by soldiers of the Soviet Union. Begay credits his survival to an arrowhead he received from a fellow Navajo captive. Navajos believe that healing and protective powers can be found in arrowheads. The four other men who kept these arrowheads also survived the march and the three years in Manchuria (Holm 47).
In February of 1942, the Japanese eradicated U.S. naval power once again at the Battle of the Java Sea when a fleet of U.S., Australian, Dutch, and British ships were destroyed by the Japanese. It was evident that the United States was failing to find a way to communicate with the allies. If the United States navy was to overcome the Japanese military which, until this point, they had seriously underestimated, they would need a way of communicating with their allies that could not be understood by the Japanese.
While the most successful military officials worked to find a code that the Japanese, most of them fluent English speakers, could not break, Philip Johnston, a WWI veteran who, as the son of a missionary, had grown up on the Navajo Reservation speaking Navajo, pitched the idea of encoding the Navajo language to marine leaders in 1942 (Holm 71). The Navajo was not the first tribe to use their language as a code in wartime. In WWI, bilingual members of the Choctaw tribe served as code talkers in France. An article in the New York Times written in December of
1940, reports that several Comanche Indians from Oklahoma were “used for relaying secret messages” (“Comanches Again Called For Army Code Service” 1) in WWI but, Willard Walker of Wesleyan University in his article “The Comanche Code Talkers of World War II” disputes this, insisting that WWII was the first time the Comanche language was used as a code in war time. The Comanche code used in WWII was created by transmitting a sequence of Comanche words the first letters of which made up a word in English. For example, “the Rhine might be designated by the Comanche words for rope, horse, Indian, nose , and enemy in that order”
(“The Comanche Code Talkers of World War II” 563) explains Willard Walker. Only fourteen
Comanche code talkers ever fought in WWII, the code was not as efficient as the Navajo code and, because the Comanche language was widely known to other tribes, the code was breakable.
The Navajo tribe, however, was isolated from other tribes. Peter MacDonald explains this as a consequence of the fact that the Navajo never adopted the idea of one chief to lead their tribe. Instead, a member of an extended family became the „chief‟ for his family. When a tribe would make a treaty with such a chief, they thought they were making an agreement with all of
Navajo Nation, they did not understand that it was with only the chief‟s extended family.
MacDonald explains this misunderstanding as a reason for the Navajo‟s isolation, “for years there was a feeling that the Navajo could not be trusted, that we were treaty breakers, because a treaty agreed to by one chief would not be honored by the followers of the other chiefs”
(MacDonald 3). This isolation, however, was very beneficial to the United States military. The fact that the Navajo were such a mysterious and isolated tribe to others ensured that the language would retain this secrecy in war. As an article published in The Washington Post in 1945 wrote,
“The Navajos being extremely clannish and stand-offish by nature were the only Indians not invaded by German “students” in the years between wars” (“Marines Got Foolproof Code From
Navajos‟ Dead Language” 1).
Johnston brought a group of Navajo men to the marines to show the complexities of the
Navajo language and how easily it could be encoded. As Navajo Code Talker historian Zonnie
Gorman explains, “the top brass gave these men six kinds of messages that would normally be sent in the Pacific and asked them to put it into Navajo” (Navajo Code Talkers). The men encoded, transmitted, and decoded three lines of English in twenty seconds. The cryptograph machine that was being used by the marines at that time took thirty minutes to transmit the same message (Navajo Code Talkers). The 382nd platoon of the marines was established as a special coding unit and marine recruits were sent to the Navajo Reservation to recruit young men, graduates of the BIA schools who could speak both English and Navajo fluently. Thirty young
Navajo men were recruited into the marines and twenty-nine of these were sent to a coding boot camp in Camp Elliott near San Diego, California. These twenty-nine Navajos, who came to be known as „the first twenty-nine‟, had two months to devise the code and learn to use the equipment before twenty-seven of the twenty-nine would be deployed to the Pacific and two would remain to recruit new code talkers and teach them how to use the code (Holm 74).
Major General Robert Magnus, commander in the Marine Corps, explains that the Navajo developed most of the code themselves “using mainly the Navajo language as it existed, and then improvising as necessary for unique military terms…words that were not common to the Navajo language” (Navajo Code Talkers). The Navajo used the English alphabet to create the way in which the code would be transmitted. Historian Zonnie Gorman explains, “take the letter, A for example… they chose a word in English that started with that particular letter and then they would translate that into Navajo. So A was „ant‟ and in Navajo it‟s “wola chee”” (Navajo Code
Talkers). A decoder would hear the word “wola chee” on his radio and translate that to ant then, taking the first letter of the English word, he would know that the letter „A‟ begins the message.
They also created 411 Navajo terms to be used in combat such as tank, airplane, bomb, etc. that did not exist in the Navajo language. The code talkers also created words that would translate in
English, not to what they actually meant, but to words that had pieces of the correct translation in them. For example, in English, the Navajo word for “railroad train” translates to “fire-driven wagon” however, code talkers used a word whose translation in English is “turkeys having a rainstorm”. The „t‟ from turkey and „rain‟ from rainstorm indicated that the message meant a train. “Any Navajo listening to us talk on our radios would have thought we were crazy, which was the point of the complexity of the code. Even a captured Navajo would be confused by what he was hearing” (MacDonald 61). Because the Navajo had no written language, the language, as well as the code, had to be memorized. Although this was easy for code talkers, it was nearly impossible for the Japanese and made the code foolproof. In the Spring, the deployed Navajo code talkers had to fight as marines in the battle of
Guadalcanal. The Japanese had taken over Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, between
Hawaii and Australia. In order to keep the connection between the United States and its allies, the marines had to go into battle. Major General Robert Magnus speaks of the unexpectedness of battle “America was not prepared but nevertheless was forced into the operation which we know now as the attack on Guadalcanal” (Navajo Code Talkers). Although the Navajo were eager and ready to use their code in battle, leaders and commanders had not been educated about this secret weapon. Higher military officials were more concerned about building up a successful marine force than trying out a code they had not heard much of. Keith Little, recounts these months of the commanders‟ uncertainty, “most of them did not really realize what it was…I don‟t think they even knew there was such a thing as Navajo code talkers. My commander was totally ignorant of it” (Navajo Code Talkers). However, commanders soon realized the Navajo code was the fastest and most accurate way to transmit messages. The use of the Navajo code “saved more than one American unit from being annihilated by their own comrades” (Holm 80). A year after the battle at Guadalcanal, almost 150 code talkers were stationed in the Pacific (Navajo Code
Talkers).
The code proved to be unbreakable not only by the Japanese but by other Navajo soldiers themselves. One Navajo marine who was not a code talker, Joe Kieyoomia, was captured by the
Japanese and tortured to try and break the code (Holm 81). His friend and fellow Navajo soldier,
Tom Begay, recounts the stories Kieyoomia told him of his torture by the Japanese “they used to have him stand out in a football field naked. And his feet will froze to the ground and then falls and then his skin will be still there and they drag him and they keep him alive. He say he try to break the code. He wrote all kinds of stuff it didn‟t mean anything” (Navajo Code Talkers). The Navajos also faced torture from their fellow American soldiers during the war. More than once, a
Navajo code talker was mistaken for a Japanese soldier, threatened by a fellow soldier that he would be shot before he pleaded to be taken to headquarters. After such incidents, code talkers were given body guards. But, no matter the torture Navajos were faced with in an effort to break the code, the Navajo code remains to be the only unbroken code in modern military history. A
New York Times newspaper article of the day, reports that by the end of the war 420 Navajo code talkers had been deployed to fight in the Pacific (“Navajo Code Talk Kept Foe Guessing 2).
These 420 Navajo code talkers returned to the land of their ancestors, unrecognized.
Because the code had to remain such a secret during the war, word of the code talkers hard work and display of bravery was not commonly heard of in America. On top of this, life on the reservations had gone through rapid changes since the beginning of the war. In 1934, before the war, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act. The act was a result of the findings of the
Meriam Report of the early 1920s, which concluded through studies done by the Institute of
Government Research, that reservations were facing extreme poverty and loss of land. The
Indian Reorganization Act required that all tribes have a constitution that must be approved by the secretary of the interior. An article in the New York Times reports that “tribal leaders fear the plan would not only invite white interference but deprive the Indians of rights obtained under ancient treaties” (“Indians Oppose Act” 28). The Navajo would not agree with the government who had just limited their boundaries, cutting the amount of their livestock in half, submitting the reservation to poverty.
The Navajo government however, did change with the Indian Reorganization Act. A tribal council, consisting of twelve members, was established as well as the position of tribal chairman, who was elected by the people (MacDonald 40). These changes were not completely welcomed by the Navajo. In 1943, a group of Navajo men kidnapped the Indian agent, assigned by the BIA, and his wife, tying their hands and feet, cutting local phone wires, and leaving them in a deep pit far from their home. Government law enforcers were sent to free the couple and find the Navajo men, who were imprisoned after standing trial (MacDonald 41). Under such turmoil and no accepted leadership, the Navajo were struggling. Economic times were still hard following the livestock reduction and many Navajo turned to alcohol, a substance destructive to their culture and traditions.
The use of alcohol in Native Americans dates back to when white settlers brought the substance into America and continued to produce it in the United States. In the early 1940s, during these times of poverty and changes in government, alcohol “offered an escape from the sense of hopelessness” (MacDonald 72). The use of alcohol transformed cultural and ancient
Navajo traditions when drunken outbursts disrupted traditional and sacred ceremonies.
Alcoholism did not only target adults struggling with the economy, “even worse was the alcohol consumption among the young. Teenagers of fifteen and sixteen were openly drinking”
(MacDonald 72). Women did not know the dangerous effects alcohol had on fetuses and pregnant women drank without realizing the consequences (MacDonald 73). The use of alcohol would become one of the most fatal issues to face Native Americans. Today, Native Americans have the highest rates of alcoholism among racial groups. Equally high are the rates of unemployment and suicide, reports a 1988 New York Times article (“Despairing Indians Looking to Tradition to Combat Suicides” 2).
Navajo veterans returned to the reservations to see their homeland having declined monumentally in the time they were away having experienced, unlike other Navajo, life away from the reservation. The experience the veterans had gained contradicted many beliefs that they were raised with, “the Navajo religion did not explain what they had seen and experienced.
Scientific knowledge alone—even the fact that the earth is round—was contrary to our religious upbringing” (MacDonald 75). Navajo men left the poverty stricken reservation to find work in the white world, the ways of which they were now totally accustomed to.
By 1970, the unemployment rate on the reservation was 65% (Waugh 1). Five years earlier, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 was passed through Congress which gave funding to Native American schools that were “operated by the Bureau of Indian
Affairs and an institution of higher education, in consortium with an elementary school or secondary school operated under a contract with or grant from the Bureau of Indian Affairs”
(ESEA Act. Sec 3112). However, this did not improve the underwhelming high school graduation rate among Native Americans compared with the rest of the nation and, in 1969, the
Senate felt it necessary to issue a report “Indian Education: A National Tragedy- A National
Chellenge” which reports “Enrollment in BIA high schools doubled in an 8 year period from
1959 to 1967…in the early 1950‟s the percentage of enrolled children [in BIA schools] increased from 52% in 1950 to 81% in 1955” (S. Res. 80 Part I). The increasing number of children enrolled in BIA schools should mean more employees for the Navajo reservation but, because graduates were leaving the reservation to find work elsewhere, this was not the case.
