Introduction:

Indigenous people in the United States have long been violated by their European dominators who stripped them of both their land and their culture. From the beginning of North American colonization, the indigenous people of the land, dubbed Indians, and later “Native Americans,” have struggled to survive after repeatedly being taken advantage of and exploited. This struggle continues today in the form of commodification and appropriation of their culture.

In today’s political climate, there is an incredible push for political correctness and equality among all individuals. This new wave of acceptance and respect brings up varying perspectives regarding current political issues, but also why the racist, unjust institutions were created in the first place. Studying culture can provide insight into what created those institutions. For this reason, there has never been a more important time to study the cultural struggles of Native Americans, as doing so will provide answers to why things are the way they are today, which can help find solutions to the problems of tomorrow.

However, an important fact about culture and cultural struggle is that they are not static, but constantly changing, which in affect shapes and reshapes cultural geographies. For example, although Native Americans were treated atrociously throughout American history by Europeans, which was driven by the nationalistic idea of manifest destiny and outright racism, there was eventually a shift in white American culture wanting to experience and observe the culture of indigenous people which caused many elements of their culture to be commodified and exploited. This shift, although from one form of oppression to another, played a role in creating the cultural landscape of Native Americans that we know today.

In order to analyze the cultural landscape of indigenous people in the United States, this paper will focus on the American frontier and creation of Yosemite National Park, with the goal of exposing how nationalism and racism led to the eradication and oppression of the native population in the region, which translated into the appropriation and commodification of Native culture across the the Untied States.

An Analysis of the Creation of Yosemite National Park:

A myth about America’s National Parks is that they preserve our wilderness and landscapes, unaltered by man, for future generations. In contrast, these parks, especially in the American frontier, were filled with many vibrant indigenous communities. Like the Yosemite, in present day central California, where indigenous communities flourished by living off the environment that surrounded them for thousands of years before settlers arrived (NPS Contributors, 1990).

The dominant indigenous peoples living in the region called themselves the Ahwahnechee, which means “dwellers in Ahwahnee” and are related to the Northern Paiute and Mono tribes (Runte, 1990). The tribe thrived in the region for years, living off the land and trading with neighboring tribes, until the mid-19th century when the California Gold Rush brought in an enormous amount of European-Americans, leading to resource competition between neighboring tribes and the miners (Spence, 1996). These initial conflicts gave way for the Mariposa Wars, which was when the Mariposa Battalion, a state militia group, destroyed a huge part of the indigenous population (Ingham, 1995).

Expansion into America’s frontier land, including the tragic Mariposa Wars, was justified by manifest destiny, an idea perpetuated by nationalism that it was the duty of American settlers to expand across the entirety of North America, fueled by the underlying view that European Americans had both a cultural and racial superiority over other groups of people (Miller, 2008). This belief of racial superiority led European Americans to hold little remorse for their actions, as they genuinely believed they were helping to preserve the natural landscape and better humanity (Lubragge).

Regardless of how clear it was that Native peoples already had claims to the land, white people continued to justify removing them by saying they were not “good stewards” of the new American frontier and lied, altered, and ignored legal contracts which were in place to originally provide Natives with access to the land where they lived (Johnson, 2013). Well into the 60s, the Yosemite Park continued to promote this lie that Natives did not appreciate or respect the “wonderful” land which prompted other white people to support their removal.

Journalist Samuel Bowles put it best when he said: “We know they are not our equals; we know that our right to the soil, as a race capable of its superior improvement, is above theirs; and let us act openly and directly our faith. ... Let us say to him, you are our ward, our child, the victim of our destiny, ours to displace, ours to protect. We want your hunting grounds to dig gold from, to raise grain on, and you must ‘move on.’ ... when the march of our empire demands this reservation of yours, we will assign you another; but so long as we choose, this is your home, your prison, your playground” (Bowles, 2010).

