The Native Americans have long fought the battle to retain ownership of land they consider sacred. Bergmann has produced an admirable ethnographic work that demonstrates the unique relationship that links the peoples to the geographical landscape and the culturally relevant stories of which these sites were permanent reminders. Two periods of treaty-making occurred, during late 1850 to 1851, and 1884 to 1885, and concessions were made by the US government above what they had previously envisaged. The war of 1855-1856 saw more negotiations and additional granting of land or access to sacred sites. However, the displacement from culturally meaningful sites was disruptive of deeply held moral lessons connected to specific landmarks; Native Americans were spiritually and culturally uprooted too, not only physically.
The tribes’ links to topographical features are associated with moral stories and deeply held and shared values. The landscape itself was a permanent reinforcement of its tales handed down from one generation to the next, making continued interaction with the land a cultural imperative. Among the lessons involved in these stories were warnings about taboos (e.g. incest and infidelity, explanations of bounty and plentiful fish, game and foods for gathering, cautions about evil places to avoid, obligations to family, marriage requirements, interrelationships with other tribes, creation legends, and shaming, isolation and exile of those not adhering to cultural norms as these were the greatest penalties that could be imposed. Wrongdoers were often turned to stone and remained visible as a constant reminder of tribal responsibilities. Hence the attachment to land. Even when confronted with material evidence of scientific reasons for natural phenomena, Native Americans continued to see it as proof of their belief in an unseen spirituality reflected in the landscape.
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Despite the wealth of culture that the Native Americans brought with them, they were influenced by and likewise influenced the European American settlers. As Boorn puts it, “a transnational cross-pollination of cultures enriched and became rooted in United States history”3. Native Americans tanned hides and produced beadwork, quillwork, clothing, baskets, pictograph paintings, and oral stories. Material culture is a facet of spiritual life. Nevertheless, Native Americans may be consulted, but do not play a key role in the museum presentation of their cultural forms and their interpretation, indicating that despite a desire for empathy, European Americans continue to portray this culture through their own understandings and under their control.
The European American self-image is based on four pillars: “Protestant Christianity, American Republicanism and capitalism” and financial independence. Any other culture is typically and collectively viewed as being able to benefit from these ‘advantages’ by adopting the American ‘way of life’. Territorial expansion is inherent in this paradigm, and so the settlers began to advance across the continent of North America, fencing off land and claiming it for themselves without consideration of the impact on other peoples who already had their homes and cultures embedded in the soil. The dream of financial freedom was a core reason for land ownership on which to practice agriculture and achieve self-support and independence.
President James Madison was to phrase these ingrained views and the rationalization of expansion as “The whole continent of North America appears to be destined by Divine Providence to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usage and customs.”
Continuing in this vein, further land was appropriated, increasing US territory by 1,200,000 square miles to include Texas, Oregon, and Mexican territory from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, with the Gadsden Purchase added in 1853. It was not only barbed wire but railroads, the gold rush, traveling, and farming practices, particularly ranching, that impacted Native American land rights.
Historians generally view farmers as being the first users of barbed wire but cattlemen on ranches were the original handlers of this new invention. Open grazing was practiced by Native Americans too, and along with branding and protection of herds by owners, natural landscape barriers such as rivers and canyons were natural barriers to cattle. Several ranchers combined their resources on rounding up all the cattle to drive either back home in the fall or to the market in winter. In the 1880s ranchers jointly installed fencing 175 miles long between the Indian Territory border on the west and New Mexico. During a blizzard, thousands of cattle died when they could not cross over. During the late 1870s and 1880s fences became the way to keep cattle from wandering and other cattle from using one’s grazing land. This prevented outbreaks of cattle disease from spreading across ranches. Both groups were using fencing and experiencing the hazards it brought.
The Cherokee Strip Live Stock Association obtained permission to lease and fence land from the Cherokee Nation for five years provided they lived on and worked the land. This was limited to 640 acres each. Despite short lengths of fencing, the Native Americans initially continued to follow mostly free-ranging, although this gradually filled up with fencing. Ranches were typically fenced by all new European American settlers. This produced better, stronger breeds of cattle.