In the 1960s, Peter MacDonald, the only graduate Navajo electrical engineer, was hoping to change the overwhelming percent of unemployment on the reservation by shaping the development of and heading the Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity (“Waugh” 1). One of the offices biggest accomplishments was the creation of the Rough Rock Demonstration School.
In the early 1960s, Navajo leaders inspected the flaws of the Navajo education system and worked with the BIA to establish an Indian run school that could serve “the unique needs of Indian education” (Roessel 1). The BIA offered one of its own schools to the effort for the first year but, because it was under regulation by the federal government, the employees already working at the school “could not function as the tribe wished” (Roessel 1). Still, the efforts continued, and the BIA offered a $3 million school facility with no employees so that the teachers could be chosen from the Navajo people. Because of the success of this school, Dine
College, the Navajo community college, was created. The Rough Rock Demonstration School exemplified a new kind of education for Native Americans. It was the first school to be wholly- run by Indians but, more importantly, it educated its students in traditional Navajo culture and language, an education that was impossible to receive before.
During his time at the ONEO, MacDonald also started numerous projects including a home improvement plan where Navajos would be trained in construction in order to improve their houses and those of others, bettering living conditions around the reservation. Efforts also included a physical fitness program to mitigate the recently increased rates of obesity among the
Navajo. Head Start, a program for young children to give them a basic education of English and the world outside the reservation, and a Community Action Program where each local chapter of
Navajo people would decide on goals to complete for the betterment of their people and would assign committees to carry out these goals, were also implemented. MacDonald was very satisfied with the accomplishments of the project, “For the first time there was a sense that the
Navajo were not hopeless. They might still be hobbled by red tape, but even with one hand free, they were able to help themselves and one another” (MacDonald 154).
In 1969, MacDonald was offered the position of commissioner of Indian Affairs.
Although MacDonald viewed the offer as an honor, the job would mean working under the
Bureau of Indian Affairs, the government agency that had mistreated his people in their boarding schools and sent his own family into poverty by cutting their livestock in half. MacDonald turned down the position and instead, a year later, Peter MacDonald resigned from his job as executive director of the Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity to run for tribal chairman. MacDonald was running against incumbent Raymond Nakai, described in an article featured in the Christian
Science Monitor as “a spellbinding orator in both Navajo and English…running for a third term, unprecedented in tribal politics” (Waugh 1). Both candidates had goals of lowering the unemployment rate among the Navajo, Nakai sought to lower rates by “luring industry to the reservation” (Waugh 1) to create more jobs, and MacDonald by setting up Navajo-owned businesses on the reservation. The election primaries in September of 1970 had the Navajo people voting between twelve candidates. MacDonald received an unprecedented 78% of the votes and finally, in November, he was elected chairman winning 65% of the votes. MacDonald had three major goals for his term as chairman. He would strive to continue to develop the people‟s pride in their heritage and protect the resources of Navajo Nation which, if they were developed and Navajo Nation received the economic profit, “would pay for home improvements, education, roads, and whatever else was needed to give the people a future” (MacDonald 179).
His third goal was “an offensive effort against our enemies—those who wanted to control us, to take our land, to determine our destiny” (MacDonald 179).
MacDonald accomplished many of his goals. When Exxon came to exploit minerals on
Navajo land, he insisted they work through Navajo leaders and governing officials instead of through the BIA as they had done for years. This instilled a sense of pride and self-determination among the Navajos that became evident to the world at the First Navajo Economic Summit of
1987, which was attended by senators and governors from surrounding states as well as President
Raegan on satellite from the White House. After these substantial events, MacDonald asked for a Senate investigation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs that would scrutinize the department‟s mismanagement of the last century. Instead, the 1988 Senate investigation focused primarily on
MacDonald‟s actions in purchasing the Big Boquillas Ranch. „Big Bo,‟ as it is commonly called, is a large ranch with an area of 491,000 square acres. A friend of MacDonald, Bud Brown, suggested that MacDonald purchase the land to compensate for any land he may lose in the
Navajo-Hopi dispute. On the ninth of July at 9:50 in the morning, Bud Brown and his partner,
Tom Tracy, bought Big Boquillas Ranch for $26.2 million. Five minutes later, the ranch was sold to Navajo Nation for $33.4 million, providing a profit of $7.2 million for Brown and his partner. The same year, MacDonald was seen driving a new BMW around the reservation.
MacDonald was pardoned under the Navajo courts but he was convicted under U.S. law for kickbacks and accepting bribes. In 1988, MacDonald was stood three trials for alleged crimes, the most profound of which was the purchase of Big Bo. He was convicted on this account and sentenced to prison. In 2001, MacDonald was pardoned by President Clinton.
In an interview conducted by Andrew House with Barry Bachrach, the lawyer of Leonard
Peltier, a Native American civil rights activist who has spent his life behind bars, Bachrach said
“this country has essentially committed genocide of the American Indian” (Bachrach 20). By moving the Navajo from the land they considered sacred, reducing their livestock and form of income to unlivable conditions, taking their children from their traditional to be educated in white ways, and by initiating plagues of poverty and alcoholism that still control the people, the government has committed genocide of the American Indian, especially the Navajo people.
Historians have long discussed the white man‟s affect on Native American evolution.
Recently, the historiography on the topic (ethnohistory) has reached unprecedented territory.
Historians now study the enduring nature of the Native American, their resistance against the white man as opposed to earlier historians who focused on the savage Native American, war like and aggressive. This transformation in historiography reflects the evolution of the Navajo people themselves. Once facing stereotypes of savages during and before WWII, they have now evolved to a nation instilling their own, self-determined and enduring culture. Historians now recognize it is not the white men who must avoid the savage Indians, it is the Native American culture who must endure the exploiting white men. The most evident examples of this is in comparing
Frederick Jackson Turner‟s Frontier Thesis of 1895 with Angie Debo‟s 1968 book, And the
Waters Still Run: The betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes. Turner‟s thesis declares that the west
“strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin. It puts him in the log cabin of the Cherokee and Iroquois and runs an Indian palisade around him.
Before long he has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick, he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion” (Turner 4). This idea of the savage
Indian dominating the west and transforming the white man is one less accepted in today‟s ethnohistory. Debo provides the rebuttal to this thesis:
Every schoolboy knows that from the settlement of Jamestown to the 1870‟s
Indian warfare was a perpetual accompaniment of American pioneering, but the
second stage of dispossessing the Indians is not so generally and romantically
known. The age of military conquest was succeeded by the age of economic
absorption, when the long rifle of the frontiersman was displaced by the
legislative enactment and court decree of the legal exploiter. (ix)
In a 1970 article in Christian Science Monitor, John C. Waugh says “Peter MacDonald represents a new order of Indian on the reservation. There still aren‟t many; the new Indian view of education is scarcely 20 years old. But he is a harbinger of change in Indian life” (Waugh 1). Peter MacDonald epitomized the change Native Americans endured from WWII to the 1990s.
He stands for the traditional old ways of the Navajo people that were lost when the first twenty- seven code talkers, forcible educated to be like white men in BIA schools, were deployed to the
Pacific. He represents the unappreciated veteran who caught a glimpse of life away from a poverty stricken, disease ridden reservation and left to educate himself in the highest way possible only to return to his people as the most influential leader Navajo Nation has ever known to try and restore the lost ways of their ancestors. And finally, this leader was destroyed by the white courts for committing crimes violating the laws of white men, the way the Native
Americans are being destroyed by the influence of whites through alcoholism, poverty, and overwhelmingly high dropout rates.
Interview Transcription
Interviewee/Narrator: Peter MacDonald Sr.
Interviewer: Anne-Michelle Engelstad
Location: Embassy Suites Hotel, Flagstaff, AZ.
Date: December 20, 2009
This interview was received and edited by Anne-Michelle Engelstad
Anne-Michelle Engelstad: This is Anne-Michelle Engelstad interviewing Peter MacDonald for the American Century Project. The interview took place on December 20th at the Embassy Suites in Flagstaff, Arizona. Can you tell me about your childhood?
Peter MacDonald: Well in addition to, you said you read the book The Last Warrior2?
AE: Right.
PM: That tells you quite a bit of where and how I was raised and this other book, American
Indian Leader3, has some of that too but I was raised up around the four corners area around
1928. There‟s no exact date because I was born and raised traditionally. I was born out in the
2 MacDonald, Peter. The Last Warrior. New York: Otion, 1993. 3 Edmunds, R. David. Studies in Diversity: American Indian Leaders. University of Nebraska Press, 1980. field when we were moving with our sheep from one location to the other, actually from a winter camp going toward our summer camp. My mother said I was born right there on the way, somewhere around 1928, and according to her, since we were moving from our winter camp to the summer camp with our last stop, it has to be early spring but the way things were happening the day and the year you were born really didn‟t mean that much in our society back then. Of course now every kid wants to have a birthday party and all that stuff, but back then you were born; that‟s it and try to keep track of the years after that as to how old you are. When I was around six years old from the day I was born and all the way up until, I guess, twelve years old, I moved with that livestock (and) my family ___ for years, and my first language obviously was
Navajo, and I had no contact with any other nationality other than Navajo. Once or twice a year, we would take our livestock, normally the lambs, and silver to the trading post. That‟s the only time I would see someone different than us. We called them „pillacana‟, white people. And maybe one day or two days then after that I‟m back herding sheep and living out in the open. My father died when I was two years old. He was driving a herd of horses back from the range and they were going down hill, I understand, and they were going fast and his horse tumbled, rolled over him, and he didn‟t die but he had, I guess, terrible internal injuries and since there was no hospital there he just started going down about a month after the accident, and he passed on. So its just my mother and my grandparents raising us little kids, and so around age six the federal government was building day schools at various parts of the reservation. The reservation is huge, you know, it‟s about the size of West Virginia4, there was a day school there at Teec Nos Pos community where we lived. I went to get some water, I remember it now, there was a well near the school so I had this little bucket and my mom asked me to get some water, so I went down to the well and while I was sitting there I see the kids playing down below. These were Navajo kids
4 See map (Appendix 1) at the day school so I know a couple of my cousins were going to school so I left the bucket there and I walked down to where the kids were playing. I just forgot about the fact that I came to get some water, so I start playing with them mid-morning. At lunchtime, they fed them lunch so they fed me and then there was a Navajo matron and also a boys advisor there, a Navajo guy. And he asked me how old I was and I told him, “I‟m six” he said, “You wanna go to school?” I said “I don‟t know” and he said, “You know if you go to school we give you a new pair of shoes and
(?overalls?) and all that.” I said, these guys look good they have these nice clothes on. In the mean time my mother‟s wondering what happened to me. I guess I accepted it because next thing
I know they start cutting my hair. I had long hair put in a bun back here (motions to the back of his head). Navajo‟s call it „chinyech‟ and they shaved it like a military hair cut is what I got, and then they had a washtub and they bathed me, and then they put the new clothes on me. And, I hung around there with the kids. Now it‟s about 2 or 3 o‟clock, my mother started looking for me wondering what happened to me, so she came down to the school (laughs) and there I was-- my hair all gone and these new clothes and I think she scolded the school officials, what they did to me. Because they didn‟t want me to have this haircut, my parents, because they know my cousins have those haircuts. I also had earrings. My ears were still pierced, they pierced them when I was about four or five years old, and they [the school officials] took them off, too. They kind of just put my earrings and my hair bun in this paper sack, they gave it to my mom and, of course, she took me back to the water hole and we went back and she scolded me. But I don‟t know I guess she felt bad that she took me away from the kids I was playing with and I enjoyed the food—I liked playing out there; this was better than hauling wood and herding sheep.
