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Chapter 3
Mormon Well Road:
Reservations and Preservation
National Sacrifice - nicholas b jacobsen, "Las Vegas Piece" site, Tule Desert, Nuwu Land (2022)
“Conservation of that race which has given us the true spirit of Americanism is not a matter either of racial pride or of racial prejudice; it is a matter of love of country.”
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Henry Osborn, 1916, from the foreword to Madison Grant’s book on his theories of white-genocide “The Passing of the Great Race, or The Racial Basis of European History”
The Nellis Air Force Base Complex (NAFBC) is part bombing range and part "untouched sanctuary". In fact the land the U.S. set aside for nuclear weapons testing shares its border with the Desert National Wildlife Refuge (DNWR), set aside for the preservation of the Desert Bighorn sheep. Although it may seem like a contradiction of values for a Wildlife Refuge to be co-managed as a bombing range, this is consistent with the historic ethos of U.S. conservation and preservation.
The United States Department of Interior (DOI), tasked with managing all federal lands occupied by the U.S., was originally founded under the U.S. Department of War (now Department of Defense (DOD)). Thus, the co-management of land by the U.S. military and DOI is a foundational part of U.S. conservation. Further, the function of both the DOD and DOI is the preservation of the United States. And, as is illustrated in the Henry Osborn quote above, U.S. conservation is the preservation of settler-colonialism and white-supremacy.
The United States Department of Interior (DOI), tasked with managing all federal lands occupied by the U.S., was originally founded under the U.S. Department of War (now Department of Defense (DOD)). Thus, the co-management of land by the U.S. military and DOI is a foundational part of U.S. conservation. Further, the function of both the DOD and DOI is the preservation of the United States. And, as is illustrated in the Henry Osborn quote above, U.S. conservation is the preservation of settler-colonialism and white-supremacy.
Collaged map centered on the Nellis Air Force Base Complex and the Desert National Wildlife Refuge at the edges of Nuwu and Newe territories. The bright red sections show where the U.S. Air Force wanted to expand predominantly into the Refuge.
The Reservation and Preservation
"(Americans) gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousands, and now keep the modest remnant under observation in a cage.”
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Adolf Hitler, speaking approvingly of the United States, 1928
The Department of Interior (DOI) was created in 1849, just after the end of the Mexican-American War and the beginning of the Manifest Destiny era. After this war the U.S. dramatically increased its occupation as it annexed the majority of the so-called American West––lands Mormons then colonized as Deseret. The DOI was created to manage all this stolen Indigenous land occupied as property of the federal government. The DOI also houses the Bureau of Indian Affairs as Indigenous Peoples, like their lands, are treated like wards of the State. Thus the Department of War was responsible for destroying Indigenous Peoples stealing their land, managing that land and its wealth of resources, and then for managing the Indigenous survivors to ensure they, like their lands, remain domesticated.
"The only alternatives left are to civilize or exterminate (Indigenous Peoples)"
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Department of Interior Secretary Alexander H. H. Stuart, 1851
“If Indians are to live at all, they must learn to live like white men...The alternative to civilization is extermination.”
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Department of Interior Secretary Carl Schurz, 1883
This overlap points to the lens through which the U.S. foundationally views both this land and its Indigenous Peoples––through crosshairs––as something to be destroyed or assimilated. And it is through environmental conservation, and liberalism in general, that this genocidal military occupation both perpetuates it's dominance over and commodification of Indigenous lands while also rendering this violent oppression and extraction as an unproblematic good––as progress. Yet, removing Indigenous Peoples from their lands is essential to the ethos of U.S. conservation, not just because of it's militant history, but because of it's ongoing "Leave only footprints, take only pictures" ethic.