Two factors played a significant role in the way in which barbed wire was to take over the American landscape. The first was the Homestead Act of 1862, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, allowing anyone (man, woman, or freed slave) to own 160 acres in the western territories provided they lived on and farmed their land for five years. The second aspect was the invention of Joseph Glidden's barbed wire. Thorn bushes took too long to grow and cover the required distance, and smooth wire was no deterrent to cattle. But this new wire did the job and soon took over everywhere. The fact of land ownership became the bedrock of civilization.
Much of the difference between the way Native Americans and European Americans saw the right to land ownership was in how it was developed. In 1874 when Glidden produced barbed wire he received orders for 32 miles worth of the product. Six years later 263,000 miles of barbed wire were sold, “enough to fence the world ten times over”. Onion views barbed wire and its history as a “violent enclosure, permanent control” that started in the days of cowboys and ranches and the Wild West and “the domination of the powerless by the powerful.”
Aside from these negative descriptions, barbed wire often caused injury to cattle, with cuts, infections, and screwworm infestations. Watering holes were cut off from those who could not afford the new fencing and split labor into ranchers and poor non-land-owning cowboys. Injury, starvation, and cold were killing cattle and affecting Native Americans and poor Europeans alike, dividing land and allocating power to those who owned it. Even railroads were being protected from entry or crossing by barbed wire.
In 1887, the Glidden Barb-Fence Journal actually went as far as to promote barbed wire as a means to keep Native Americans outside of what was once their sole land. Sports promoters got on the bandwagon showing how fencing could keep non-paying spectators out of sports games. Barbed wire later came to be used in concentration camps and for military defense. This highlighted the underlying message, that those who held might and land ownership and were able to pay for entertainment were the men mentioned by Glidden when he said of such a man, that one can be …” morally certain he is a prosperous, well-to-do and influential man in his community.”. Clearly, the values of the Native Americans were not considered worthy or morally correct by the European Americans at that time.
The use of fencing is not entirely negative. As well as allowing cattle to grow strong, and fat and translate into more beef as a result, fencing has also been used to protect fauna and flora in nature and keep wildlife and breeding animals off the roads. However, it has also restricted access to travel routes to water sources and caused birds to become entangled and die while altering the migration patterns of species and their chances of survival. Despite these advantages and drawbacks, between 1880 and 1884, 643,000–965,000 km of barbed wire was being manufactured annually. This shows that benefits were being obtained from barbed wire by landowners that more than outweighed the disadvantages, if only for this group.
Between the role the federal government played by contracting treaties and setting up territorial controlling bodies and the availability of cheap land, the private profit motive was the key driver to the proliferation of fencing. In many instances though, fencing was a necessary means to protect one’s home from grazing sheep and cattle from entering their land to eat the crops grown by homesteaders. The increase in farming homesteads came about as a result of the Homestead Act of 1862. Ranchers also had to start growing crops to feed their families and workers. A cause of contention was grazing and watering rights, with disputes mostly being settled by gunfire. In this flourishing, civilization was brought to the West.
By the 1890s, America was booming, with railroads connecting most of the country and meat-packing plants springing up close to main ranching areas. Free-ranging was a thing of the past. Ranchers began to focus on maximizing profits and contributing to feeding the growing towns close to the railway lines. Public land was also being used for grazing, and as a result, free-range areas were overgrazed and depleted. Thousands of cattle perished from starvation and many owners lost their land. This led to an increased fencing off of land to protect it as a vital resource for one’s own stock. Grazing leases for free land were granted to certain ranchers. Once again, civilization could resume.
Whereas pioneer women had played a joint role in outdoor work, in addition to raising children, doing the chores, and feeding the workers, technology leaped forward with inventions such as sewing and washing machines that allowed women to play a bigger social role in charity work and hosting communal events. Social life centered around these events and church and school. Division of labor and agricultural inventions allowed land owners to function as businessmen and make use of new technology to increase yield and profits. Protected grazing was a good business strategy as the animals were protected from disease and grew fat on the land.
Property rights did little to enforce compensation for crops damaged by other cattle and sheep entering one’s property to graze. Barbed wire became the most efficient method of enforcement. Fencing both directly protected assets and served as further reinforcement of ownership rights. Wooden fencing was often not an option due to its prohibitive cost and scarcity in areas devoid of woodlands. The widespread adoption of barbed wire between 1880 and 1900 was highest in areas lacking woodland and agricultural activity increased the most in these regions.