(laughs) She said, “Do you really want to go to school?” I said “yeah,” so she came back and re- enrolled me, that‟s how I started my school. Not a word of English and I start learning one word, two words and eventually I remember reading a book. Now I‟m nine years old, and the day schools went up to second grade so now I‟m finished with second grade. And it was pretty easy because they had pickup trucks going around picking up kids early in the morning--six or seven in the morning—going around to the different homes and picking up kids that are going to school. That‟s how I go to school in the morning, then about two or three o‟clock they recess and we all get to go home. Those who live within two or three miles, you walk. Normally since camp was always within that area, I walked—except during the winter when we moved out to the winter camp, then I get to ride the pickup truck to school and in the afternoons the same way.
Living near by, when I get out of school at three o‟clock and I (?relieve?) the other kids and they come back home, I follow the sheep till close to sundown. That was sort of a chore that was part of mine afterschool until I was 9 years old, finished second grade and I guess the next thing is where do I go? Well some kids were going to boarding school about thirty miles away from Teec
Nos Pos, it‟s called Shiprock, New Mexico—a federal government boarding school—and we had an older cousin who was going to the boarding school. He told my mom, “I‟ll take him over there and I‟ll take care of him” so that‟s how I ended up at Shiprock boarding school at nine years old. And it was very lonely and kids were mean—particularly the older ones, they‟d take food away from you like apples and oranges, things like that. And the other thing that was making it very difficult was that the government officials who were running the school don‟t want you to talk Navajo. I guess their idea was in order to civilize you, you have to quit practicing the tradition and culture and not speak your language. Most of us, our first language was Navajo so it‟s easy for us to talk Navajo to children, sometimes it just comes out. We got caught and then we would be punished. If you do it too many times, they really got tough with you. They withdrawal a lot of privileges, like on weekends we would go up on a hill to play cowboys and Indians and you don‟t do that, you sit in the dormitory with a pile of government socks, government issued socks, with holes in the heel and the toes. They give you a light bulb and you put the light bulb in there and you darn these stockings all day long as part of the punishment or you scrub the washrooms and wax the floor, just was very bad. Some they would get so mean they would give you this soap, government soap, it‟s about that big and about that long, put that in your mouth like that. (Coughs). So they were mean, they don‟t want you to talk
Navajo and the big kids were mean to the little kids so I ran away from home. It was the wintertime in probably February. It was a thirty mile trip, 9 years old, snow was about three or four inches. Three other kids from Teec Nos Pos they were actually older than I was and they made the plan to runaway, so we did. We left at about 8 o‟clock and made our way back to Teec
Nos Pos at about four or five thirty, something like that, just at sundown. And my mother was surprised and scolded me, my grandfather scolded me, but then next day they took me back to the day school. The day school had a truck that comes in every so often hauling coal because they had no electricity in those areas then, they used generators to generate electricity. So the truck came and they put me back on the truck (laughs) and took me back to Shiprock boarding school. Of course, I got back to school and was punished for two or three weeks for doing that.
That was my early introduction to school and (they) tried to prevent me from speaking Navajo and singing Navajo songs, anything like that. But it only lasted nine months then I‟d come home and it was such a nice, relaxing time during the summer, going up on the mountain to herd sheep.
Then, in September, the government would have trucks—cattle trucks—come down to the trading post, and we would all come down to the trading post with a little suitcase or a bag with our close in it, and we would all pile up in this cattle truck, and then the truck will bring us in; they had no bus to boarding school. That went on for a while till I was twelve years old and my grandfather thought that I had my schooling after all. He said, “You know how to speak the
English language, you know how to write it and understand it; that‟s enough”. So now he wants me to be a medicine man, so I said “okay.” I drop out of school at age twelve and went around with him for about a year. Then I began to see kids that I was going to school with—my age— still going to school and some of them actually were working, migrant workers, picking apples and oranges at orchards for some money to buy things. In the mean time, my grandfather‟s not paying me anything! (Laughs) He was teaching me all these traditional ways; songs, prayers, the history of the Navajo and the origin of the Navajo universe and all that. There was a recruiter from the union pacific railroad coming to the community recruiting workers to work on the railroad and I tried that. I end up in Farmington working for a pipe laying company. This is around 1940..41 something. I‟m not going back to school, I‟m a sixth grade drop out now, and
I‟m looking for a job. I was working at a sawmill—they hired me, even though I was not even fifteen. Then, I worked for a pipe laying company in Shiprock. They were putting in pipe lines for helium product. I guess they wanted to use it for war purposes. Then, when I was fourteen the union pacific railroad was recruiting and they were getting a lot of Navajos for the job. My cousin went on the job before. He said, “let‟s go, but you gotta be at least seventeen to do this,” so I said “I‟m only fourteen.” He said, “that‟s okay we‟ll take care of that.” So we went around, in the town of Farmington, a small town. There was a selective service office, so he took me in there and asked for one of those selective service cards and they asked me how old I was and he said seventeen (laughs) so I got one of those cards and we came back out and went down to the recruiter and showed him my selective service card, got on a bus, went to Denver, (in) Denver we got on a train took us all the way to Oregon to the union pacific railroad, my first trip from home. But the good thing was there were about twenty Navajos. Most of them were from Teec Nos Pos, including my cousin. It was exciting because now I was seeing things I‟ve never seen before. The first time I saw a black person was in Denver, I got off the bus and saw him pushing
___ with a red cap on. The first time I got on the train and went to Oregon, I saw a big town all in lights! It was like going to never never land or whatever you call it. So, I worked then on the railroad, and about three months into that I got a letter from selective service saying „greetings,
Uncle Sam wants you.‟ And I ignored it and then later on I got another letter and I showed it to my boss and he said “you better go.” So, they paid my way back and instead of going to selective service and getting a physical examination, that‟s what they wanted me to do, I stopped here in
Flagstaff, it was in July, and they had a big Indian pow-wow going on and I saw my cousins and
I said forget about this selective service. I got a job west of here. At least a thousand Indians were working west of here, ten miles west of Belmont, a huge army ordinance depot. I would say at least fifteen hundred Navajos and Hopis and other Indian tribes were working here. It was this huge village they built. I went over there and I got a job there with the ordinance depot and during the weekend we hung out around here and the war was going on, this is 1944, so I keep getting these letters from Uncle Sam and I just ignored them. Finally, some guy said there‟s a better job south of here a place called Jerome. It‟s an interesting town, it‟s a huge mountain, and right along side that mountain there‟s the town. The town is on stilts like the ones you see in
Norway. It‟s a mining town, so this is a better-paid job. We went down and got a job shoveling.
They had a smelter down there, so us kids we shoveled ashes (laughs) out of the furnace. I did that for a while, then finally the guys I was working with said “You know you really gotta go get your physical cause they‟re gonna throw you in jail!” So I did, I came back here then went down back to Shiprock. There was a fair and my mother was there, my family was there, we all reunited and I said “I got to go to Farmington to get a physical so as soon as I get a physical there I‟ll be back to Teec Nos Pos”. At Farmington, of course, the selective service people were very angry because for a whole year they were after me and I was just doing other things I got in a bus, took us all the way to Santa Fe, New Mexico and that‟s where there was a huge area must have been at least four or five hundred young men going to this physical exam, segregated, different people. There were different military services and there was another Navajo guy from
Fort Defiance, Arizona there with me and we both passed the physical. If you pass the physical, then they give you ten days to go home and square things away and then go to where you‟re supposed to go. They gave us orders in a huge manila envelope and it turned out to be the United
States Marines. They had a hotel there for all of us and we stayed there and so we could go home, back on a bus, they took us from [Santa Fe to Farmington] and they told us we can‟t go.
We kind of complained and, I guess he was in the same boat as I was, he just kind of ignored it, so we were supposed to have been here a year ago. “You had one whole year and we‟re not going to give you ten days to go home.” They put us on a train and rode all the way to San
Diego. We both got into San Diego late at night and came, scared that I did this. And I know I‟m only fifteen years old, and I don‟t want to go. When we got there the Sergeant that met us at the gate said “get in the truck” so we got in the front, I sat in the middle and he sat here (gestures to his side), there‟s a driver here, the sergeant. But when he came back from the gate with our paper work, he looked at us and said “hey what are you guys doing in here?” I said “you told us to get in the truck.” “I said get in the back.” Now this looked like a dump truck. So we got in the back.
No he said “get in the back, your good old civilian days are over” and I‟ll never forget those words. So he put us in the back. I said “Oh my God.” (Laughs) He drove us around the Marine
Corps recruit depot and got us out some place, took us in, and released us to whoever was in charge there. That was about eight thirty, maybe nine o‟clock and he gave us blankets and sheets, that‟s all he gave us. He said “tomorrow you‟ll come in the morning, go through another physical exam and you‟ll get your military clothing.” He walked us a distance to the military barracks and he stopped and said “listen.” So I stopped, and it sounded like we heard Navajo singing. And he said “you hear anything?” And I said “yeah it sounds like Navajo” and he said “come on.” So he took us around to the barrack and went upstairs and the sound was getting louder and he opened the door to the stairs and there were about twenty five Navajos in there. And I was so (laughs) I mean happy. I felt like kissing all of them! Because it was so lonely, you know, I wanted to quit!
But I saw these twenty-five Navajos and a couple of them were the ones I went to school with!
At Shiprock! And they were recruited for code talking so we ended up with the code talkers. Of course we didn‟t know, they didn‟t know either, that they were being recruited for code talking duties. All we know, we were just coming into the marines; no one knew that we were the special group to do this code talking. There were some other non-Navajos too, all together there were 60 of us in this platoon. So we went to boot camp all together, and after boot camp we went on leave to go home. We got back after that, then we went up to camp Pendleton, went through combat camp all of us, and after combat training then they separated us from everybody, put us in a separate barrack. And then told us we were going to be trained to be code talkers.
AE: Native Americans had the most soldiers per capita of any racial group in World War II and
John Collier said in the 1940s that Indians were “strangely eager” to serve. What‟s your response to that?
PM: Yes, I would say about fifty percent or more of the Native Americans—of course, I know more about Navajo than other Indians and Native Americans—had volunteered and wanted to fight. As a matter of fact, when Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States declared war, following the announcement, what they were using on the reservation as communication were these CB radios located at different communities. So they used that and announced that we are at war and from what I heard, of course I didn‟t see it but I see pictures of it, (laughs) quite a few Navajos from the reservation ended up in Window Rock, the Navajo headquarters, want to go to war. They want to fight. They‟ve got their (laughs) 22 rifles or whatever they have they brought that and said “Where‟s this Japanese? We want to go fight”. The natural reaction is to defend the land. Navajo has always been taught as part of the early education that this was our land. Way back in the early times when the whole universe was being put together, this part of the country was made for Navajo and the boundaries were the four sacred mountains. This mountain here, San Francisco peak, (motions out the window) was the western sacred mountain.
The eastern sacred mountain is near Denver. Actually near Grand Junction, Colorado. It‟s called
„Sis Nache‟; Sierra Blancha. And then the southern boundary, sacred mountain, is near
Albuquerque; Mount Taylor. The Northern Sacred Mountain is just north of Denver, Colorado.
