A Historical Look at the Racist Origins of the Early American Conservation Movement
The true ownership of the wilderness belongs in the highest to those who love it most. John Muir (1912)
John Muir is known as one of the great protectors of the American wilderness. Foundational to conceptions of American identity, wilderness was the land on which the country was established when the first settlers escaped persecution to a new and unexplored world. The idea persisted throughout the American story as Manifest Destiny and stretched across the entire continent; the wilderness was gradually tamed. John Muir saw the threat of this growth to the natural environment and devoted his career towards protecting that which was wild. In recent years, however, a new conversation about the racist origins of conservation has emerged and its social movement has been placed under new scrutiny. The era in which this movement emerged was a progressive one, but also one devoted to preserving racist institutions that continued to benefit white populations with money and privilege at the expense of poorer communities of color.
The American settlers were not the original residents of the North American territory, but their policy sought to forcibly remove and disenfranchise the indigenous populations. In the early nineteenth century, Americans sought to expand their plantations and domination over the land in the American South. The Indian Removal Act was signed into law in the 1830s, granting the indigenous tribes from the South land in the western United States in exchange for vacating their traditional lands. Many tribes resisted, resulting in the now infamous Trail of Tears, during which thousands of indigenous Americans were marched west at gunpoint, and thousands died. In 1850, the Indian Appropriations Act declared that native Americans could not leave their reservations without permission, furthering governmental control over their land. The 1877 General Allotment Act stated the president could allocate or sell reservation land to new private owners without indigenous permission.
These intrusive policies of the U.S. government were not necessarily peacefully accepted by the indigenous populations: military and violent confrontations at Sand Creek, Little Big Horn, and Wounded Knee, among many others reflect the violent reactions and organization of the indigenous Americans. Native Americans were finally granted U.S. citizenship in 1924, but not before much of their population was decimated due to disease, displacement, and violence. Historians Robert Keller and Michael Turek describe policy at the time as “seeking complete removal of Indians from the path of national expansion.” The pattern of displacement was established early, entrenched in law, and reinforced often.
Such patterns of domination were employed in the establishment of both Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks. In the case of Yosemite, the land was officially designated to the State of California as a recreational area and eventually declared a national park by the end of the nineteenth century following decades of relatively peaceful co-existence with the miners in the land of the Yosemite Valley during the American gold rush. Indigenous Americans even profited off of the cultural curiosity of tourists to the area. As time carried on, however, the Ahwahneechee, a part of the Miwok people, were frozen, lynched, and their villages were burned down by miners and settlers alike in efforts to pull them from their land. Keller and Turek write, “indeed, this first national park provided the worst possible scenario for Indian/white relations: prior occupation… brutal military conquest… repeated efforts by park rangers to evict remnant villages.” Yosemite became a park in 1890. The establishment of Yellowstone followed a less violent but equally complete path. Cornelius Hedges and Nathaniel Pitt Langford (lawyer and businessman respectively) were among the first recorded campers in the Yellowstone area, and after two years of advocacy in Washington, D.C. got the area designated as America’s first national park in 1872. Similarly, Yellowstone had previously been home to many different tribes who were progressively driven from their land.
Cursory research today will yield scores of articles and books on the topic of racism in the early conservation movement. Often cited is Madison Grant, one of the forefathers of the National Park Service, a famous eugenicist whose book on the superiority of the white race was celebrated by Adolf Hitler before the Holocaust. Grant was not alone. President Roosevelt himself wrote a letter celebrating Grant’s book, and was noted for his desire to continue to extend the white race across the North American continent; another advocate, Pinchot was a delegate to multiple International Eugenics Congresses. Even John Muir described indigenous Americans as “dirty,” “lazy,” and refused to pursue friendships with them. On the other hand, famous defenders of indigenous culture were George Catlin and Horace Albright, famous author and former National Park Service director, respectively. Though working in different ways and in different centuries, conservationists Catlin and Albright both sought to preserve native culture. Yet, Keller and Turek argue, “for Albright and Catlin alike, Indians were a curiosity, remnants of the land’s ancient past, a people without distinct personalities and without political power.” In today’s parlance, this could be labeled tokenization and its intentions challenged. Nonetheless, there is a clear pattern of racist rhetoric and behavior among prominent early conservationists.
Racism is more than just hostile discourse; racism is also entrenched and perpetuated in institutions and power structures. Urban geographer Laura Pulido tackles the different racisms: “by reducing racism to a hostile, discriminatory act, many researchers… miss the role of structural and hegemonic forms of racism in contributing to such inequalities.” As our understandings of racial discrimination evolve, so must our applications. Reducing the concept of racism to be exclusively hostile discourse is in and of itself a form of institutional racism; put differently, to say that the only way to discriminate racially is through malicious intent is to continue to control the discourse around race, which is a form of structural power. Institutional racism is a series of systems and structures that lock in certain racial hierarchies and perpetuate racism over time. In the United States, these appeared in the legacy of the previously described policies towards indigenous Americans, a lack of access to economic or educational opportunities, and in social attitudes and behaviors towards communities of color.
The early American conservationist movement was shepherded by either unpaid or elite labor, perpetuating structural racism. This means that the main participants in the movement were either unpaid and funded through family or personal fortune, or had elite political positions that provided an income but were only accessible to those with economic or white privilege. These men typically had two things in common: they came from money, and they had a great love of the wilderness. One example is Charles Sprague Sargeant, whose work was instrumental in the passing of an 1891 law to allow for the designation of forest reserves; Sargeant possessed substantial personal wealth and a love of forests. Conservation historian Stephen Fox goes so far as to say “Conservation was never more an elitist conspiracy than at its birth. Sargeant, Muir, Johnson, and the Boone and Crockett men were leaders without portfolio, often pulling strings without taking their case to the public.” These actors employed mostly political, Congressional, or federal methods to achieve their goals and built key relationships over decades that could transform into political favors. Another example, the Forest Management Act of 1897, a follow-up to Sargeant’s previous work, followed this prescription: a range of delicate political negotiations over multiple years at very elite levels.
Although a few African Americans served in the United States Congress in the nineteenth century, there were no black members of Congress for nearly the entire time period under examination. In fact, the first indigenous American Senator was not elected until 1907. In this case, the institutional racism was a structural exclusion of indigenous voices (and nearly all voices of color) from American politics, which were the main avenue of progress for the conservationists. Not only had these communities faced discriminatory policies and physical displacement, but they were structurally excluded from discussions about their futures.
The sad irony of the establishment of preserved land in the United States is clear: both sides in this fight (the indigenous and the conservationists) valued and wanted to nurture positive relationships to land. Conservationist John Muir is claimed to have said “The true ownership of the wilderness belongs in the highest to those who love it most.” I argue that an environment of discrimination and institutional racism obscured the early American conservationists’ understanding of the deep relationships between native Americans and the land. Indigenous culture in the United States is strongly characterized by interrelationship and worship of natural features, making them an excellent ally in the fight for preservation. It was racism in its many forms that prevented this collaboration.
These stories of racism from the early conservationists are covered widely by journalists and pundits today, but they have not always been in plain view. When we consider, research, and begin to understand our history, we must be aware of who wrote the history we are reading. It is often said that history is written by the winners. A good researcher will continue to ask: What story isn’t being told here? What is missing? And how can we most effectively steward this information for a more productive future for all?
[This article is adapted from a paper written over the course of the author’s master studies. For the full paper, please send a message.]
