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Rating: 
Summary: A superb contribution to Native American studies.
Review: Indian Country, God's Country is a freelance expose of development histories of selected national parks and Indian reservations, including Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Reservation, The Badlands and Pine Ridge, Mesa Verde and the Utes, Grand Canyon and the Havasupai and Death Valley and the Shoshone. Obtaining information from a variety of sources including personal visits and interviews as well as research, author Burn ham traces beginnings of the National Park Service, Congressional attempts to mainstream Indian expansion of the parks frequently at the cost of reservation land, and the parks as they are seen today from both tribal representatives and government employees, superintendents and rangers. It is a series of tales rife with conflict. The few successes are carefully described as "hard-won compromises that have given tribes more autonomy and greater cultural recognition in recent years, while highlighting stubborn conflicts that continue to mark relations between tribes and parks (cover flap)." Of all the sites explored, Burnham is most optimistic about the seed of justice sprouting in Death Valley, ironically. The Shoshone with spokesperson Pauline Esteves has reinstituted interest in use of the Shoshone language and also learned to use publicity and other strategies to encourage sovereignty and empowerment of the Timbisha. "From the Sun Tours transportation contract at Glacier to the Shoshone claim for a land base at Death Valley to the Havasupai struggle for land in the Grand Canyon to the Oglala fight for development in the Badlands, the Park Service has never surrendered anything in disputes over Indian land without a protracted struggle (p. 309)." There are many unanswered questions on both sides. There is no doubt that continued bargaining will ensue. The power of a book like Indian Country, God's Country is the light it sheds on the ongoing struggle, in all its complex history.Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer
Rating:
Summary: A superb contribution to Native American studies.
Review: Indian Country, God's Country is a freelance expose of development histories of selected national parks and Indian reservations, including Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Reservation, The Badlands and Pine Ridge, Mesa Verde and the Utes, Grand Canyon and the Havasupai and Death Valley and the Shoshone. Obtaining information from a variety of sources including personal visits and interviews as well as research, author Burn ham traces beginnings of the National Park Service, Congressional attempts to mainstream Indian expansion of the parks frequently at the cost of reservation land, and the parks as they are seen today from both tribal representatives and government employees, superintendents and rangers. It is a series of tales rife with conflict. The few successes are carefully described as "hard-won compromises that have given tribes more autonomy and greater cultural recognition in recent years, while highlighting stubborn conflicts that continue to mark relations between tribes and parks (cover flap)." Of all the sites explored, Burnham is most optimistic about the seed of justice sprouting in Death Valley, ironically. The Shoshone with spokesperson Pauline Esteves has reinstituted interest in use of the Shoshone language and also learned to use publicity and other strategies to encourage sovereignty and empowerment of the Timbisha. "From the Sun Tours transportation contract at Glacier to the Shoshone claim for a land base at Death Valley to the Havasupai struggle for land in the Grand Canyon to the Oglala fight for development in the Badlands, the Park Service has never surrendered anything in disputes over Indian land without a protracted struggle (p. 309)." There are many unanswered questions on both sides. There is no doubt that continued bargaining will ensue. The power of a book like Indian Country, God's Country is the light it sheds on the ongoing struggle, in all its complex history. Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer
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