So these four sacred mountains were put in place by the gods of the Navajo and they all have names, they have songs and prayers for these mountains. And they‟ve all been filled with different things, the northern mountains has riches, recourses, things like that. The southern has animals, different animals. The western side, this one here, was all the spiritual good things and the northern part was all the good weather and things like that. So, it‟s all put together for a plan, for a purpose. You learn all of that. Our past experiences have been that Spaniards came, United
States came and they try to move us away from here, so Navajos always fought back—any threat to this part of the Navajo universe. When they heard that there was a threat by Japanese, they want to fight right now. So John Collier was correct in saying that. I think that most Native
Americans feel that way, that this is our land, and they weren‟t going to take it away from us no matter what. Even though we weren‟t citizens and couldn‟t even vote. So there‟s a lot more volunteering than drafted. And even being drafted you don‟t mind. Like me, I got drafted but I‟m sure I would have volunteered because I wanted to. When we were at boarding school, we played war and you‟d be the Germans and we‟d be the Japanese and kind of shoot at each other. When you‟re young you‟re kind of crazy I guess. There‟s no fear of dying, no fear of getting hurt. I always think that if only 30 or 40 year old people were recruited to fight, I don‟t think we‟d win any wars. I think that the reason any nation is successful at winning wars is because of young people. They‟re not afraid to die, they‟re not afraid to experiment. Otherwise, the older you get, you have to think “wait a minute, should I take that hill? Supposed I get killed. Maybe we ought to have a meeting before we go take that hill or that bunker.” (Laughs) No—young kid, I guess that‟s the way society is, you‟re not afraid.
AE: How were the Navajo Code Talkers received at home and what was Navajo Nation like upon their return?
PM: Upon return we were received no differently than any other Navajo returning home because when we were discharged from the Marines, we were specifically told not to talk about what we did—particularly the use of our language. So, when we got home we just never talked about it, we said we‟d been to Guam. Of course, Navajos don‟t know where Guam is. We‟d been to China, that‟s about it. Otherwise we didn‟t talk about it; we just left it alone. So, people would see us just like any other veteran. Of course, some people knew that we were code talkers, but that‟s about it, nothing more. Actually, it was not until after 1965 or 68 when the Navajo code was declassified by the Marine Corps and the military that we were able to start recalling, you know only twenty years lapse before we can actually say “oh yeah that‟s right, we did do that.”
AE: You say in your autobiography that many Navajo had turned to alcohol on your time away.
What has been the effect of alcohol on Navajo Nation?
PM: First of all, during the time my age group, in the twenties and the thirties, we were very much into our tradition and culture. You‟re not supposed to do this, you‟re not supposed to do that, if you do this then this is going to happen to you and if it does happen to you, here are the remedies. There were remedies for things that happen both spiritually, physically, and mentally, that‟s how we were brought up. And yes, there were such things as alcohol but it was only restricted to very few so ours was not to do that. Even taboos like you‟re not supposed to touch a dead body or if you do bury somebody, you can‟t come back in like that because you‟re contaminated. So you had to have a ceremony for cleansing before you came back into the hogan. Things like that, we believed it and even to this day a lot of us still believe in those things. So, that group of people that went to war, some of them went to defense jobs in Los
Angeles or Denver or down in Texas, a lot of Navajos were recruited for that and railroad jobs, things like that. There, they began to see things. All these taboos that we were told to make you live straight and narrow, they were going to see people get away with it. You drink, you smoke and do all other kinds of things. And these are mostly young people out there doing defense work. Young meaning 18, 20, 30 years old. The old folks stayed here. And we saw, in the
Marines, that to make you feel okay, I guess, they issue you a six pack of beer or give you a cigarette free. And in movies all the time, and other things going on. So, when they came back, the old folks were still tending to the livestock but those of us coming back, we don‟t want to herd sheep no more! We saw the world and how they behave and how they exist! So, now, the idleness sets in, and many of the young people who came back at age 20 or 21, now they start drinking because that‟s what they were doing out there. And of course, now that there were no jobs available, no industry, all you do is drink, drink and go to ceremony after ceremony, and then everybody starts drinking. Even the old folks get influenced by their own young folks:
“Here grandpa, drink this, this is good for you”. Of course, initially when I came back it didn‟t strike me like that until I went to school and was out for about ten years. When I came back in
63, I saw this- it was horrible! It was something that I guess I could have been in it if I didn‟t get out of here and went on to school away from here, and then coming back and looking at it then I saw that this is bad, this is not right.
AE: A senate repot in 1969 showed that enrollment in BIA schools had increased from 52% to
81% in 1950-1955. Do you think this was a positive thing for the future of the Navajo nation?
PM: Education to me is important now a days. And how they did that back in the 50‟s and early
60‟s was a crash program, pick up all school age kids and put them in boarding school and give them a five year crash course of reading, writing, and arithmetic. The reason they did that was when the government discovered that Navajos were so poor, it was in Luth Magazine, Life
Magazine—national coverage. And the schools were not there. Back in the 30‟s there was initiative to build schools but during the war, they quit. So by the time 1950 was coming around,
80% of the school age kids were not in school anywhere. Congress then asked the department of
Indian affairs why is it like that? They (?profited?) enough money to start crash program. Crash program was just gather all the school-aged, as many as you can, and send them out, give them a five-year quick education then cover that with some training in welding or carpentry, whatever it is to get them a job because then nobody‟s herding sheep anymore.
AE: You were a prominent engineer on the Polaris missile project at Hughes aircraft. How did you feel working on a project that was such a primary concern of the US government?
PM: When I got out of service I stayed out here on the reservation for about a year not really knowing what to do. I could just try to get back what my grandfather wanted me to do or I could just get a job somewhere. And what I wanted to do was
END OF TAPE ONE;
BEGIN TAPE TWO.
PM: So anyway you were asking about this engineering, why did I do that.
AE: Yes.
PM: My early dream was to be a truck driver and I couldn‟t do that. As a matter of fact I‟d liked to own a truck, a dump truck. It was something I would do and work and then later on I thought no, no, no I want to work in an office. I would visit these government offices and it was so nice to see these people working at an office- a nice, warm place, typing. And yet if I‟m a truck driver
I got to get a coat and be out there in the cold. So I wanted a cushy job like that and I figured the way I would do that is if I would go to school. So eventually I got back in school and when I got back in school I went to one year of high school to get my GED and I went onto college in
Oklahoma it was a Christian school Bacone Junior College and I found it to be fairly easy I was making a‟s and b‟s, I was on dean‟s honors list. And then what they discovered my last year at the junior college was that I haven‟t taken the entrance exam. So they started to give me this entry exam for the record. And a part of that was to take the I.Q. intelligence test. I took that test and I was called to deans office and he said “what were you doing when you took this test?” and
I said “nothing I just took it as I got it” I said “why?” he said “well according to this you‟re a moron. Are you sure you took the test like you should?” I said “yeah I don‟t understand it” he said “well we have to do it again” and this time they had a couple teachers watching me take the test and I came back two or three days later to deans office, he called me in again and said
“Macdonald you‟re still a moron”. Then he said “this is serious” I said “why is it serious?” he said “because you‟re on dean‟s honor roll here you make a‟s and b‟s, nothing below, in math and chemistry and studies that you‟ve been doing here and I cannot validate that if this test keeps coming out as „you are a moron‟. There‟s a conflict here.” So that put my graduation in question so he said, “the only way we could do this is to have you go through some of these tests that you‟ve taken this year and last year— some of the final exams in chemistry and math. Do you want to do that?” and I said “yeah I don‟t mind I want to graduate”. So I took those tests I guess what they were thinking is I was cheating or something. So they had the professors that gave me the test watching me take some of those tests over again that I‟ve taken last year and the year of my graduation. I came up with the same grade at the a or b level so that validated that I wasn‟t cheating, but there‟s something wrong with this test. So I graduated anyway and this gave me a complex there‟s something wrong here. And so I still had some GI bill left so I decided to enroll at the University of Oklahoma and when I got to University of Oklahoma campus to enroll, they asked me, “what course you want to major in?” I said, “I want to take the toughest course you have”. And I remember this professor, J Bruce Wiley, he said, “Why do you want that?” Well I told him about this moron business I said, “I know I‟m not a moron, I don‟t know what a moron looks like but I made good scores on my tests and the school didn‟t believe me. Now they gave me some doubts so now I want the toughest course you have here at university.” He said “how about an engineering course” I said “okay I‟ll matriculate to that.” Then he said, “Okay, there‟s civil engineering, there‟s patrolling engineering, electrical engineering, architectural engineering-- which one do you want?” I said, “I don‟t know when I was going to BIA school I was interested in electricity so maybe I‟ll go electrical engineering” and he said, “Okay but I noticed your transcripts—you didn‟t have physics, you didn‟t have some of these other solitary, amatory—these are all required for engineering school so unless you want to take all of that at once, one is prerequisite for each other. Also calculus, you didn‟t have that- differential interval calculus.” So I took that all at once in one semester to get into engineering school. I passed it and I went into electrical engineering and now I‟m an electrical engineer. In my junior year at
University of Oklahoma, an English professor I had at Bacone Junior College came to visit and he said he is working on his doctorate degree in University of Tulsa and he wanted my consent to study me. Why I‟m making good grades here and moron over here. He came back about a year and a half later because I dropped out for a year then came back because I ran out of money and had to work to save and go back to school and finish up. When I was finishing up he came to see me and said, “I‟ve finished my doctorial work” he said a lot in there but to make it short he said
“you‟re not a moron. If the test that you took was put in Navajo and given to Einstein, he would have come out a moron too so don‟t worry about it you‟re all right.” So Polaris, at that moment there was no conflict of what I was going to do for Hughes and this design and manufacturing of the Polaris missile because at this junction then I felt good that gosh, I could do these things and
I got to the point where what I was doing, what I had in my mind, what I learned as an engineer, what I could do really had no conflict with my culture and the idea that that‟s white man, this is
Indian really didn‟t enter. Because now I‟m excited I want to do this because I can. There was a challenge because I knew that I‟m a minority and that all these other engineers came from
Purdue, MIT and other places and I‟m in there with them but because of Professor Izale, that said
I‟m not a moron, and some other things that I learned over the years, I want to compete, I want to compete in that world and to compete I need to learn. I need to know more than they do because at this time I discovered that it‟s not the color of your eyes or hair or skin that makes you smarter or dumber its really what you know and what you‟ve got in your heart. So now I‟m competing,
I‟m competing with everybody. I want to do more than this guy from Purdue, more than this guy from MIT and I know how to do it. So I enroll at UCLA going to night school and I‟m taking these technical courses so while they‟re bowling or doing something I‟m really doing this thing over here because I want to be the best. So the fact that I‟m a Navajo, I still know my culture, I still know my tradition but the thing I‟m doing was personal in a way.
AE: So then after you returned to the reservation you were heading the Office of Navajo
Economic Opportunity. Rough Rock Demonstration School was the first wholly Native
American run school. What was the importance of having a Native American run school where the Navajo language and culture can be taught?
PM: It was important because now I had demonstrated to myself that a Navajo born in a hogan, slept on sheepskin know nothing about anything else other than that little world, can become an engineer. Can make a contribution when the language that everybody didn‟t want us to use or even speak, became a valuable piece of weapon during the war. Also I know that now what I learned in school at the University of Oklahoma and applied it over here also is very important.
That‟s why I felt that the ONEO can really be Navajo. Navajo could do it at least that‟s what I‟m saying. And also Navajo language, Navajo culture, should not be discouraged. And we gotta have a place where that is taught because all other schools don‟t teach that—they discourage that. The BIA had been discouraging that for many years. They don‟t want you to practice your culture and all of that but to me, that culture and that tradition was actually a resource that you can use to be better than somebody else and that‟s why I thought it was important to be part of the ONEO program and the demonstration school. Then later on a community college, Diné
College is another one. So now I‟m a proponent of Navajo can do it. And also in my book, I‟m sure somewhere you‟ll read that when I got the legal eight money ONEO, I tried to recruit Navajo leaders I thought I need Navajo leaders because some of the lawyers I got to know are dumber than I am so just because you‟ve got a law degree and blonde hair doesn‟t mean you‟re good. There were no Navajo lawyers! So I said Oh my God, I‟m gonna get some Navajo lawyers. I bet you the reason they‟re not going into the law profession is they feel, because BIA keeps telling them “you‟re an Indian you can‟t do this, you‟re goodness is this and this and merely driving rivets into a wall” so I‟m gonna demonstrate to them. I‟m gonna go take this law entrance test and I‟m gonna go to law school just to show my people that a guy that slept on a sheepskin, knew nothing, doesn‟t have blue eyes or blonde hair, can actually become a lawyer.