These outcomes are seen to be an outcome of the use of barbed wire fencing as it increased the farming of cattle and sheep and contingently required crops to be farmed to take care of the owner, his family, and his workforce. The increase in output was 23% in the areas lacking woodland, showing that when fencing costs were high it was also more difficult to protect property, but once barbed wire was available it was cost-effective and paid off by reducing the costs of intrusions and overgrazing by free-range animals. This went a long way to ensuring individual property rights and control by those who own land.
What has not been considered is the rights of Native American people. National parks, such as Glacier, Yellowstone, and Mesa Verde appear to be unspoiled virgin land untouched by human habitation. The reality is that these were home to the indigenous tribes who were uprooted and evicted from their homes, though their respect for nature and religious awe served to protect the natural beauty and bounty. Not only were Native Americans removed from these sites, but their hunting and fishing rights were nullified without compensation. Addressing these wrongs is no longer a simple matter as the landscape of America has changed and the delicate balance of the ecosystems within the sites may not withstand the subsistence needs of humans, regardless of their heritage, in part due to the relatively small size of these locations and the species they protect.
What guided this thinking was the view prevalent in the 1800s that man and beast could not inhabit the same area and still preserve it as a wilderness. That Native Americans had done exactly this was conspicuously overlooked. National parks became a place of entertainment. This deluded and egocentric view deprived Native Americans of their natural rights. The concept of Manifest Destiny gave European Americans the right to own the land, make choices about its various uses, and superiority over its indigenous people. Between the mid-1850s and 1870s, hostilities and battles took place between the two groups and Native Americans went from being viewed as a noble people to being seen as savages.
It should be noted that Native Americans were not the only people to suffer discrimination. Irish and German immigrants to America initially faced many hardships in carving a place for themselves in their new homes. German immigration went from 10,000 in 1834 to 1,250,000 in 1845. Irish immigration remained fairly consistent annually with approximately 200,000 immigrants a year between 1847 and 185026. These influxes were the result of advertising by the American government; strangely the same opportunities were not made available to Native Americans in their own land.
Mankind has a long history of using walls to protect and define ownership of property and to protect trade routes. The invention of barbed wire provided a cheap alternative and allowed railway lines and meat packing plants to be defended against intrusion and access, in this way providing a measure of protection of trade routes for beef. There is a non-profit downside to building barriers: the breaking down of cultural ties, breeding mistrust and isolation, and dangers to wildlife. As immigrants have proved their value to America, so have Native Americans; the question remains whether the rapid growth of civilization achieved by European Americans did irreparable harm to its indigenous people. But although modern history proves that economic upliftment enjoys more success than “legal and digital barriers to restrict movement”, barriers define who owns the property and who has political control.
The need for control over others presupposes either an ignorance of how this ‘other’ feels and is affected or a wilful disregard for their rights. As Bergmann phrases it:
These landscapes did not merely augment the oral tradition; they were crucial to the maintenance of social and cultural values of native communities that relied on oral transmission of values and knowledge. The vivid stories or laws enlivened the landscapes and connected the present, future, and past.
The geographical landscape of the Native Americans went further than its supernatural interaction with daily life and the lands of their forefathers. Landscape features produced a veritable cosmology of visible reminders of oral tradition. It is as if the tribal stories were carved out on the surrounding topography. This heritage could not simply be packed up and moved to the reservations. With the advent of missionaries, further attempts were made to suppress this legacy by treating Native American beliefs as pagan and evil while officials deemed the tales fanciful and not worth recording.
An illuminating example is that of Speel-ya (Coyote) who committed an unspeakable act and tried to bury the evidence under a wall. No matter how tall he built it, the wall kept crumbling and revealing his guilt as he raced from one village to the next, only to find out that they were already aware of his misdemeanor. ‘Speel-ya’s Wall’ is a rocky ledge “along the Columbia River Gorge near Mosier, Oregon” that served as a reminder to the Upper Chinookan that no matter how far one travels one cannot outrun the truth. This visual reminder and the retelling of the story every time the tribe moved along this stretch of river was a reinforcement of a spiritual truth on which the community based its identity.
There is no doubt that the European Americans brought civilization to the continent and paved the way for a way of life grounded in material freedom and untold opportunities for individuals to succeed according to this value system. However, it is clear that Native Americans lost an irrecoverable chunk of their personal history and identity when they were ripped from their homes and forced to relocate to sterile reservations devoid of meaning and culture.
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