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  • Indians & Energy: Exploitation and Opportunity in the American Southwest
  • Janne Lahti
Indians & Energy: Exploitation and Opportunity in the American Southwest. By Sherry L. Smith and Brian Frehner, eds. (Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press, 2010. Pp. 317. Illustrations, maps, notes, references, index. ISBN 9781934691151, $ 34.95 paper.)

There is little doubt that indigenous peoples and energy policies form a significant and timely topic in the study of western history. It is also a subject that shows, in myriad of ways, the continuing confrontation between colonial intrusion and native peoples. This volume, edited by history professors Sherry L. Smith and Brian Frehner, unearths the complex relationship between American Indians and energy by focusing on one particular region, the American Southwest, an area rich in uranium and coal but dependent on its limited water supplies. Through eleven essays, written not just by historians but also sociologists, anthropologists, law scholars, and Native and environmental activists, the book tackles Native opportunity and exploitation as it unearths active indigenous engagement in the complex world of corporations and tribal, state, and federal government (most importantly the Bureau of Indian Affairs). It also highlights a heightened awareness of environmental change and the need for renewable energy resources.

The essays in this study amply prove is that when it comes to energy and Native peoples, easy answers and clear lines between right and wrong seem stubbornly evasive. There is little doubt that the tribal lands in the Southwest are rich in natural resources. This richness is an irony in itself considering that in the nineteenth century indigenous peoples were pushed to lands that were then deemed desolate and irrelevant for American industry. Energy resources have, however, often meant something other than prosperity and happiness for Native peoples themselves. The sad and often maddening story of environmental destruction and the increase in human suffering due to pollution, poor working conditions, or the loss of homes is too common. Still mines, processing plants, and other projects have offered much needed income for tribal governments and the individual Native peoples in their struggle against poverty and despair. Also, while some native peoples have fought to gain an increased stake in, control of, or jobs in the energy industries that operate on their lands, others have taken a stance that developing energy resources is incompatible with their identity as Native peoples and violates their sacred responsibilities to the land. Even this superficial description shows that when it comes to energy and Indians there is nothing less at stake than the [End Page 96] environment—and thus the future of life in the region—human health, economic survival, and Native identity. These are big, and complicated, issues, indeed.

Considering the importance of the subject it is unfortunate, but somewhat expected considering the nature of anthologies, that the quality of the essays is rather uneven and their focus on the region's indigenous peoples less than balanced. Some chapters suffer from repetition and somewhat sloppy writing and could have benefited from more meticulous editing. Many essays deal with the Navajos, but none, discuss the Yavapais or the Pueblos, for just two examples of other tribes that merit inclusion here.

Despite the repetition, readers at least get a good sense of the often painful yet complex Navajo experience with energy development. In one of the better essays, Colleen O'Neill shows how Navajos and other native peoples fought to gain access to the skilled jobs that the energy companies had initially brought their own, non-Indian workers to do. In an equally interesting essay, Leah S. Glaser describes paradoxes linked with the problems Arizona tribes had in accessing electricity while their lands functioned as centers of energy production for the greater Southwest area, including such expanding metropolises as Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. She backs her research with astonishing statistical data, including, for example, the fact that 36.8 percent of the Navajos lacked access to electricity at the turn of the twenty-first century (190).

Other essays tackle such subjects as uranium mining and milling, renewable energy activism, nationalism and energy development among the Navajos, the development of federal energy policies (especially pertaining to the Jicarilla Apaches), indigenous understandings of...

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