The fact of the matter is, even though some of the activities Natives participated in were not the best for the environment, they were still far better than what the Europeans were doing to the land. The Natives sure appreciated the landscape for what it was on a far deeper level than the Europeans. Still, the Europeans believed they knew how to utilize the land better in order to profit and Native Americans were systematically killed and relocated to undesirable locations all so Europeans could profit from their original homelands.

Eventually, Americans started to realize that their industrialization was getting out of hand, leading to the loss of the country’s natural landscape. At this time, efforts to preserve the landscape began, leading to President Lincoln gifting Yosemite to the state of California in 1864 (Eschner, 2017). It is important to point out that the creation of National Parks had very little to do with preserving land for Native populations, but intended to preserve the “wilderness” for future generations of European Americans. Although, almost every location that would become a National Park was once home to indigenous people, who would end up being systematically removed.

The Mystification of Natives in the Yosemite Valley: A Shift in Perspectives

As mentioned previously, culture is a process that is continuously changing. At this time, the idea of wilderness shifted from being a dark, dangerous place filled with “savages,” as it was traditionally seen during colonization, to mean an idealized natural landscape of a place before people, which inherently ignores what actually existed. In order for this manufactured wilderness to exist, Native populations had to be pushed out, as they were considered violent and savage. However, a shift in this Native American stereotype eventually led to the encouragement of their culture since it became a spectacle for tourists (Oatman-Stanford, 2018).

Even though most of the Native population had been eradicated during the Mariposa Wars, there was still a large native community in the area. As tourism began to pick up and the area started industrializing, many indigenous people became reliant on the park’s tourism industry for work and adopted American culture by dressing, eating, and living the same way (Oatman-Stanford, 2018). At this point, white residents’ view of indigenous people shifted from seeing them as violent “savages” as peaceful, hardworking neighbors.

This shift in perspective brought about the popularity of the park’s “Indian Village,” which drew in many tourists. One author wrote, “native people had become an important part of the tourist experience, whether as laborers in the valley’s growing service industry or as an authenticating aspect of the encounter with wilderness” (Spence, 2000). Unfortunately, this acceptance was short lived and the tourism turned from learning about actual Natives to a classic example of how white people can “other” another culture sheerly for entertainment.

Apparently, the Natives who were working and living in the area did not seem quite native ​enough since they did not fit the traditional stereotype of drum-playing, face-painted, teepee-living individuals that tourists wanted to see so badly (Spence, 2000). At a time when so many Natives were assimilating and moving away from their own tribal traditions after years of violence towards them, white people saw the opportunity to profit by perpetuating stereotypes of the “mystical” Indian. In the name of profit, white people first wanted to kill every Native but since that cash flow ended as soon as the entire frontier was explored, they wanted Natives to exaggerate their traditional ways in order to profit off of them once again.

A culmination of the perpetuation of Native American stereotypes in the Yosemite Park occurred during the 1910s and 20s. The park decided it would be a good idea to host Field Days where white visitors could dress up in the stereotypical native outfits while the indigenous employees were told to act out white conceptions of native life (Oatman-Stanford, 2018). The park would actually dress up the natives living in the “Indian Village” in Midwestern headdresses (not part of this tribes culture) and parade them on horses (Cothran, 2010). Below is an advertisement for these Indian Field Days (McCarthy Album 10).

Although these Field Days eventually ended, the presentation of Native culture for tourists never did. Still, Natives in the area were never permitted to have their land back. Their land, and with it, their identity, was taken. For example, behind the Yosemite Museum is the Miwok Village, outfitted with an authentic roundhouse and u’machas, however the development is not for the Natives (who built it) to live, but for tourists (Oatman-Stanford, 2018). This is unjust considering that the tribes want a roundhouse and village of their own in the Yosemite, but are not able to have it.

