Navajo Administrative History

On March 20, 1909, President William Howard Taft signed into law proclamation 873, creating Navajo National Monument, the twentieth national monument created since the passage of the Antiquities Act less than three years before. The 160-square-mile unsurveyed monument was not unusual during this time period. There were a number of precedents for such a seemingly arbitrary use of presidential authority. Since the executive power to create national forests was abrogated in 1907, the Antiquities Act had become a more widely used tool. Only weeks before, in his last hours in office, Theodore Roosevelt tweaked Congress's nose by establishing nearly 700,000 acres of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State as Mount Olympus National Monument. In comparison to such actions, the reservation of an area outside the path of commercial development, as yet mostly unsurveyed, and containing important archeological ruins, did not seem excessive. [17]

But other than Wetherill's part-time post, there were no other provisions for care of Navajo or any of the other national monuments. As a typical piece of Progressive era legislation, the Antiquities Act embodied the preconceptions of its time. The framers of the act thought that passage of law would assure compliance on the part of citizens. They failed to include measures to fund protection. Consequently, care was uneven.

Douglass had a number of reasons for insisting on immediate proclamation of the monument. He feared the arrival of Cummings' expedition, which he termed a "pseudo-scientific party with strong political backing" in the coming months. Douglass was certain they planned to make a large collection from the ruins, using untried and poorly trained students. He expected the ruins of Tsegi Canyon to be among the last undisturbed ruins discovered, and in his view, their value to archeological science was too great to leave them to a group interested mainly in collecting artifacts.

As a result, he arbitrarily requested the reservation of an area even he recognized was far larger than necessary to protect the ruins. Douglass knew that the government had no real way to protect remote places without formal reservation. The large quantity of land was necessary because he had not yet been to the Tsegi Canyon area. But he could not afford to wait, for the party of excavators was on the way. [18]

The result was a monument far too large for permanence that excluded the then undiscovered ruin of Inscription House. Douglass followed the descriptions of locations he had as of early March 1909. The general reservation would suffice as a protective measure until he could visit the area and determine what ought to be in the monument and what could be released to the public domain.

Although he was more than forty miles away, John Wetherill made an effective custodian. Like his older brother, he knew the trails better than any other Anglos around, and he remained the main outfitter and guide for anyone who sought to find ruins or even needed supplies. The trading post at Oljato was a meeting place for travelers, explorers, the military, and area Navajos. If anyone visited the monument from the north, they would have to pass through Oljato.

Wetherill was also closely tied into the Navajo grapevine. Both he and Louisa Wade Wetherill were almost honorary members of the tribe; in 1906, Hoskininni had claimed Louisa Wade Wetherill as his granddaughter because of her fluency in the Navajo language and upon his death, he willed her his thirty-two slaves. American law abolishing slavery had little impact on the actions of Navajos who barely acknowledged of the existence of Anglo-Americans. Even if someone left Gallup for the ruins without coming in contact with one of Wetherill's friends or business contacts, by the time they reached Marsh Pass, the Wetherills or Clyde Colville would know of their arrival.

John Wetherill took his responsibilities as custodian seriously. When he accepted the job, he requested permission to compel unauthorized excavators to cease or be arrested. The ruins were important to him, and perhaps influenced by the cessation order handed his brother at Chaco Canyon, John Wetherill worked with the burgeoning federal bureaucracy. [19]

The summer of 1909 was busier than he expected. Thwarted by circumstances the previous year, Cummings and his crew returned to northern Arizona for a third summer. They headed for Tsegi Canyon. John Wetherill served as their guide. He did not object because the expedition held a permit issued to the School of American Archeology, Edgar L. Hewett's branch of the Archaeological Institute of America. Hewett visited in the course of the summer, something of a surprise considering the number of permits he held as well as the field schools he ran at Frijoles Canyon and Puye near the Rio Grande in north central New Mexico. [20]

That summer, the Cummings party set up at the site they knew best: Keet Seel, the place of the broken pottery. After working there until July, John and Louisa Wade Wetherill took Cummings, his eleven-year-old son Malcolm, their children Ben and Ida Wetherill, and a student photographer from the University of Utah named Stuart Young forty miles to the west, toward Nitsin Canyon. There Pinieten, a Navajo who regarded the area as his own, offered the party hospitality. Following Wetherill's guidance, they found another set of ruins. Curious about the ruins, the three children did some exploring of their own. Scratching away debris from the walls of one of structures, they discovered an inscription that appeared to read: Anno Domini 1661. Excited at the thought that the Spanish might have preceded them in Nitsin Canyon, they named the place "Inscription House." [21]

The controversial inscription at Inscription House ruin, circa 1915.