So I did that just to demonstrate it and actually then in ONEO program, through Sergeant
Shriver, we set up a Native American law center. Recruit Native Americans to become lawyers
(laughs) now that we can so there‟s probably a thousand Native American Indian lawyers out there (laughs). Again, just because you have a law degree doesn‟t mean you‟re smarter than somebody else. All it means is you‟ve got the tools with which to become what you want to be.
AE: When you resigned from ONEO to run for Tribal Chairman, what kind of stories did you hear from voters while you were campaigning about the lives they were facing on the reservation?
PM: I didn‟t hear.
AE: What kind of stories did you hear from voters on the campaign trail for Chairman about the reservation life?
PM: I think the ONEO program, she was part of that [motions to wife across the room5], really, to me, awakened the people. That we are capable, we‟re just as smart as anybody else, to determine how we can make life better for ourselves and for our people and for our nation rather than waiting for BIA federal government or anyone else to tell us what we need to do, what we should do, we can do it ourselves. So a lot of talk was that of self-determination. Determine things ourselves and the government has just been down on us all the time, holding us down and they don‟t listen to us, they only want to do what they believe is good for us not what we believe is good for us.
AE: In 1964, 360 Navajo voted in the election which was an unprecedented number. What was the significance of this for the election and for the Navajo people.
PM: I didn‟t hear you.
AE: That such a large amount of voters, Navajo voters, were registered for the 1974 election and what was the significance for the people that so many were voting?
5 Wanda MacDonald, wife of Peter MacDonald
PM: What did it mean to them?
AE: Yes.
PM: They began to feel that they are now coming out from being stepped on and being pushed around. And that their vote counts and one of the things that happened during the ‟74 period, which was very crucial to this voting situation, was that we‟re in the fight with the Hopi‟s6 over land. And Senator Goldwater7, a powerful senator from Arizona, was lining up with the Hopi against the Navajo. So the only way we could have a piece of fight that will benefit us against such a strong senator was voting. Because he always ran in Arizona every precinct in the state of
Arizona always voted Goldwater. So we organized. We went across and registered all eligible
Navajo voters and we had other people helping us so when Goldwater ran again we all voted against him, together, solid like a block. And he lost several of the counties on the northern side where the Navajo is. And that made him pretty anxious (laughs) as a matter of fact he started something that‟s another story that hasn‟t come out. I wrote a chapter in the book but I didn‟t write it because that‟s another whole story by itself that members of Congress and Arizona top officials were conspiring to kill me and get me out of office by putting a bomb in my car, putting a bomb in a car that traveled to the council of chambers and blow up the place and declare martial law by the federal government to declare martial law over Navajo nation because the
6 Native American tribe whose reservation is surrounded by the Navajo Reservation: See map (Appendix 1) 7 Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona leaders were killed and public buildings were bombed and therefore the federal government would take over the whole Navajo nation government, that was the plan. And I didn‟t know that, none of us knew that until it came out in the papers, in the Arizona Republic and it was national news. So after that I got the council board to have me body guarded 24 hours a day. So part of that initiative is a result of me getting the whole tribe to register to vote and vote out the bad people in New Mexico and Arizona because Navajo (?borders?) in New Mexico and Arizona are about evenly split. So that‟s an entirely different story. I had that in there when I wrote that book but I took it out because I figured I‟d write a separate book on that (laughs).
AE: (laughs) Yeah, wow.
[wife, Wanda, “That was scary”]
PM: So that ‟74 turn out was to save and protect what we had. And people learned that voting is very important.
AE: Right, you were talking about the Navajo-Hopi land dispute and in your autobiography, you said that traditional Navajos wondered why the government “used” the Hopis to take away your ancestral land. Why did you feel as though the whites were using the Hopis?
PM: What about me and the Hopi?
AE: Why did you feel that the Hopi were being used by the government?
PM: Yeah because the Hopi‟s a small tribe right in the middle of the reservation, right in the middle of the Navajo Nation. So the Navajo Nation‟s kind of like a donut, inside of it is the Hopi reservation and the Navajo is small in terms of the reservation but the population was at that time
6,000 and Navajo was over 200,000. So what happened is that the land that was withdrawn by the government, one piece of land it‟s about a million acres, the government decided, this is back in 1882, to give the land to the Hopis and any other Indians that they place inside the one million acre land, they call it joint-use area. Navajos had settled in there, they‟d always been there. All the lines have been drawn regardless of where the Navajo lived. Navajos were never asked,
Navajos never knew there was a line. It‟s just the four sacred mountains, that‟s it, and we know that. So the Hopis really have a different culture and a different custom than Navajo. They feel their need is just the four Mesas where they live, villagers. And they farm down below and that‟s it, they didn‟t have livestock like Navajo. So what the feds and the business community, particularly the energy community, were looking for was the minerals like coal, oil and gas. And up inside that million acres, up on Northern parts, there‟s a huge reserve of coal. And they‟d go to the Hopi and say this coal is yours, it‟s not just Navajo because it‟s a joint-use area. So what do you think, can we mine there? And they say sure we don‟t mind we‟re not using it. And in the meantime, Navajos lived there. Navajos used the land so when they come to Navajo and Navajo says no we don‟t want you mining there, but the Hopis say OK, now the game plan is how do we get to mine oil and gas in this area? Well the best way is to give that piece to the Hopis because the Hopis are willing to give it up because they‟re not using it and we are using it. SO that‟s the reason I said they were using the Hopis to carve out pieces of land that had oil, gas, and coal in it so that only Hopis would be the ones making that decision and Navajo would not be able to block it.
AE: When Exxon came to the Navajo nation to exploit the minerals, you told them that they had to work with the top Navajo leaders instead of through the BIA as they had before.
PM: Right.
AE: What did this mean for the advancement to self-determination?
PM: The Bureau of Indian Affairs, as I found out and we found out as a tribe, is always in cahoots with the energy companies or someone on the outside so we could never get a good deal from them. And secondly, government regulations are such that any public land is up for sale or lease at such a small rate, in other words if you want to lease the federal government land somewhere it‟s penny and acre almost, they say. And so they treat Indian reservation like public land. So if public land is going for five dollars a rod8, let‟s say for a right-of-way. If they want to lease to El Paso Natural Gas right away five dollars a rod of our land. And I said no this is
8 A unit of length equal to about 16.5 feet private land and we don‟t want a rightaway through there. And if they want a rightaway so badly maybe we‟ll charge a hundred dollars a rod or a thousand dollars a rod. So that is why I said that the Indian Self-Determination, which I was one of the leading proponents of during Nixon‟s first term, is to get that law made, Indian Self-Determination we could do things ourselves, things that the government was doing for us. So in that (?thing?) then I felt Exxon would be one of the first ones here for us to go through and sure enough, when the Exxon went to BIA like they always did and make a deal and then BIA comes to the tribe and says here‟s a good deal for you,
Navajos, all you need to do is roll down it and have it signed, they did went to BIA and BIA suggested this five dollars a rod business and I said no so I told Exxon that look if you want something from Navajo you don‟t go to BIA or the government because it‟s not their land this is our land, you come here. And I don‟t want you to hire some Navajos as front either. If you want it you‟re want to talk to the council or you want to talk to the chairman, myself, then you bring your top men; chairman of the board or CEO of the company—here. Otherwise, you‟re not doing business with us. So that was the start of that and the way we did it is we had options we either had to go 51% on a ship, at that time the government wasn‟t thinking of anything like that, we would own the property that you‟re going to mine- 51%, you get 49% but before we even do that, just to explore and see what we have you‟re going to bid on it and look for minerals, the thickness of the ore, whatever. And just to know that, you‟re going to pay for it. And then you give us a proposal. If we don‟t allow you‟re proposal we give the money that you spent exploring. So that was the Exxon thing and of course we had a six million dollar fee just to look at it. This was not to do anything, now if they want to do something they have to pay more. But just to look at it, the privilege of coming onto the reservation drilling some holes and see what we‟ve got, they got to pay us six million dollars. So the six million dollars, they gave us a check for it. Well, we had to give it to BIA and BIA held it so for three years it wasn‟t earning interest at all! Until BIA approves it, Exxon still has that money. So I really was angry about that because that was how they treated the Indians and yet the Self-Determination Education Act was enforced, passed by Congress, yet they won‟t turn loose the power they had over the Indians.
AE: What was the significance of the First Navajo Economic Summit in 1987?
PM: (Laughs) That to me was really the movement right into the Indian Self-Determination.
Becoming self-determined, self-dominating, and self-sufficient, self-sustaining. And the significance was that all four states, the governors of all four states were arriving here on Navajo.
All the congressional people, Senators and congressmen, but maybe four, came to that conference. The top government offices like the Secretary of Interior, Secretary of Defense, and
Secretary of Commerce—all came to Navajo. And President Reagan spoke to all of us on television from White House. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Senator Inouye9, who was the
Chairman of the Committee was there. So, to me, it was a recognition that we were on the move toward Indian Self-Determination, becoming Indian Self-Sufficiency and Self-Governess and everybody there would be on the same page, is what the Navajo is going to do here. The Navajo is going to rise to that level and everybody is going to respect it, number one, number two, any claims or any benefits that is due Navajo from either the state, the feds, or the counties, need to be brought to bear here so that we would become a leading group in economic, particularly in economic self-sufficiency. Of course when you get there you get into hospitals, health,
9 Senator Daniel K. Inouye served as Chairman of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs from 1987-1993 education, and things like that. So that was, to me, the significance of the summit in Tohatchi,
New Mexico within the Navajo Reservation.
AE: You say in your auto-biography that the BIA and Congress encouraged dissident members of the tribal council to declare themselves more powerful than the chairman and the people in
1989. How do you think this encouragement was shown by the BIA?
PM: There was a lot of ways that that encouragement showed. Of course, by 1989 I was considered a bad guy so far as BIA is concerned, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Secretary of
Interior—all that. People who were most of the agencies working with the Indians they thought I was a bad guy because I discouraged that. I encouraged Indians doing things for themselves with their own mind and their own hands. And also, somewhere I was tagged as the most important
Indian in the United States that didn‟t help me at all, it (?had?) everybody upset. The US
Attorney had claimed complete jurisdiction on Navajo and I told him no. As a matter of fact, I moved him off of the reservation. I think that‟s in my book. They threatened my police chief that if the Navajo Police Chief does not listen to the US Attorneys and the FBIs, they would shoot him. I held a press conference the next day and I was asked by the media what I would do. I said well my instructions to police chief is next time FBI or US Attorney or BIA police interfere with
Navajo law enforcement, you shoot him. So that was the headline in New Mexico and Arizona and I got these real threatening letters from US Attorneys in New Mexico and Arizona but we fixed it. What happened was that every time any kind of crime appeared that happened on
Navajo, let‟s say homicide, the Navajo police is there first and they do the investigation they put it in a box and they want a prosecutor but then the feds come in they say, “No! Get away from there, that‟s our jurisdiction” in the major crimes. So they gave them the box and what I saw was that for fifteen years a lot of these homicide cases just sit there in Window Rock in US Attorneys office never prosecuted. So when they start threatening me, when I made that statement that if they interfere with Indian Affairs you shoot him, they come down on me and they want me to explain or otherwise they‟re going to handcuff me and take me to jail for threatening a US
Government officer. And I thought all those boxes I said how about (?now?) you say you have jurisdiction, these cases go for fifteen years and you haven‟t even touched them yet! These people who committed crime, they‟re still walking around on the reservation. I said I‟m going to have a press conference here. CNN and all these people will come in and I‟m going to open these things up and we‟ll see how you defend it. They said “no no no don‟t do that. Let‟s work it out.”