The Yosemite Today

With Yosemite, the National Park Service (NPS) essentially created an outdoor museum: a packaged, pre-historical fantasy wilderness for consumption, free of “savages,” outfitted with tourist accommodations. Over time, the Parks tried to utilize indigenous people as “exotic” attractions for tourists, while simultaneously limiting their ability to use the park for traditional tribal activities, which shrunk the Native population even more. The unfortunate part is, the NPS has the opportunity to make take responsibility for their violent actions that led to the creation of these parks, but ends up downplaying the inhumane tactics used to rid the land of Natives, intentionally or not. These tribes will never be able to live on their land in the same way again due to all of development, which is something that should be acknowledged. However, in recent years, Yosemite is doing more to respectfully acknowledge the history of indigenous people.

Still, it seems as though Yosemite, and National Parks in general, are creations just for white Americans. After a glance at the Yosemite official website, it is evident that this is the case, given the lack of any person of color in pictures (Golash-Boza, 2015). In a time where people are fighting for their equality- and succeeding- it is embarrassing that the United States National Parks are still so far behind. Every American citizen should feel welcome in a landscape that has been taken from indigenous people by the government to be “communal.” This means allowing Natives to use the lands traditionally as much as they can given the development, as well as promoting the parks to a diverse group of individuals, not just white people.

Consumption of the Native American Landscape

Landscapes can be consumed in several different ways, including commodification (Domosh, 2013). Commodification happens when a good, service, idea, or people is turned into a commodity in order to be sold for a profit. A commodity is basically anything that is intended for exchange or any object of economic value (Commodification). Today, elements of the Native American landscape are consumed this way, as illustrated by the previous Yosemite National Park example. Commodification of the Native American Landscape exists outside of Yosemite in other forms of tourism and costumes.

Native American culture is consumed through tourism, where place is the commodity. When a landscape is commodified for tourism, “environments, places and people are being regularly made and re-made as tourist objects” (Urry, 1995). Today, many tribes have commodified themselves by opening up their reservation to the public for entertainment and a source of income. For example, Billie Swamp Safari, located within the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in the Florida Everglades, just one hour from Fort Lauderdale, allows tourists to experience the Everglades and get a glimpse of what Florida used to be like. They offer airboat rides through the swamp, swamp buggy eco-tours, critter shows, snake shows, and other animal exhibits. However, their website also states that “the Seminole experience would not be complete without a stroll through an actual Seminole village and our quarter-mile boardwalk” (Everglades Adventure | Florida Family Vacation.). No one actually lives in this village, it was constructed for tourists to experience, but at least this was a choice made by the tribe unlike in the Yosemite. In a sense, a tribe sharing it’s own history and culture with the world is not as bad as another culture exploiting them for profit, but it still illustrates how Native culture is consumed through commodification. The Seminoles host numerous events annually to share their culture with the rest of the community which is a great way for people to learn about them in a positive, nondestructive way.

On the contrary, many theme parks that are unaffiliated with indigenous groups, including Disney World, commodify traditional tribal villages, costumes, people, and ceremonies themselves in order to entertain non-indigenous people. When Native American culture is commodified in this way, it only perpetuates racism and negative stereotypes. Disney World’s Frontierland has had racist undertones since it’s creation. Disney created this ​place​ that affirmed widespread beliefs about the historical geography of the West that had been portrayed in “wild west” films and novels. Disney romanticized the West in Frontierland, and Native Americans were portrayed as lost and doomed, yet pure and noble (Francaviglia, 1999). In the park, you are made to feel like you’ve been transported to another time through the appropriation of Native culture. This kind of commodification is what makes people think it is appropriate to dress up as an ‘Indian Princess’ or ‘have a little pow-wow’ when it’s not.

Conclusion:

The cultural landscape of Native Americans has changed throughout history, as culture is not static but continuously changing. What you would have defined the landscape of Native Americans as one thousand years ago is very different from what you would describe it as today. Likewise, the cultural struggles that this community faces has changed. Nevertheless, examining the history behind Native Americans in the United States by focusing on Yosemite National Park provides insight into how European Americans colonized and dominated the region, greatly shifting the cultural landscape of Native Americans. It is time for every American citizen to know the full story behind how these parks came to be.