The very concept of wilderness and nature are colonial constructs that rely on an ideological divide between humans and the lands through which we exist. In the Wilderness Act of 1964 the U.S. legally defines wilderness as a place "where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." Thus, the removal of Indigenous Peoples from their lands is not only essential for settler-colonial occupation and capitalist resource extraction, but also to settler-colonial land conservation. Every National Park was created through the genocide or forced removal of the Peoples Indigenous to those lands.
National Parks, Monuments, Forests, and Wildlife Refuges are––like the nuclear crater field at the NNSS––products of war.
The very concept of wilderness and nature are colonial constructs that rely on an ideological divide between humans and the lands through which we exist. In the Wilderness Act of 1964 the U.S. legally defines wilderness as a place "where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." Thus, the removal of Indigenous Peoples from their lands is not only essential for settler-colonial occupation and capitalist resource extraction, but also to settler-colonial land conservation. Every National Park was created through the genocide or forced removal of the Peoples Indigenous to those lands.
National Parks, Monuments, Forests, and Wildlife Refuges are––like the nuclear crater field at the NNSS––products of war.
“As to Indians, most of them are dead or civilized into useless innocence.”
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Sierra Club Founder John Muir, "Our National Parks," 1901. Muir sought to encourage readers to visit the wilds of the U.S. National Parks by ensuring them of their safety.
Isolation is the essence of LandArt.
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Walter De Maria, 1980
Settler-colonialism, according to Patrick Wolfe, operates through a "logic of elimination" which "destroys to replace." The destruction of Indigenous Peoples and their removal from their lands fulfills the "destroys" half of this equation. The creation of U.S. environmental conservation is one form of the "replace" half. It is through this logic that the American identity was created.
As settler colonists destroyed Indigenous lives, they simultaneously sought to become native themselves--to become real Americans. Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang call this act of Americanization through erasure and replacement "settler-nativism." Author and settler nativist Henry Thoreau illustrates this logic well when he wrote that as “the farmer displaces the Indian…he redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects more natural.” It is in the act of “displacing the Indian” and “redeeming the meadow” through which the Euro-settler becomes “naturalized” as an American, through which he becomes the new native.
So, it is through Indigenous genocide, settler-nativism, and environmental conservation of the Indigenous lands through which white settlers create the American identity that we have our public lands.
As settler colonists destroyed Indigenous lives, they simultaneously sought to become native themselves--to become real Americans. Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang call this act of Americanization through erasure and replacement "settler-nativism." Author and settler nativist Henry Thoreau illustrates this logic well when he wrote that as “the farmer displaces the Indian…he redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects more natural.” It is in the act of “displacing the Indian” and “redeeming the meadow” through which the Euro-settler becomes “naturalized” as an American, through which he becomes the new native.
So, it is through Indigenous genocide, settler-nativism, and environmental conservation of the Indigenous lands through which white settlers create the American identity that we have our public lands.
All men of sane and wholesome thought must dismiss with impatient contempt the plea that these continents should be reserved for the use of scattered savage tribes...Most fortunately, the hard, energetic, practical men who do the rough pioneer work of civilization in barbarous lands, are not prone to false sentimentality.
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Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, 1889.
"In dealing with the ambivalence of white America, we must not overlook...the physical extermination of the American Indian…the poisoning of the American mind was accomplished not only by acts of discrimination and exploitation but by the exaltation of murder as an expression of the courage and initiative of the pioneer."
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Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?" (1967)
Praise for The Passing of The Great Race, or The Racial Basis of European History:
“a capital book; in purpose, in vision, in grasp of the facts our people most need to realize.”
-
Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to Grant
"my Bible"
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Adolf Hilter in a letter to Grant
I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.
