Native Diasporas: Indigenous Identities and Settler Colonialism in the Americas

7. Resistance and Removal

Chapter 7 Resistance and Removal Yaqui and Navajo Identities in the Southwest Borderlands Claudia B. Haake In the southwestern borderlands, two nation-states, Mexico and the United States of America, sought to remove Native peoples from their lands in order to gain control of and access to those lands themselves, as well as to contain the threat Native Americans posed in their perception . Removal and displacement, even if at times only temporary, impacted Native Americans in a number of ways. Among other things, Native resistance to policies such as removal, as well as the will to retain and/or return to their own lands from an enforced diaspora, contributed significantly to shaping Native identities in the southwestern borderlands, as the study of the Navajos and Yaquis and their interaction with their respective colonial governments demonstrates. In the case of the Navajos, removal and exile may actually have helped to create a larger tribal or national identity that may have made them stronger in their dealings with the United States government. For the Yaquis, exile posed a serious challenge to their communal identity and especially to the spirit of resistance among those exiled. The area today referred to as the U.S. Southwest was for the longest time under Spanish and later Mexican rule but came under U.S. control in the middle of the nineteenth century. At times this new border split Native territories and hindered indigenous movement, while at other times Native populations used this semipermeable new line to 236 haake escape, at least temporarily, from the treatment that the governments on both sides of the border saw fit to level against them. Even though the rhetoric of benevolence toward Native Americans in the United States might suggest otherwise, the national Indian policies of Mexico and the United States differed little in their ultimate objective, the breaking up of tribes within their national borders.1 The impact of the desire to do so is exemplified by the Navajos, who through the reordering of the Southwest from the late 1840s found themselves within the territorial boundaries of the United States, and by the Yaquis, who, after going back and forth across the border between the countries , eventually came to have populations on both sides of it. Both the Navajos and the Yaquis experienced mass dislocations in the nineteenth century, initiated by the national governments of the country they lived in. In the United States these removals were part of a national policy program known as “Indian Removal,” which claimed to be for the benefit and protection of Natives who were to become “civilized ” in this way. In Mexico these dislocations were conducted in a more impromptu manner and not as a nationwide policy. The goal of Mexico and the United States in removing the Yaquis and the Navajos was the “pacification” and development of the areas occupied by the two tribes, as well as redistribution of resources such as land in favor of nonindigenous settlers. Native Americans were seen as obstacles in such development. Indigeneity was negatively defined, as neither the Navajos nor the Yaquis were willing to conform to the norms of the nonindigenous members of the imagined communities that were the United States and Mexico. Consequently, both the United States and Mexico sought to break up and relocate the tribal communities that were considered to be in the way of national progress. This approach succeeded neither for the Navajos in the United States nor for the Yaquis in Mexico. In both cases, the Native group’s collective identity was forged by resistance to the imposition of alien rule over their territory. It was also forged, following defeat, especially for the Navajos, by the effort to negotiate with the new rulers for their interests as a group. Yet despite considerable similarities, there were also significant differences in the experiences of Navajos and Yaquis resistance and removal 237 vis-à-vis the states they resided in. These contributed to the success with which they could fight against state policies and for their land and identity. In the United States, a rhetoric of law and benevolence toward indigenous peoples required the authorities to at least super- ficially conform to certain standards. At times Native Americans like the Navajos managed to use this to their advantage, as they did in negotiations over land. In Mexico, such a discourse was largely absent. Its government was thus...