Legal Counsel and the Navajo Nation Since 1945

Abstract

The Navajo reservation is the size of West Virginia. It is the largest tribal land base in the United States. The Navajos, or Dine--as they call themselves are by far the most numerous of the Native American peoples within this country. While not denying their identities as Americans, the Navajos now officially call their reservation area the Navajo Nation.1 Navajo nationalism is both a political and cultural movement. Navajo language, Navajo religious and social traditions, Navajo identification of themselves as Dine, have provided a necessary foundation for the Navajo Nation. For many years after the Treaty of 1868 created the initial land base for what would become the Navajo Nation, most Dine not only were isolated from non-Navajos, but as well were separated from other Navajos not from their immediate area. The livestock reduction program of the 1930s changed that situation. It threatened the traditional ways of life; it forced the realization upon the Navajo people that in order to preserve the Navajo ways they would have to organize politically on a reservation-wide basis. The idea of stock reduction predated the administration of Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier (1932-1945), but it was during his tenure that the policy was carried out to reduce vastly the Navajos' livestock. Stock reduction attempted to relieve what Indian Service personnel saw as serious erosion due to overgrazing. Sheep, especially, had great cultural as well as economic significance for the Navajos and Dine for the most part did not agree that the size of Navajo flocks affected the range vegetation. Since those traumatic days, most Navajos have come to accept the legitimacy of their tribal government. They did not at first. The Tribal Council had been formed in the early 1920s by federal government