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Theodore Roosevelt, 1886
After U.S. setter colonists had "gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousands," to quote Hitler praising the U.S., we went on to "keep the modest remnant under observation in a cage." U.S. president and avid conservationist Theodore Roosevelt looked back on this era of militant Indigenous genocide and ecocide with nostalgia. The U.S. predominantly built its national identity on the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and Manifest Destiny and the Indian Wars. Urbanizing and Industrializing settler colonists watched their populations changed and worried that "that race which has given us the true spirit of Americanism" through "the physical extermination of the American Indian" would lose their settler-nativist character through which they defined themselves as superior to their European kin. This Progressive Era was defined by this effort to preserve the "American spirit." This preservationist project led to the growth of eugenics, anti-immigration legislation, and environmental conservation––all focused on the preservation of this so-called "Great Race."
Teddy Roosevelt often used the term "race suicide" to describe this white supremacist fear. Roosevelt and other U.S. leaders feared that the rapid industrialization and urbanization of U.S. culture was weakening American pioneer spirit––that without Indigenous Peoples and lands to conquer we would lose that which makes America great. To combat this supposed decline in American masculinity, white-settler-supremacists developed the Boy Scouts of America, physical education, Muscular Christianity (and it's off-shoot Muscular Mormonism), outdoor recreation, as well as the National Parks, Forests, Monuments, and Wildlife Refuges in which men could sharpen their manliness against the American wilderness. Thus, the through preservation of the so-called American West, colonists sought to preserve the American Spirit of dominance which pioneers imported into the American West.
Teddy Roosevelt often used the term "race suicide" to describe this white supremacist fear. Roosevelt and other U.S. leaders feared that the rapid industrialization and urbanization of U.S. culture was weakening American pioneer spirit––that without Indigenous Peoples and lands to conquer we would lose that which makes America great. To combat this supposed decline in American masculinity, white-settler-supremacists developed the Boy Scouts of America, physical education, Muscular Christianity (and it's off-shoot Muscular Mormonism), outdoor recreation, as well as the National Parks, Forests, Monuments, and Wildlife Refuges in which men could sharpen their manliness against the American wilderness. Thus, the through preservation of the so-called American West, colonists sought to preserve the American Spirit of dominance which pioneers imported into the American West.
Still from Manifest Doomsday - nicholas b jacobsen (2023)
In order to imagine land as a terra nullic wilderness we have to remove Indigenous Peoples from their lands. In order to imagine nature as a binary to human culture we have to ignore that all human culture is rooted in land––we have to ignore our earthling-ness. This colonial delineation nurtured in ignorance is rooted in Christian ideologies.
In the beginning the Bible God created the binaries: heaven and earth, light and dark, above and below, land and water, plant and animal, God and human, man and woman. This first story in the Bible is about a land called Eden, a pure ecological utopia. It is in Eden in which the idea the humans are supernaturally different from the lands through which we live. These humans are not only able to live without food, water, medicine, or any other reciprocal relationship with their lands, they're also the only thing in creation made "in the image of God." Thus, they are already rhetorically elevated above all else.
Soon after the end of creation Adam and Eve lose their divine bliss (ignorance) when they consume forbidden fruit of knowledge. For their consumption of divine knowledge, their God cursed them. He forced them from utopia and cursed the land. Eve is cursed with the animality of live child birth. Adam is cursed to develop a working relationship with his land through farming and a little hunting, and gathering. Thus, a hierarchy of humans over the land and men over women is established for thousands of future cultures in only a few pages and "the natural man" becomes "an enemy to God."
Wilderness, like the Garden of Eden, is also a main character of the Bible. The world "wilderness" occurs hundreds of times in the text. In Exodus the newly-liberated Jews wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Jesus was tempted by Satan for 40 days in the wilderness. The Christian salvation of the fallen wilderness is even prophesied in the Bible in Isaiah 35 which reads: "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose."
Mormon Pioneers imported their own version of this Bible verse but with it's U.S. settler-colonial twist. Mormon prophecies say that not only will the desert wilderness blossom as the rose, but so to will the Lamanites––the supposed ancestors of Indigenous Peoples of this continent.