So the way I worked it out, we had a (?memory?) of understanding signed by me as the head of
Navajo Nation, the two US Attorneys that they would leave the reservation, leave everything to us unless we asked them to come in. That was 1987, no ‟82, 1982, that‟s when it happened. So when I came back in 1987, that __ Indian was telling me they were back in here again. So the guy that was my successor for four years just let everything go and brought them back in again.
So in 1989, what was your question on ‟89?
AE: How the encouragement from the congress was shown to the tribal council to—
PM: The first thing I did in 1987 was request that the federal government, particularly Bureu of
Indian Affairs be investigated. Because they were mishandeling tribal files, they were interfering with tribal government all the way down and I was congress to investigate them. And senator
DiConcini and some other members of congress passed a legislation to do that and appropriated some money for that investigation. Just about that time we purchased this huge land, Big
Boquillas land, and that became a national publicity as something that was not right. So what we were ready to do to investigate the government for interfering with tribal internal manners and also getting the dissidents and so the tribe within themselves would be fighting encouraging the dissidents, as a matter of fact BIA, back to this 1974-‟76, BIA actually funded a couple of people to do the investigation with some of the dissident council delegates to assassinate MacDonald.
And those were all coming out as an (?undisclosed?) statement in the federal courts and so all those kinds of things were going on and I want to testify all of that, bring paper and other tribes probably have it too. And all of that was part of the thing until this Big Boquillas thing came up and of course it didn‟t help either that at the same time five senators, Senator McCain10, Senator
DiConcini11, and three other senators were caught with this scandal on federal savings and loans.
[Interview interrupted by tape recording problem for about three seconds] This happened at about the same time they were getting bad publicity so I felt that what the government was doing is that, “OK, how do we get these (?roughes?) off our back? Let‟s go after MacDonald.” (laughs) so now, all the sudden, the big publicity, Wall Street, the New York Times, everybody‟s now saying the Big Boquillas ranch was bad and we should investigate MacDonald. So what the committee actually did that was stirred by McCain and DiConcini was to divert the BIA investigation and study of BIA to investigate Navajo and MacDonald. So that‟s part of my statement in there is referring to things like that that I knew things that were happening in the
10 Senator John Sidney McCain III from Arizona 11 Senator Dennis Webster DiConcini from Arizona way of any fighting that was being created inside the tribal government was actually orchestrated by BIA and some other federal agencies.
AE: In 1989, the position of chairman was eliminated from the Navajo government. What did this mean for the Navajo people?
PM: What it meant there was that the power of the people, up to that point, had been taken out of their hands. Let me explain how. Back in 1923, the tribe actually didn‟t have any formal government; it was all local people, they didn‟t need a central government, they didn‟t need a central leader. Except in 1868 when they would get about fifteen head men to sign for Navajo, the treaty. After they got here they all went their way. Every extended family had their own way of governing themselves. When the oil and gas was discovered in 1923 the federal government said “Woah, what do we do here?” Because Conico Oil and Standard Oil Company wanted to lease that oil and gas from Navajo. They don‟t know who‟s the chief, who has authority to sign for this. So the federal government, through their ingenuity, set up a council of Navajo and within that council they said “we‟ll have a chairman to chair the council but the council will be the ones who will sign for the whole Navajo.” The Navajo don‟t know anything about this, that this is going on. So when they did that these six people voted and the chairman signed it and they took it back and, luckily, the US Attorney at that time said, “no you can‟t do that. If you read the treaty the treaty says any action like that requires 2/3s vote of adult members of the Navajo tribe” so they came back and said “what do we do now?” So they said “okay let‟s go to these different regions and get some Navajos from there then they‟d represent the region” so they did that then they went back and this time the US Attorney said “Okay this is kind of trinsy but it‟ll work” so they gave these to oil companies and then that‟s how the government was started. Not with the people—BIA created it. And they weren‟t happy with it because it‟s their little machine. And
Navajos there was no voting going on, these are all picked by BIA, the leaders, and it went that way until 1938 when people began to see something wrong going on here, so they raised their voice and BIA came back with a statement saying the Navajo Tribal Council shall be the governing body of the Navajo Nation. Not the Chairman, not the people, but the council. So when I came in, I saw that. It‟s too late to do anything, so what I did is I made sure that every action that I need to take or the council is taking, they
END OF TAPE TWO
[remaining answer to the question not picked up by ipod recorder]
[kept an order of checks and balances by having their actions approved and made public to the people. When the Chairman position was eliminated, the people lost their voice.]
BEGIN CD
AE: Five years ago, Leonard Peltier‟s12 lawyer was interviewed for the American Century
Project13. He said in the interview “this country has essentially committed genocide of the
American Indian” do you agree? [Question not picked up by ipod recorder]
12 Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist and leader in the American Indian Movement who was sentenced in 1977 with two consecutive life sentences in prison for the murder of two FBI agents. The fairness of the legal proceedings Peltier received has been long debated. 13 Andrew House interviewed Barry Bachrach in 2004 as part of the American Century Project. PM: [beginning of answer not picked up by ipod recorder] [Yes, but the genocide occurs in a different way than what Leonard Peltier‟s case would be referring to, genocide as in the killing of many people. All citizens should be entitled to birth rights including freedom of speech, of religion—]they [Native Americans] were denied a lot of these rights. They were given very little with which to become a full citizen of the United States even though, since 1920s, we became citizens of the United States. Within the past few years, things changed somewhat. But still the mentality is „let‟s get what the Indians have,‟ particularly those who have resources like oil, gas, coal, uranium or a big piece of land. They want to get some of that land back into the United
State‟s hands. So the genocide continues in different form not necessarily in the way that we normally look at the people being destroyed.
AE: Do you have any additional comments that I may have missed?
PM: No just I guess you have some more questions you could call or email, email her. There‟s a lot of books on Navajo and most, 99% of those books and articles about Navajo, I guess this holds true for Native American, are not completely factual. Some of them just assume certain things and some of them leave out some things. I‟ve read some of these, particularly Navajo books, even Navajo ceremonial books writing about ceremony, there‟s interpretation from somebody else looking in whereas if you are in it you know that is not quite what the book says.
So there‟s that and there‟s some recent history books on Navajo and a lot of those I‟m in it also because since I occupied probably, within the last hundred years, one quarter of that or one third of that in tribal government I had something to do with it and they tell us why the council did this or why I said this or why I did that some of those are just someone in Pheonix and New York city saying this must be the reason he did that without checking. So you‟ll have to look at that from that way and accept what I‟m telling you here at least I‟m telling you what I know, what I was thinking and I‟ll give you a book I have out there and also a poster of my face and code talker uniform I‟ll give you that and of course the resume you asked about the honors and awards that‟s all in there.
AE: Okay, great. Well thank you so much for your time and generosity, both of you. Thank you so much.
Time Indexing Recording Log
Minute Mark Topics Presented in Order of Discussion in Recording
Tape One
0 Introduction/Childhood
5 Peter MacDonald‟s first day at a BIA day school
10 Treatment of students at BIA boarding schools
15 End of schooling/Being trained by his grandfather as a medicine man
20 Working on Union Pacific Railroad
25 Being drafted into the United States Marines
30 Bootcamp/Training as Navajo Code Talker
35 Response to John Collier‟s Comments on Native American Involvement in War
40 The effect of alcoholism on the Navajo
45 Response to findings of 1950 Senate report
Tape Two
50 Studying electrical engineering outside reservation
55 Racism in schooling systems: standardized IQ test designed for whites with off-reservation experiences
60 Working on the manufacture-team for the Polaris missile at Hughes Aircraft
65 Heading the Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity/ Encouraging Navajos to become lawyers
70 Importance of registering Navajos to vote (1974 election)/ Attempt by federal government to assassinate MacDonald and implement martial law on Navajo Nation 75 The using of the Hopi tribe by the US government to exploit minerals on Native American land
80 Advancement to Self-Determination: Exxon comes to Navajo Nation
85 Tribal Council of Navajo government tries to override power of Chairman
90 Elimination of Chairman position from Navajo government
CD
95 Response to a finding of Andrew House‟s personal interview of Barry Bachrach
Interview Analysis
In an interview conducted December 20, 2009, Peter MacDonald said, “There‟s a lot of books on Navajo and most, 99% of those…are not completely factual. Some of them just assume certain things and some of them leave out some things…there‟s interpretation from somebody else looking in whereas if you are in it you know that (it) is not quite what the book says.”
(MacDonald 30). This is the importance of oral history. Oral history—records of recollections and personal perspectives collected in interviews—offers students of history first-hand accounts of events through the eyes of someone who experienced it. Some of these events are often overlooked by historians and others have been studied countless times. Oral history sometimes supports what is theorized and published by the majority of historians and it sometimes challenges what Studs Terkel, a famous oral historian, calls, the “official and thus accepted truths” (Terkel 16). These “accepted truths” are what history, which can be defined as a record of past events and their causes, has become known as. Our country‟s history has become what is commonly accepted and recorded by the majority of historians. Because interviews sometimes challenges what is accepted as factual, it can be troublesome to accept what is said in an interview to be historical fact, as interviewees must have biases based on their personal experiences and opinions. However, although oral history is in no way objective, it can never be false because the information is provided by someone who was there, and, although recollections may not be exactly accurate, even exaggerations embody the emotions and feelings harvested by the interviewee. Because of this, it is vital that students of history must learn from documents of oral history in addition to documents of “accepted truths” that have been deemed facts.
This particular document is significant because the study of Native Americans, and the way they have been treated by the United States government, is crucial to understanding our country‟s history, yet the presence of Native Americans is extremely underwhelming in the reservoir of historiography. Because the government of the United States continues to have such involvement with the lives of Native Americans, we must understand the issues from a person with first-hand experience. Through analyzing my interview with Peter MacDonald, I found his experiences ultimately contradicted the historiography studied in textbooks but generally reinforced the experiences and thoughts of those previously interviewed as part of the American
Century Project.
In conducting my interview with Peter MacDonald, we discussed his child-hood recollections in schools of the federal government, his unique experiences during World War II as a Navajo Code Talker, his involvement as a member of the design team on the Polaris Missile project, and his return to the Navajo Reservation where he assumed the position of chairman and witnessed the most significant strides toward self-determination made by the Navajo people. As a young child, Peter MacDonald was enrolled in BIA schools, where his Navajo culture and tradition was taken from him. School officials changed his clothes, physical appearance, and even rid him of his traditional Navajo name, “I guess their idea was in order to civilize you, you have to quit practicing the tradition and culture,” MacDonald said (MacDonald 22). In the late
1930‟s, Peter MacDonald was in BIA school while his family struggled to live off the production of their livestock, having been reduced to about a fourth of what they originally had. Our AP US
History textbook, like many others, denotes that FDR‟s New Deal program brought the Indians self-determination and made it possible for them to preserve their ancient culture (Garraty 725).