Bibliography:
Bowles, S. (2010). ​Switzerland of america: A summer vacation in the parks and mountains of colorado​. Place of publication not identified: Nabu Press.
Chan, C. E. (2015). Beyond Colonization, Commodification, and Reclamation. ​Oxford

Handbooks Online.​ doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199754281.013.36 Commodification. (2019, March 25). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodification

Corapi, S. (2014, June 30). 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant Act. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/yosemite-turns-150

Cothran, B. (2010). Working the Indian Field Days: The Economy of Authenticity and the Question of Agency in Yosemite Valley. ​American Indian Quarterly,34(​ 2), 194.doi:10.5250/amerindiquar.34.2.194

Domosh, M. (2013). Consumption and Landscape. ​The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography,1​ 98-208. doi:10.1002/9781118384466.ch19

Eschner, K. (2017, June 30). Lincoln's Signature Laid the Groundwork for the National Park System. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/lincolns-signature-laid-groundwork-nationa l-park-system-180963826/

Everglades Adventure | Florida Family Vacation. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.billieswamp.com/

Francaviglia, R. (1999). Walt Disneys Frontierland as an Allegorical Map of the American West. ​The Western Historical Quarterly,30(​ 2), 155. doi:10.2307/970490

Golash-Boza, T. (2015, July 23). OPINION: Why America's national parks are so white. Retrieved April 26, 2019, from http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/7/heres-why-americas-national-parks-are-so-w hite.html

Huhndorf, S. M. (2001). ​Going native: Indians in the American cultural imagination.​ Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Ingham, Z. (1995). Savage Dreams: A Journey Into the Hidden Wars of the American West by Rebecca Solnit. ​Western American Literature,30​(3), 299-300. doi:10.1353/wal.1995.0123

Johnson, E. M. (2013, August 13). How John Muir's Brand of Conservation Led to the Decline of Yosemite. Retrieved April 26, 2019, from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/how-john-muir-s-brand-of-conservati on-led-to-the-decline-of-yosemite/

Lubragge, M. T. (n.d.). The Components Of Manifest Destiny. Retrieved April 28, 2019, from http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/essays/1801-1900/manifest-destiny/the-components-of-manifest- destiny.php

McCarthy Album 10, Photograph 298. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://exhibits.sos.ca.gov/items/show/10021

Miller, R. J. (2008). ​Native America, discovered and conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Manifest Destiny​. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

NPS Contributors. (1990). ​Yosemite: A guide to Yosemite National Park​(Vol. 138). Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/yose/getinvolved/supportyourpark/upload/viphandbook.pdf

Oatman-Stanford, H. (2018, January 26). From Yosemite to Bears Ears, Erasing Native Americans From U.S. National Parks. Retrieved April 25, 2019, from https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/erasing-native-americans-from-national-parks/

Runte, A. (1990). ​Yosemite: The embattled wilderness​. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. doi:ISBN 0-8032-3894-0.

Smith, A., & Gazin-Schwartz, A. (2016). ​Landscapes of Clearance Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives.​ Walnut Creek: Taylor and Francis.

Spence, M. (1996). Dispossesing the Wilderness: Yosemite Indians and the National Park Ideal, 1864-1930. ​Pacific Historical Review,65​(1), 27-59. doi:10.2307/3640826

Spence, M. D. (2000). ​Dispossessing the wilderness: Indian removal and the making of the national parks​. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Urry, J. (1995). ​Consuming Places​. London: Routledge.

Whitt, L. A. (1995). Cultural Imperialism and the Marketing of Native America. ​American Indian Culture and Research Journal,19(​ 3), 1-31. doi:10.17953/aicr.19.3.75725415011514r1