Thus Mormonism also uses the Department of Interior lens which views Indigenous Peoples and their lands as in need of Euro-colonial control and salvation. And because Mormons saw themselves as the new Jews fulfilling these Biblical End-Times prophecies––they saw their exodus into the desert wilderness as a part of their divine destiny to save these Indigenous lands and Peoples through assimilation to Euro-American lifeways.
In the beginning the Bible God created the binaries: heaven and earth, light and dark, above and below, land and water, plant and animal, God and human, man and woman. This first story in the Bible is about a land called Eden, a pure ecological utopia. It is in Eden in which the idea the humans are supernaturally different from the lands through which we live. These humans are not only able to live without food, water, medicine, or any other reciprocal relationship with their lands, they're also the only thing in creation made "in the image of God." Thus, they are already rhetorically elevated above all else.
Soon after the end of creation Adam and Eve lose their divine bliss (ignorance) when they consume forbidden fruit of knowledge. For their consumption of divine knowledge, their God cursed them. He forced them from utopia and cursed the land. Eve is cursed with the animality of live child birth. Adam is cursed to develop a working relationship with his land through farming and a little hunting, and gathering. Thus, a hierarchy of humans over the land and men over women is established for thousands of future cultures in only a few pages and "the natural man" becomes "an enemy to God."
Wilderness, like the Garden of Eden, is also a main character of the Bible. The world "wilderness" occurs hundreds of times in the text. In Exodus the newly-liberated Jews wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Jesus was tempted by Satan for 40 days in the wilderness. The Christian salvation of the fallen wilderness is even prophesied in the Bible in Isaiah 35 which reads: "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose."
Mormon Pioneers imported their own version of this Bible verse but with it's U.S. settler-colonial twist. Mormon prophecies say that not only will the desert wilderness blossom as the rose, but so to will the Lamanites––the supposed ancestors of Indigenous Peoples of this continent.
Thus Mormonism also uses the Department of Interior lens which views Indigenous Peoples and their lands as in need of Euro-colonial control and salvation. And because Mormons saw themselves as the new Jews fulfilling these Biblical End-Times prophecies––they saw their exodus into the desert wilderness as a part of their divine destiny to save these Indigenous lands and Peoples through assimilation to Euro-American lifeways.
“There hath, by God's visitation, reigned a wonderful plague [causing] the utter destruction, devastation, & depopulation of that whole territory."
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King James I on the deaths of 75-90% of Peoples Indigenous to so-called New England during the colonial-caused pandemic known as "The Great Dying" of 1616-1619. This "wonderful plague" is what cleared the lands in which the Pilgrims settled.
Euro-Christian colonization also imported this mythic terra nullius to this land via the Papal Doctrine of Discovery. This Doctrine's logic states that because the Christian God created all the lands and its wealth, then all land belongs to Christians. Thus, any land occupied by heathens, savages, or any other non-Christian is free for the taking. Both the anti-Muslim crusades and the colonization of this continent were justified and rendered divine by this doctrine.
The logic of Manifest Destiny, which gave birth to U.S. conservation, adopted this terra nullic logic. The U.S. Christian-Nationalist, settler-colonial project frames the genocide of this land's Indigenous Peoples as God's way of cleansing this land so that His Chosen People may dominate their Promised Land. The King James I (of the King James Bible fame) quote above, illustrates how boldly colonists rendered Indigenous genocide as divine. The Chapman painting above which still hangs in the U.S. Capitol's Rotunda illustrates how boldly the U.S. still sees its ongoing genocidal project of elimination through Christianization, education, and other forms of assimilation. The dark irony of King James's quote is that it may very well be Indigenous Peoples who save us all.
After Indigenous Peoples had successfully cultivated and cared for their land for millenia, colonial dominance through our supposedly superior lifeways created a nesting doll of existential crises like climate collapse, biological annihilation, and the sixth extinction in just a few centuries. It was via European colonization and U.S. settler-imperialism that Christians self-fulfilled their Biblical / Book of Mormon prophecies to supposedly save this land from its fallen state and simultaneous usher in their End Times.