MacDonald‟s experiences of having his family completely dependent on what the government could offer them after cutting their livestock and having his traditional culture stripped from him in BIA school completely contradicts the teachings of this textbook. After dropping out of school at sixth grade and spending a few years being trained as a medicine man by his grandfather, Peter
MacDonald sought work off the reservation like many other boys at this time. MacDonald recounts his first trip away from the reservation as “exciting…I was seeing things I‟ve never seen before” (MacDonald 6). Tom Holm reinforces this feeling with his own experiences as a
Native American away from home in a personal interview conducted by Taylor Stanton for the
American Century Project, “this is a kindof transition period… you‟ve experienced something that very few have experienced” (Holm 22). However, it was difficult for a fifteen year old like
MacDonald to find work so he lied about his age, claiming to be seventeen when he registered for a selective service card, a requisite for a job. MacDonald was then drafted into the Marine
Corps to be a Navajo Code Talker, a division of the marines created during WWII which used the traditional non-written Navajo language as a code during the war. After the war, MacDonald returned to school and studied electrical engineering, becoming an important part of the Polaris
Missile team. When I asked him if how he felt working on a project that was such a primary concern to the United States government he said that the conflict between white and Indian did not concern him while he was working and that he was in fact encouraged being a minority on the project “because at this time I discovered that it‟s not the color of your eyes or hair or skin that makes you smarter or dumber it‟s really what you know and what you‟ve got in your heart”
(MacDonald 17). Upon his return to the Navajo Reservation in 1963, MacDonald returned to a land torn apart by outside influence. Alcoholism had become a common practice among the
Navajo, not only the youth but also elders. People were working outside the reservation and there was no business or industry providing money for the reservation, resulting in incredible poverty.
MacDonald started up and took a leading role at the Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity and became “a proponent of „Navajo can do it‟” (MacDonald 18). The ONEO, MacDonald said “awakened people…that we can do it ourselves” (MacDonald 19). Inspired by the surge of self- determination, MacDonald ran for tribal chairman, the only position in Navajo government elected by the people. As tribal chairman, MacDonald registered Navajos to vote, resulting in an unprecedented number voting and swinging an election for state Senator. He fought for the
Navajos‟ right to land that was being exploited for minerals and forced large corporations like
Exxon to work directly with Navajo leaders when making deals with Navajo land as opposed to negotiating with the federal government as they had done in the past. Finally, MacDonald held the First Navajo Economic Summit, which he referred to as “the movement right into the Indian
Self-Determination” (MacDonald 25).
The events Peter MacDonald was directly involved in have also been recounted by historians. John Collier, who was the Commissioner of Indian Affairs during WWII, said that
“strange as it may seem the Indians have responded earnestly and even enthusiastically from the challenge of war” (Collier 29). In reference to the overwhelming number of Native Americans who volunteered to serve during the war, Tom Holm, a Native American historian says it was thought to be because Native Americans are “especially warlike, stealthy scouts” (Holm 33).
When asked about Collier‟s comment, MacDonald agreed that “about fifty percent or more of the Native Americans… had volunteered and wanted to fight” he did not agree however, with the reasons for wanting to fight. MacDonald said that Navajos volunteered to fight in an effort to defend their land from being taken away by the Japanese, “this is our land and they weren‟t going to take it away from us no matter what. Even though we weren‟t citizens and couldn‟t even vote. So there‟s a lot more volunteering than drafted. And even being drafted you don‟t mind”
(MacDonald 10). It is important to take into account MacDonald‟s response to Collier‟s comment because Collier, who was an important link between Native Americans and the government as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, did not understand the reason Native
Americans were volunteering for war, and therefore the way they felt about their country. Collier did not understand their commitment to defending their land and their feelings towards the country which was the cause of much conflict between Native Americans and the United States government in the twentieth century. In order to successfully work together with Native
Americans in the future, any links between Native people and the US government must understand the feelings of Native Americans and these feelings, emotions, and opinions can best be documented and understood through oral history.
Jerrold E. Levy, an anthropology professor, and Stephen J. Kunitz, a doctor, declare in their book, Indian Drinking: Navajo Practices and Anglo-American Theories, that alcoholism among the Navajos is not so bad and only more conspicuous because of the stereo-type of the drunk Indian, which is enforced by old western movies and pop culture, and causes police to arrest Native American drivers showing no signs of intoxication, inciting prejudice into a non-
Indian outsider who will assume the stereo-type that Native Americans are alcoholics. Peter
MacDonald, who has seen the affects of alcohol on the Navajo reservation first-hand, says that
Navajos who went to war or left the reservation to find work saw many people drinking alcohol and taking part in practices that were restricted to traditional Navajos and not being punished for it, “in the Marines, to make you feel okay, I guess, they issue you a six pack of beer or give you a cigarette free” (MacDonald 12). Young people now saw that they could get away with drinking alcohol and, with no jobs available at home, turned to alcohol as a way to celebrate and as a way to forget, “all you do is drink, drink and go to ceremony after ceremony and then everybody starts drinking” (MacDonald 12). Today, alcoholism is one of the leading causes in death, depression, and suicide among Native Americans. Government officials who are hired to study issues with Native Americans work to fight the causes of alcoholism among Native people.
However, there are many theories of the causes of alcoholism, such as the theory presented by
Levy and Kunitz. The voices and ideas of real Native Americans who have experienced the causes and effects of alcoholism on their people need to be heard so that all causes of alcoholism can be addressed. If the government insists on being such an influence on the lives of Native
Americans, it must listen to the true experiences of these people and not only the “official” and
“accepted” truths of historians.
From this oral history experience, I have learned the importance of the everyday person and the ways we are so heavily influenced by our teachings. I often find myself watching someone on the street thinking, he looks really old I wonder where he was during the Great
Depression and wishing I had a tape recorder to pull out and sit down with him. Everyone‟s voice needs to be heard for us to really preserve history. If, in a century from now, only one accepted or “official” truth is remembered about the twentieth century, millions of perspectives and experiences will have been lost, unable to contribute to the general memory of 100 years of war, injustice, oppression, victory, change, and reform. Because the presence of Native
American experience and history has not been strong in any curriculum I‟ve been taught in school, I was able to study and explore a subject matter entirely new to me in this experience. I learned that I was easily influenced by what I studied. After conducting my interview with Peter
MacDonald, a part of which was focused on an age-old land dispute between the Navajo tribe and the Hopi, a tribe whose reservation is completely surrounded by Navajo land, I left my hotel room to venture into the town of Flagstaff, Arizona, just on the outskirts of the Navajo reservation. I started a conversation with an owner of a small jewelry and weaving shop. In the midst of the conversation, she told me she was Hopi. I immediately judged her with my preconceptions of the Hopi before I realized the information I had received from Mr. MacDonald was only a small depiction of an entire culture and I was being presented with the opportunity to hear another personal, “unofficial” truth. I tentatively asked her about the land dispute and she provided me with another experience, another recollection that, in addition to what I learned from Mr. MacDonald, could allow me to better understand this important historical conflict between the two tribes. This is exactly the significance of oral history. With multiple first-hand perspectives, a historian is able to understand a historical event or time period from someone who actually witnessed it. Although this account may not be accepted by the majority of historians or even of witnesses, it is the closest thing to the truth for at least one person that a historian can possible achieve.
Appendix 1
This is a map of the Navajo Reservation. Navajo Nation is about 17 million acres, comparable to the size of West Virginia. As you can see, the Hopi Reservation is completely enclosed in Navajo Nation, the cause of many land-disputes and issues between the two tribes.
Appendix 2
This treaty of 1868 mapped out the borders of the Navajo‟s land after the Long Walk.
Articles of a treaty and agreement made and entered into at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, on the first day of June, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, by and between the United States, represented by its commissioners, Lieutenant-General W. T. Sherman and Colonel Samuel F. Tappan, of the one part, and the Navajo Nation or tribe of Indians, represented by their chiefs and head-men, duly authorized and empowered to act for the whole people of said nation or tribe, (the names of said chiefs and head-men being hereto subscribed,) of the other part, witness:
Article 1.
From this day forward all war between the parties to this agreement shall forever cease. The Government of the United States desires peace, and its honor is hereby pledged to keep it. The Indians desire peace, and they now pledge their honor to keep it.
If bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States, shall commit any wrong upon the person or property of the Indians, the United States will, upon proof made to the agent and forwarded to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington City, proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also to reimburse the injured persons for the loss sustained.
If the bad men among the Indians shall commit a wrong or depredation upon the person or property of any one, white, black, or Indian, subject to the authority of the United States and at peace therewith, the Navajo tribe agree that they will, on proof made to their agent, and on notice by him, deliver up the wrongdoer to the United States, to be tried and punished according to its laws; and in case they wilfully refuse so to do, the person injured shall be reimbursed for his loss from the annuities or other moneys due or to become due to them under this treaty, or any others that may be made with the United States. And the President may prescribe such rules and regulations for ascertaining damages under this article as in his judgment may be proper; but no such damage shall be adjusted and paid until examined and passed upon by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and no one sustaining loss whilst violating, or because of his violating, the provisions of this treaty or the laws of the United States, shall be reimbursed therefor.
Article 2.
The United States agrees that the following district of country, to wit: bounded on the north by the 37th degree of north latitude, south by an east and west line passing through the site of old Fort Defiance, in Cañon Bonito, east by the parallel of longitude which, if prolonged south, would pass through old Fort Lyon, or the Ojo-de-oso, Bear Spring, and west by a parallel of longitude about 109° 30´ west of Greenwich, provided it embraces the outlet of the Cañon-de- Chilly, which cañon is to be all included in this reservation, shall be, and the same is hereby, set apart for the use and occupation of the Navajo tribe of Indians, and for such other friendly tribes or individual Indians as from time to time they may be willing, with the consent of the United States, to admit among them; and the United States agrees that no persons except those herein so authorized to do, and except such officers, soldiers, agents, and employées of the Government, or of the Indians, as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties imposed by law, or the orders of the President, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in, the territory described in this article.
Article 3.
The United States agrees to cause to be built, at some point within said reservation, where timber and water may be convenient, the following buildings: a warehouse, to cost not exceeding twenty-five hundred dollars; an agency building for the residence of the agent, not to cost exceeding three thousand dollars; a carpenter-shop and blacksmith-shop, not to cost exceeding one thousand dollars each; and a schoolhouse and chapel, so soon as a sufficient number of children can be induced to attend school, which shall not cost to exceed five thousand dollars.
Article 4.
The United States agrees that the agent for the Navajos shall make his home at the agency building; that he shall reside among them, and shall keep an office open at all times for the purpose of prompt and diligent inquiry into such matters of complaint by or against the Indians as may be presented for investigation, as also for the faithful discharge of other duties enjoined by law. In all cases of depredation on person or property he shall cause the evidence to be taken in writing and forwarded, together with his finding, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, whose decision shall be binding on the parties to this treaty.
Article 5.
If any individual belonging to said tribe, or legally incorporated with it, being the head of a family, shall desire to commence farming, he shall have the privilege to select, in the presence and with the assistance of the agent then in charge, a tract of land within said reservation, not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres in extent, which tract, when so selected, certified, and recorded in the "land-book" as herein described, shall cease to be held in common, but the same may be occupied and held in the exclusive possession of the person selecting it, and of his family, so long as he or they may continue to cultivate it.
Any person over eighteen years of age, not being the head of a family, may in like manner select, and cause to be certified to him or her for purposes of cultivation, a quantity of land, not exceeding eighty acres in extent, and thereupon be entitled to the exclusive possession of the same as above directed.