After a stop at Keet Seel, the group planned to return to Oljato. They passed by the hogan of Nedi Cloey at the fork of the canyon, and his wife hailed Louisa Wade Wetherill. When she found that they sought Anasazi ruins, she told them of a large ruin up the canyon that her children came across while herding sheep. Only two miles from the ruin, the party wanted to visit it, but their horses were too tired and weak. John Wetherill hired Clatsozen Benully, Nedi Cloey's son-in-law, to take a group of six to the ruin on August 9, 1909. It was a short trip, about thirty minutes, to find the ruin. They named it "Betat' akin," Hillside House, lingered an hour, and then went on to Oljato to fulfill their other objectives. [22]

This photo from 1909 shows how Betatakin appeared to the first parties that arrived in the canyon.

One of Cummings' principal goals for the summer of 1909 was an attempt to reach Rainbow Bridge, near the Utah-Arizona border. The bridge had been reported by Mike's Boy, the Paiute guide, and others, and with the three natural bridges in the vicinity established as Natural Bridges National Monument in the summer of 1908, considerable prestige could be the reward of the discoverer of another one. Cummings was less concerned with prestige than with scientific knowledge, but nonetheless the prospect of adding to his knowledge of the region was enticing.

But William B. Douglass reappeared in northeastern Arizona, altering Cummings' plans. John Wetherill left Tsegi Canyon for Bluff before the trip to Betatakin. There he met Douglass, who planned to survey the national monument proclaimed earlier in the year. Douglass also planned to check on the Cummings' party. Because their permit had been issued to Hewett, who was only present intermittently, the group was technically in violation of the Antiquities Act. Douglass planned to confiscate their artifacts and force them to cease any archeological activity in which they were engaged. He had already been in contact with the Smithsonian Institution, which had issued the permit. Wetherill tried to talk Douglass out of this notion, but failed. He returned to Tsegi Canyon to give Cummings the bad news. [23]

The brewing conflict had finally come to a head. Cummings represented the first generation of archeologists, those who had cut their professional teeth in the pot-hunting disputes with Richard Wetherill. In their view, Cummings, Hewett, and their peers were clearly different from the cowboy from Mancos. The collections they made were for the sake of knowledge, not to be sold to anyone who wanted them. They were professionals, advancing their field and not incidentally their individual careers.

Douglass took a different view. While he understood the difference in intent, he saw the effect of one of Richard Wetherill's excavations and one of Cummings' as the same. In both cases, prehistoric structures were less important than subsurface artifacts; nor was documentation available to the interested public. Excavators made little effort to preserve the sites they dug. From Douglass' perspective, these kinds of excavations of federal property amounted to vandalism, no matter who was behind them. In effect, Douglass applied the "pot-hunter" label to the very people who coined the phrase. With both he and Cummings in the area, trouble was certain to ensue.

John Wetherill cast himself as the peacemaker. He knew better than anyone that there were enough prizes to go around as well as the consequences of fighting the growing power of federal officials interested in western land and resources. He reasoned that the two men could resolve their differences if they met face to face. Aware of the trip to Rainbow Bridge, Douglass asked to join the group. Although he arrived at Oljato after the group left for the bridge, Cummings returned for Douglass, and representatives of two distinctly different perspectives on the disposition of American prehistory traveled together to find yet another unique feature of the southwestern landscape.

It must have been a tense trip, for Wetherill was never successful in his attempt to orchestrate an accord between Douglass and Cummings. The group pushed forward under the guidance of Nashja-begay, a Paiute guide in Cummings' employ, seeing the bridge in the distance on August 14, 1909. Douglass sought to be the first white underneath the bridge, an honor that Neil Judd, another of the members of the party, felt should go to Cummings. John Wetherill made the issue a moot point when he spurred his horse ahead of Douglass and the others and passed under the arch first. [24]

The trip to Rainbow Bridge has become more myth than history, but much of the story is not in dispute. Clearly Wetherill and Cummings resented the appearance of Douglass, whose ability to force the expedition to cease their work was of utmost concern. Douglass behaved in a heavy-handed, self-important manner. Judd, Cummings, and Louisa Wade Wetherill all portray Douglass as an interloper who sought to supersede other, more knowledgeable explorers more worthy of credit. Cummings' account, published long after Douglass' death, openly disparaged Douglass. Cummings asserted that Douglass not only attempted to usurp credit for discoveries, he patronized the members of the expedition after imposing on their hospitality. "Of what thin material some men are made," Cummings wrote the Wetherills in reference to Douglass after hearing of the latter's claim that he discovered Rainbow Bridge. Only Judd grudgingly allowed Douglass respect for his desire to protect the ruins from depredation. The rest perceive him as self-serving bureaucrat, and in the lore of the early days of American archeology, William B. Douglass became the villain. [25]

