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U.S. General Pope in 1878 stated that it was absolutely imperative that Indian Nations realize the United States' premeditated and calculated determination to dispossess the "savage" and occupy his lands and that "it is certain that the larger part of the country claimed by him will, in some manner, pass into the possession of the white race." The insatiable drive for a continental empire resulted in the iron triangle of the federal government, the military and big business working in concert to steal Indian mineral lands. They knowingly and willfully unleashed the pioneer vigilantes to commandeer Indian resources. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs J.Q. Smith wrote in 1876: "Wherever an Indian reservation has on it good land, or timber, or minerals, the cupidity of the white man is excited, and a constant struggle is inaugurated to dispossess the Indian, in which the avarice and determination of the white man usually prevails." "Every art, trick, and device of the unscrupulous land pirate is resorted to," admonished Colonel Preston. Yet it was brutal warfare, massacres, disease, and starvation that decimated Indian populations, leaving them destitute, to be replaced by industrial tycoons, timber barons, mineral magnates, and capital investors profiting from the "savage's" minerals in the bowels of the Earth.
About the author
The author, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is an attorney and historian. She holds BA, MBA and JD degrees from the University of Denver and is a lecturer on Indian law related to policy, land, water and natural resources. She is committed to Indian nations' sovereignty, ending assimilation policies and promoting accurate education. Awards: 2024 University of Denver College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences ("CAHSS") Lifetime Achievement Alumni Award; University of Denver Distinguished Alumni. She is also the author of The Earth Is Red: The Imperialism of the Doctrine of Discovery; The Eclipse of the Sun: The Need for American Indian Curriculum in High Schools; The Iron Triangle: Business, Government, and Colonial Settlers' Dispossession of Indian Timberlands and Timber; All that Glitters Is Ours: The Theft of Indian Mineral Resources; Social Contributions of Colorado's American Indian Leaders for the Seven Generations to Come; Warrior Societies, A Manifesto; and A Brief Colorado Indian History of the 1800s, Through A Factual Lens, all from Sunstone Press.
