The Tohono O’odham Nation has been treated unfairly since the Gadsden purchase of 1853. Their land was cut in half when the U.S. and Mexico border was created, and were forced onto a reservation after violently getting pushed out of Mexico. Ranchers began taking up the Southern Arizona grasslands to feed their cattle and directly competing with the O’odham farmers. Armed conflicts constantly occurred with Mexican citizens and the Tohono tribe, on the U.S. border farmers constantly complained about the Tohono cutting their fences.
The Tohono O’odham Nation was eventually granted three million acres to the West of Tucson, Arizona. After facing constant adversity the people of the Tohono O’odham Nation were able preserve their traditions and gatherings while building up a community. The Tohono O’odham Nation were able to create their own sovereign government, but in the mid-1980s tribal lawyers discovered the Winters Doctrine that gave the tribe most of the groundwater in the Santa Cruz Valley. The city of Tuscon relied heavily on well water and constantly bought farmland to get access to more groundwater. Eventually the federal government gave the Tohono O’odham Nation thousands of acres feet of water from the Central Arizona Project.
Ethically speaking, I do not believe the Tohono O’odham tribe was completely compensated for their losses when the U.S. annexed their land in the Gadsden purchase. I think they were fairly treated when they received three million acres dedicated to them. I believe the U.S. government also severely hindered the ability of the Tohono O’odham to establish a stable community. Ranchers constantly allowed cattle to graze on their lands, they received little help when being constantly raided by Apache warriors and also by Mexican citizens.
i said a similar thing in my own post but it’s really interesting to see that another person considered what was fair beyond the initial recompense. It certainly is one thing to say that you respect another nation and make a grandiose gesture of cohabitation but to manipulate the tribe till they can hardly stand on their own , then deny them help its extremely contradictory.
Agree that the compensation of 3 million acres was a fair treatment to this tribe. But I think that it is very hard to make up for the hardships that we forced them to go through.
I like that you included how they were constantly being attacked even with their land being given to them, although it was not their original home land. It is not fair that they got everything taken away from them that they value most sacred just because they are not as powerful as the US government.