For each tract of land so selected a certificate containing a description thereof, and the name of the person selecting it, with a certificate endorsed thereon, that the same has been recorded, shall be delivered to the party entitled to it by the agent, after the same shall have been recorded by him in a book to be kept in his office, subject to inspection, which said book shall be known as the "Navajo land-book." The President may at any time order a survey of the reservation, and when so surveyed, Congress shall provide for protecting the rights of said settlers in their improvements, and may fix the character of the title held by each.
The United States may pass such laws on the subject of alienation and descent of property between the Indians and their descendants as may be thought proper.
Article 6.
In order to insure the civilization of the Indians entering into this treaty, the necessity of education is admitted, especially of such of them as may be settled on said agricultural parts of this reservation, and they therefore pledge themselves to compel their children, male and female, between the ages of six and sixteen years, to attend school; and it is hereby made the duty of the agent for said Indians to see that this stipulation is strictly complied with; and the United States agrees that, for every thirty children between said ages who can be induced or compelled to attend school, a house shall be provided, and a teacher competent to teach the elementary branches of an English education shall be furnished, who will reside among said Indians, and faithfully discharge his or her duties as a teacher.
The provisions of this article to continue for not less than ten years.
Article 7.
When the head of a family shall have selected lands and received his certificate as above directed, and the agent shall be satisfied that he intends in good faith to commence cultivating the soil for a living, he shall be entitled to receive seeds and agricultural implements for the first year, not exceeding in value one hundred dollars, and for each succeeding year he shall continue to farm, for a period of two years, he shall be entitled to receive seeds and implements to the value of twenty-five dollars.
Article 8.
In lieu of all sums of money or other annuities provided to be paid to the Indians herein named under any treaty or treaties heretofore made, the United States agrees to deliver at the agency- house on the reservation herein named, on the first day of September of each year for ten years, the following articles, to wit:
Such articles of clothing, goods, or raw materials in lieu thereof, as the agent may make his estimate for, not exceeding in value five dollars per Indian - each Indian being encouraged to manufacture their own clothing, blankets, to be furnished with no article which they can manufacture themselves. And, in order that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs may be able to estimate properly for the articles herein named, it shall be the duty of the agent each year to forward to him a full and exact census of the Indians, on which the estimate from year to year can be based. And in addition to the articles herein named, the sum of ten dollars for each person entitled to the beneficial effects of this treaty shall be annually appropriated for a period of ten years, for each person who engages in farming or mechanical pursuits, to be used by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the purchase of such articles as from time to time the condition and necessities of the Indians may indicate to be proper; and if within the ten years at any time it shall appear that the amount of money needed for clothing, under the article, can be appropriated to better uses for the Indians named herein, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs may change the appropriation to other purposes, but in no event shall the amount of this appropriation be withdrawn or discontinued for the period named, provided they remain at peace. And the President shall annually detail an officer of the Army to be present and attest the delivery of all the goods herein named to the Indians, and he shall inspect and report on the quantity and quality of the goods and the manner of their delivery.
Article 9.
In consideration of the advantages and benefits conferred by this treaty, and the many pledges of friendship by the United States, the tribes who are parties to this agreement hereby stipulate that they will relinquish all right to occupy any territory outside their reservation, as herein defined, but retain the right to hunt on any unoccupied lands contiguous to their reservation, so long as the large game may range thereon in such numbers as to justify the chase; and they, the said Indians, further expressly agree:
1st. That they will make no opposition to the construction of railroads now being built or hereafter to be built across the continent.
2d. That they will not interfere with the peaceful construction of any railroad not passing over their reservation as herein defined.
3d. That they will not attack any persons at home or travelling, nor molest or disturb any wagon- trains, coaches, mules, or cattle belonging to the people of the United States, or to persons friendly therewith.
4th. That they will never capture or carry off from the settlements women or children.
5th. They will never kill or scalp white men, nor attempt to do them harm.
6th. They will not in future oppose the construction of railroads, wagon-roads, mail stations, or other works of utility or necessity which may be ordered or permitted by the laws of the United States; but should such roads or other works be constructed on the lands of their reservation, the Government will pay the tribe whatever amount of damage may be assessed by three disinterested commissioners to be appointed by the President for that purpose, one of said commissioners to be a chief or head-men of the tribe.
7th. They will make no opposition to the military posts or roads now established, or that may be established, not in violation of treaties heretofore made or hereafter to be made with any of the Indian tribes. Article 10.
No future treaty for the cession of any portion or part of the reservation herein described, which may be held in common, shall be of any validity or force against said Indians unless agreed to and executed by at least three-fourths of all the adult male Indians occupying or interested in the same; and no cession by the tribe shall be understood or construed in such manner as to deprive, without his consent, any individual member of the tribe of his rights to any tract of land selected by him as provided in article [5] of this treaty.
Article 11.
The Navajos also hereby agree that at any time after the signing of these presents they will proceed in such manner as may be required of them by the agent, or by the officer charged with their removal, to the reservation herein provided for, the United States paying for their subsistence en route, and providing a reasonable amount of transportation for the sick and feeble.
Article 12.
It is further agreed by and between the parties to this agreement that the sum of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars appropriated or to be appropriated shall be disbursed as follows, subject to any condition provided in the law, to wit:
1st. The actual cost of the removal of the tribe from the Bosque Redondo reservation to the reservation, say fifty thousand dollars.
2d. The purchase of fifteen thousand sheep and goats, at a cost not to exceed thirty thousand dollars.
3d. The purchase of five hundred beef cattle and a million pounds of corn, to be collected and held at the military post nearest the reservation, subject to the orders of the agent, for the relief of the needy during the coming winter.
4th. The balance, if any, of the appropriation to be invested for the maintenance of the Indians pending their removal, in such manner as the agent who is with them may determine.
5th. The removal of this tribe to be made under the supreme control and direction of the military commander of the Territory of New Mexico, and when completed, the management of the tribe to revert to the proper agent.
Article 13.
The tribe herein named, by their representatives, parties to this treaty, agree to make the reservation herein described their permanent home, and they will not as a tribe make any permanent settlement elsewhere, reserving the right to hunt on the lands adjoining the said reservation formerly called theirs, subject to the modifications named in this treaty and the orders of the commander of the department in which said reservation may be for the time being; and it is further agreed and understood by the parties to this treaty, that if any Navajo Indian or Indians shall leave the reservation herein described to settle elsewhere, he or they shall forfeit all the rights, privileges, and annuities conferred by the terms of this treaty; and it is further agreed by the parties to this treaty, that they will do all they can to induce Indians now away from reservations set apart for the exclusive use and occupation of the Indians, leading a nomadic life, or engaged in war against the people of the United States, to abandon such a life and settle permanently in one of the territorial reservations set apart for the exclusive use and occupation of the Indians.
In testimony of all which the said parties have hereunto, on this the first day of June, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, at Fort Sumner, in the Territory of New Mexico, set their hands and seals.
W. T. Sherman, Lieutenant-General, Indian Peace Commissioner.
S. F. Tappan, Indian Peace Commissioner.
Barboncito, chief, his x mark.
Armijo, his x mark.
Delgado.
Manuelito, his x mark.
Largo, his x mark.
Herrero, his x mark.
Chiqueto, his x mark.
Muerto de Hombre, his x mark.
Hombro, his x mark.
Narbono, his x mark.
Narbono Segundo, his x mark.
Gañado Mucho, his x mark.
Council: Riquo, his x mark.
Juan Martin, his x mark.
Serginto, his x mark.
Grande, his x mark.
Inoetenito, his x mark.
Muchachos Mucho, his x mark.
Chiqueto Segundo, his x mark.
Cabello Amarillo, his x mark.
Francisco, his x mark.
Torivio, his x mark.
Desdendado, his x mark.
Juan, his x mark.
Guero, his x mark.
Gugadore, his x mark.
Cabason, his x mark.
Barbon Segundo, his x mark.
Cabares Colorados, his x mark.
Attest:
Geo. W. G. Getty, colonel Thirty-seventh Infantry, brevet major-general U. S. Army.
B. S. Roberts, brevet brigadier-general U. S. Army, lieutenant-colonel Third Cavalry.
J. Cooper McKee, brevet lieutenant-colonel, surgeon U. S. Army.
Theo. H. Dodd, United States Indian agent for Navajos.
Chas. McClure, brevet major and commissary of subsistence, U. S. Army. James F. Weeds, brevet major and assistant surgeon, U. S. Army.
J. C. Sutherland, interpreter.
William Vaux, chaplain U. S. Army.
Appendix 3
A photograph of Navajo Code Talkers being honored for their duties during WWII;
Peter MacDonald is the first on the left.
Appendix 4
An article in The Christian Science Monitor written by John C. Waugh “focuses” on Navajo Nation during Peter MacDonald‟s campaign.
Appendix 5
An article in the New York Times written in December of 1940, reports that several Comanche Indians from Oklahoma were “used for relaying secret messages” (“Comanches Again Called For Army Code Service” 1) in WWI. (This is disputed by Willard Walker of Wesleyan University in his article “The Comanche Code Talkers of World War II)
Appendix 6
An article published in The Washington Post in 1945 credited the success of the code with the isolation of the Navajo reporting, “The Navajos being extremely clannish and stand-offish by nature were the only Indians not invaded by German “students” in the years between wars” (“Marines Got Foolproof Code From Navajos‟ Dead Language” 1).
Appendix 7
An article in The New York Times written in 1945 celebrates the success of the Navajo code.
Works Cited
Associated Press. “Comanches Again Called For Army Code Service.” New York Times 13 Dec.
1940: 16.
Collier, John. “The Indian in a Wartime Nation.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 223 (1942): 29.
Debo, Angie. And Still the Waters Run: the betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1940.
Eastlake, William. “How the West was Won- Paleface.” The Washington Post 20 Dec. 1964:
BW4.
Education: A National Tragedy- A National Challenge. S. Res. 80. 1969.
Egan, Timothy. “Despairing Indians Looking to Tradition to Combat Suicides.” New York
Times 19 Mar. 1988: 2.
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Pub. L. 89-10. 11 Apr. 1965. 79 Stat. 27.
USC sec. 1131.
Holm, Tom. Code Talkers and Warriors: Native Americans and World War II. New York: Indian
“Indians Oppose Act.” New York Times 16 June 1935: 28
Infobase Publishing, 2007.
MacDonald, Peter. The Last Warrior. New York: Otion, 1993.
MacDonald, Peter. Personal Interview by Anne-Michelle Engelstad. 20 December 2009.
Marder, Murrey Sgt. “Navajo Code Talk Kept Foe Guessing.” New York Times 19 Sept. 1945:
1.
Navajo Code Talkers. History Channel. A&E Home Video, 2006. Peattie, Donald C. Reader‟s Digest 78 (1942).
Roessel Jr., Robert A. “Indian Education in Arizona.” Journal of American Indian Education 1
(1961): 1-17.
Terkel, Studs. My American Century. New York: The New Press, 2007.
Turner, Frederick J. The Frontier In American History. NY: Henry Holt & Co, 1921.
US Treaty with the Navajos of 1868. Pub. L. 90-309. 15 Aug. 1868. Stat. 667.
Walker, Willard. “The Comanche Code Talkers of World War II.” International Journal of
American Linguistics 66 (Oct., 2000): 563-564.
Waugh, John C. “Focus on Navajoland.” Christian Science Monitor 2 Nov. 1970: 1.
Waugh, John C. “Savy Navajo.” Christian Science Monitor 4 Nov. 1970: 13.