Native American Urbanization and Socio-Economic Integration in the Southwestern United States

Abstract

Comparison of settlement patterns on the San Carlos, Ft. Apache, Cocopah, Walapai, Havasupai and Kaibab Paiute Indian reservations reveals that lumbering, cattle husbandy and other business not only federal payrolls generate agency town nucleation and growth. The timing of federal protection of natural resources for Indian entrepreneurs to exploit has proved to be a crucial factor in urbanization. The formation of modern nations has involved varying degrees of political, social and economic integration of different, once autonomous ethnic groups. The United States obtained citizens by attracting voluntary immigrants from Europe, by granting citizenship to involuntary immigrants from Africa and their descendants in mid-nineteenth century, and by bestowing citizenship in 1924 upon surviving Native Americans conquered and enclaved on lands reserved for them. Granting them U.S. citizenship did not, however, in itself integrate Native Americans into the national economy and society. Such integration results from numerous mechanisms of cultural change. At the same time that the United States pursued a policy of domestic colonialism toward Native American peoples, it transformed itself from a rural farming country into an urban industrial nation. One measure of Native American socio-economic integration is, therefore, the degree of concurrent urbanization of this portion of the population. The 1960 and 1970 censuses show that Native American population has been rapidly urbanizing only at this relatively late period in United States history. The major process of Native American urbanization has been internal reservation-to-city migration. This recent migratory current raised the urban portion of the Native American populace from 27.8 percent in 1960 to 44.9 percent in 1970 (Wax 1971:37; U.S. Bureau of the Census 1972:281). Twenty-five U.S. cities in 155 ETHNOHISTORY 22/2 (Spring 1975) This content downloaded from 207.46.13.118 on Sun, 11 Sep 2016 06:01:49 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 156 HENRY F. DOBYNS, RICHARD W. STOFFLE, and KRISTINE JONES OREGON IDAHO * IDAHO FALLS