The logic of Manifest Destiny, which gave birth to U.S. conservation, adopted this terra nullic logic. The U.S. Christian-Nationalist, settler-colonial project frames the genocide of this land's Indigenous Peoples as God's way of cleansing this land so that His Chosen People may dominate their Promised Land. The King James I (of the King James Bible fame) quote above, illustrates how boldly colonists rendered Indigenous genocide as divine. The Chapman painting above which still hangs in the U.S. Capitol's Rotunda illustrates how boldly the U.S. still sees its ongoing genocidal project of elimination through Christianization, education, and other forms of assimilation. The dark irony of King James's quote is that it may very well be Indigenous Peoples who save us all.
After Indigenous Peoples had successfully cultivated and cared for their land for millenia, colonial dominance through our supposedly superior lifeways created a nesting doll of existential crises like climate collapse, biological annihilation, and the sixth extinction in just a few centuries. It was via European colonization and U.S. settler-imperialism that Christians self-fulfilled their Biblical / Book of Mormon prophecies to supposedly save this land from its fallen state and simultaneous usher in their End Times.
It was settler-colonial-caused near-extinction of the Desert Bighorn Sheep which led to the designation of the Desert Game Range / Desert National Wildlife Refuge. After colonists drove these sheep to near extinction through overhunting, displacement, land theft, and the spread of Euro-diseases, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (through T. Roosevelt’s Antiquities Act) established this Game Range to ensure that “present and future generations of Americans” would be allowed this American experience of resource extraction through hunting and killing Bighorn Sheep.
In addition to the preservation of the American spirit, conservation of environmental resources for capitalist extraction is another founding purpose of the Department of Interior. As the U.S. occupation and its settler population grew, colonists began to recognize that they needed to manage resource extraction if they wanted to continue to exploit this land in perpetuity––if they wanted to preserve their "Great Race." This was a major project of Theodore Roosevelt's presidency and his fight against "race suicide." Roosevelt, along with his fellow white-settler-supremacist eugenic conservationists like Madison Grant, Henry Osborn, and Gifford Pinchot, created the U.S. Forest Service, five National Parks, 18 National Monuments, fifty-one Bird Reserves, four Game Preserves, and one-hundred-and-fifty National Forests.
Primary among President Roosevelt conservation projects was the creation of the National Forest system. He, along with fellow eugenicist, Gifford Pinchot created this department and established 150 national forests. The U.S. Forest Service, established under the Department of Agriculture, (which was originally housed under the DOI) was designed "to make the forest produce the largest amount of whatever crop or service will be most useful, and keep on producing it for generation after generation of men and trees." It was this because of this ethos that settler-colonists stopped the Indigenous forest management practice of control burns and began practicing colonial fire suppression which helped create the yearly wildfire seasons we’re now too familiar with.
Thus it is through this understanding that U.S. environmental conservation is foundationally about the conservation of U.S. white-settler-supremacy and the dominance of the capitalist systems upon which it depends––that the shared land use between the U.S. military and Department of Interior in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge begins to fit the historical model and ethos of settler colonial conservation rather than seem to be a contradiction of it.
The U.S. conservation of this section of Desert Bighorn Sheep habitat serves the U.S. preservation of the American identity. Thus when Bighorn land is wanted for war––the conservation and expansion of the American identity and its economies––war takes precedence. The Bighorn becomes yet another sacrificial lamb to the God of capital and U.S. imperial “dominion over…every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
In addition to the preservation of the American spirit, conservation of environmental resources for capitalist extraction is another founding purpose of the Department of Interior. As the U.S. occupation and its settler population grew, colonists began to recognize that they needed to manage resource extraction if they wanted to continue to exploit this land in perpetuity––if they wanted to preserve their "Great Race." This was a major project of Theodore Roosevelt's presidency and his fight against "race suicide." Roosevelt, along with his fellow white-settler-supremacist eugenic conservationists like Madison Grant, Henry Osborn, and Gifford Pinchot, created the U.S. Forest Service, five National Parks, 18 National Monuments, fifty-one Bird Reserves, four Game Preserves, and one-hundred-and-fifty National Forests.
