Navajo Administrative History

As the area attracted the attention of explorers and government representatives, the trading post at Oljato became a center for Anglo travelers to the region. John Wetherill had a store of knowledge about prehistoric sites nearly equal to that of his brother Richard and was available as a guide or outfitter for expeditions. Among them were two figures critical in the establishment of Navajo National Monument, Byron L. Cummings, then of the University of Utah, and William B. Douglass, Examiner of Surveys for the General Land Office of the Department of the Interior.

The diminutive and round-faced Byron L. Cummings was one of the most distinguished and revered figures in the first generation of American archaeology. He grew up in New York and New Jersey, coming to the University of Utah in 1893 to accept a position as Professor of Classics. By 1905, he had become dean of the faculty, and began to pursue his interest in archeology. In 1906, he initiated his first excavation. [11] Like another prominent western archeologist of his time, Edgar L. Hewett, Cummings was self-trained. Only his university affiliation protected him from the charges of pot-hunting leveled at Richard Wetherill.

William B. Douglass represented the Progressive ideology that had swept the country since Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901. This movement, with its twin goals of equity and efficiency, sought to restore a measure of order to a society that had rapidly changed since the onset of industrialization. Douglass was a field employee of the General Land Office, the branch of the federal government responsible for the management of public lands and which had started to take an interest in the cultural and natural features of the western landscape, and he embodied the growing trend towards regulation evident in American society. He perceived unprotected ruins and resources to be at risk from the uncaring and malicious actions of those who placed their own welfare ahead of that of the American people. Like many progressives, Douglass believed that he and his professional peers were entitled to make rules, but the very regulations they made applied only to other people.

This self-serving perspective characterized government officials for many who lived in the West. Despite a number of prominent western leaders such as U.S. senator Francis Newlands of Nevada, most westerners regarded federal efforts to regulate the use of western resources as intrusive. They lived in an open land, many thought, and any restriction impeded their ability to earn a living.

Within a year of each other, Cummings and Douglass began to explore the western Navajo reservation. In 1907, Cummings and his party prepared a topographic map of White Canyon, the area that included three natural bridges that became Natural Bridges National Monument in the spring of 1908. Shortly afterward, the GLO sent William B. Douglass back to resurvey the area in an effort to more precisely define its boundaries. He spent most of the summer and fall at that task. Two men with different objectives were in each other's proximity.

In the summer of 1908, Byron L. Cummings continued his archeological work in the southeastern Utah-northeastern Arizona region. Upper Montezuma Canyon was the focus of the expedition, and a small excavation at Alkali Ridge introduced Alfred V. Kidder, who became a leader in the field, to archeology. After the field work ended, Cummings and John Wetherill planned to explore the ruins of northeastern Arizona. Wetherill could not come along because of a dispute between Navajos from Oljato and the U.S. Cavalry. Cummings and two students, one of whom was his nephew Neil Judd, later an important archeologist in his own right, headed for Tsegi Canyon. Although the party never reached the area, it visited numerous ruins on the way. But the Tsegi area intrigued Cummings and he planned to return the next year. [12]

The peripatetic Edgar L. Hewett also visited the region in the summer of 1908. As the head of the School of American Archeology in Santa Fe, the only southwestern arm of the Archaeological Institute of America, and the author of the Antiquities Act, Hewett wielded tremendous power in the Southwest. He regularly applied for excavation permits for a dozen or more sites in the region, visiting most of them only once a season. Among his travels in 1908, he joined up with the Cummings expedition at Alkali Ridge and a few days after a group of miners visited Keet Seel, went there with John Wetherill. [13]

A growing gulf between Hewett and Cummings on one side and Douglass on the other was beginning to emerge. It stemmed from questions about access to ruins. Hewett and Cummings were westerners who understood the ways of the twentieth century. They recognized that they would have to cooperate with the institutions of American society if they were to excavate. The furor over the activities of Richard Wetherill, in which Hewett played a prominent role, certainly showed that there was no future in challenging the system. After successfully labeling Wetherill a pot-hunter, Hewett sought to consolidate his position in the archeological world. Offering expeditions, training students, and making collections for museums was the best way to achieve this goal.

In the view of people like Douglass, this went against the best interests of science. Collections were being taken from government land by anyone who happened along, and despite the cessation of Richard Wetherill's activities, Douglass could see no reason that Hewett, Cummings, or anyone else should continue the same practice. He lamented the number of collections made on federal land, arguing that if ruins were to be reserved, it ought to occur before the subsurface treasures were taken and parceled out to the highest bidder. In his view, there was little difference between the results of one of Wetherill's forays and Hewett's expeditions.

Douglass envisioned a system that offered accredited government scientists the first opportunity to explore and catalog ruins. This perspective reflected the values of the federal resource bureaucracy during the Progressive era. Rather than let the greedy appropriate artifacts for their own edification, such places should be preserved for the benefit of all Americans. From Douglass' perspective, this was a much better solution than simply allowing anyone with university affiliation to take what they wanted from the public domain.

After Douglass finished in White Canyon in October 1908, he continued to search out important features for preservation. From his base in Bluff, Douglass headed for Oljato in early December. He hoped to find John Wetherill and hire him as a guide. Wetherill could not leave the trading post, for the weather was bad and supplies there were low. Douglass engaged Sam Chief, a Navajo medicine man reputed to speak two languages. Later Douglass discovered "to [his] sorrow they were both Navajo." [14]

The two men became enmeshed in a serious communications problem. Douglass wanted to see specific ruins, but Sam Chief thought any ruin would suffice. When Douglass was able to make his objective clear, Sam Chief told him that because of the heavy snow, they would have to wait. When other Navajos they met corroborated Sam Chief's contentions, Douglass decided to try to wait it out. Clyde Colville persuaded him that the snow would remain until spring. Douglass gave up and returned to Bluff to wait for the end of winter.

But Douglass did acquire a wealth of information about natural bridges and ruins on this abbreviated trip. Mike's Boy, a Paiute Indian known as a guide, told him of a bridge near Navajo Mountain and of a number of ruins in the Tsegi Canyon area. Douglass had Mike's Boy show him the approximate location of the ruins and the bridge on a map, which he then sent to Washington, D.C.

This map became the basis for the original boundaries of Navajo National Monument. Aware of the ease with which national monuments could be established, Douglass set out to reserve the important ruins of the western reservation. In an exchange of telegraph and letters, he persuaded the Commissioner of the General Land Office to request the proclamation of a new reserved area--sight unseen. [15]

Douglass had not yet been to the ruins of the Tsegi. He had only the description of location and appearance given him by Mike's Boy and corroborated by John Wetherill. Yet in Douglass' view, the threat of depredation was sufficiently great to demand such a proclamation. Seemingly unaware of Richard Wetherill's prior visits, Douglass saw the ruins of Tsegi Canyon as one of the last archeological areas that had not yet been looted. To assure that it stayed that way, he advocated referring the request of anyone who wanted to excavate or visit to the Smithsonian Institution before allowing them to proceed. The specter of Richard Wetherill still loomed large over American archeology and the federal land management bureaucracy.

Douglass also made rudimentary arrangements for protection of the new monument. There were only two ways to get to the ruins. Travelers could come down through John Wetherill's trading post at Oljato and follow the roughly forty miles of trail or they could follow a wagon road from Gallup, New Mexico. John Wetherill's trading post was the only stopping place for miles in any direction; he had selected its location for precisely that reason. Douglass could not see how anyone could expect to find the ruins without Wetherill's help. He enlisted Wetherill as a volunteer custodian, a so-called "dollar-a-year-man," who in reality received one dollar each month. [16]