Yet a more balanced look at the evidence suggests that the territoriality that characterized American archeology was a major contributing factor to the disdain showered on William B. Douglass. Despite the evident hospitality shown him by Cummings and Wetherill, Douglass believed his duty compelled him to stop the expedition. He clearly advocated preservation of ruins and natural features for the benefit of the public and exploration by accredited scientists. What made him wary was the emphasis on collecting that pervaded any expedition with which Edgar L. Hewett was connected. He recognized that Hewett, to whom the permit for excavating the new national monument had been issued, had already manipulated the system for his personal benefit. Douglass had serious and legitimate concerns about the intentions of the Cummings party. He had the power to make the expedition change its practices and the inclination to use it. [26]

In perspective, the rivalry between Cummings and Douglass was more a clash of cultural perspectives than a nasty government man taking credit from archeologists and local people. Douglass was a forerunner of the ordered, regulated society that would become codified in the founding of the National Park Service seven years later. He sought strictures on individual activity, no matter who performed archeological work or how respected their credentials. Ironically, like Hewett, Douglass was incapable of following the very rules to which he held others. His later excavations on Chacoma Peak and at Ojo Caliente revealed the same kind of collecting for which he chastised Hewett and Cummings in 1909. [27]

Nor could Douglass legitimately censure Cummings for collecting artifacts. Archeological science was in its infancy, and describing ruins, collecting artifacts for museums, and making wild generalizations about prehistoric life was standard practice. What worried Douglass was the disposition of the artifacts and the condition of the sites after a foray. He recognized that the government needed to protect the structures from which the artifacts came as well the pottery and the baskets of prehistory.

From Rainbow Bridge, the explorers went in different directions. Neil Judd took William B. Douglass and his surveyors to Betatakin and Keet Seel, where they began to map the newly established national monument, while Cummings and John Wetherill explored the canyons south of Navajo Mountain with Dogeye-begay, another guide. Judd left Douglass at Keet Seel with a map of Betatakin and the Bubbling Spring ruins and returned to Oljato to meet up with Cummings.

Douglass' efforts to halt the excavation began to pay off. Waiting for John Wetherill at Oljato was a letter from S. V. Proudfit, the Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Proudfit inquired about unauthorized excavations within the boundaries of the national monument. "There is no one excavating on the Navajo National Monument except Prof. Cummings and party," Wetherill immediately replied, "and they are doing so under the permit issued to Edgar L. Hewett." [28]

For Wetherill, this was an enlightening moment. He was well aware of his brother's problems with the Department of the Interior and he depended on his income as a guide. He was also an enthusiastic explorer, a trait he shared with the rest of his family. When he accepted appointment as the custodian of the monument, he cast his lot with Douglass and the Department of the Interior. No matter how fondly he felt toward Cummings, he knew well the price of thwarting the Department of the Interior. By 1909, his iconoclastic brother had paid it in full.

The scientific establishment in Washington, D. C., also lined up with Douglass. Since the passage of the Antiquities Act in 1906, the federal bureaucracy had jealousy guarded its power to permit excavation. Scientists affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution and the Bureau of American Ethnology saw themselves as the best professionals to initiate surveys of protected ruins. Part of important federal bureaus, they did not need to make collections to assure future support of their work. Douglass' reports spurred the interest of Dr. J. Walter Fewkes and Dr. Walter Hough, two eminent Americanists, and by the end of the summer of 1909, plans had begun for a preliminary expedition the following year. William Henry Holmes, who succeeded Powell as the head of BAE, supported Douglass as the surveyor tried to compel excavatory work to cease. [29] A power struggle had begun.

Cummings was on sabbatical from the University of Utah, and his permit was still valid. In the fall and winter of 1909, he continued to work in the region, returning to Tsegi Canyon and excavating Betatakin. Arriving in a snowstorm, the party looked through the talus material below the ruin for burials and found none, but were more successful in the ruin itself. They found four four-stop reed flutes and a number of turquoise ear pendants set in wood. The party left in haste when Nedi Cloey arrived with horses to take them out before a serious snowstorm, and they left their discoveries stored in one of the rooms of the ruin. The relics were never seen again. [30]