Primary among President Roosevelt conservation projects was the creation of the National Forest system. He, along with fellow eugenicist, Gifford Pinchot created this department and established 150 national forests. The U.S. Forest Service, established under the Department of Agriculture, (which was originally housed under the DOI) was designed "to make the forest produce the largest amount of whatever crop or service will be most useful, and keep on producing it for generation after generation of men and trees." It was this because of this ethos that settler-colonists stopped the Indigenous forest management practice of control burns and began practicing colonial fire suppression which helped create the yearly wildfire seasons we’re now too familiar with.
Thus it is through this understanding that U.S. environmental conservation is foundationally about the conservation of U.S. white-settler-supremacy and the dominance of the capitalist systems upon which it depends––that the shared land use between the U.S. military and Department of Interior in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge begins to fit the historical model and ethos of settler colonial conservation rather than seem to be a contradiction of it.
The U.S. conservation of this section of Desert Bighorn Sheep habitat serves the U.S. preservation of the American identity. Thus when Bighorn land is wanted for war––the conservation and expansion of the American identity and its economies––war takes precedence. The Bighorn becomes yet another sacrificial lamb to the God of capital and U.S. imperial “dominion over…every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
The Sacrificial Lamb
Desert National Wildlife Refuge: The sum of the facts does not constitute the work or determine its esthetics.
The Desert National Wildlife Refuge is the largest Wildlife Refuge within the lands occupied by the continental United States.
The Refuge, and the so-called Sheep Mountain Range within, are known as Tuhut to Nuwu.
This land has been occupied since time immemorial by ancestors of Nuwu and Newe.
The Refuge straddles the ridge dividing the Great Basin from Mojave Desert, where these ecologies meet and become each other.
It measures 1.615 million acres with elevations up to 10,000 feet and as low as 2,500 feet and is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
It occupies 6 major mountain ranges and 7 distinct life zones which offer habitat to at least 900 plant and animal species including: 320 bird species, 52 mammal species, 35 reptile species, and 4 amphibian species.
The largest bighorn population within lands occupied by Nevada lives within the Refuge.
The Desert National Wildlife Refuge is described as “an untouched sanctuary” and contains more than 450 Nuwu and Newe cultural sites. Because of this land’s Refuge designation, the U.S. government limits Tribal access to their ancestral lands and cultural sites.
It was established “for the benefit of present and future generations of Americans.”
The land is not the setting for the work but a part of the work.
In the late 1800s Mormon and other U.S. colonists began grazing European cattle and sheep in Bighorn habitat occupying major springs.
Sixty-three years after Nuwu were forced onto reservation, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Desert Game Range for the preservation of the Nah’gah, or Desert Bighorn Sheep to save it from extinction so that “present and future generations of Americans,” may get to hunt the Bighorn in perpetuity.
Desert Bighorn Sheep, Ovis Canadensis Nelsoni, known to Nuwu as Great Mountain Sheep and Nah’gah measure an average of 5 to 6 feet tall and weigh between 90-180 pounds.
They can live an average of 10-20 years.
All Bighorns develop horns soon after birth which continue to grow throughout their life. The horns of an adult ram way weigh more than 30 pounds.
Desert Bighorn Sheep are herbivores and mostly eat grasses.
Bighorns are mostly eaten by mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes and golden eagles.
Like their Nuwu kin, Bighorns spend warmer months in the mountains and cooler months in the desert valleys.
Moapa Nuwu consider Nah’gah to be sacred kin and feel a “duty to protect the mountain sheep for if they all die then we die too.”
Nuwu legends tell that so-called Mormon Mountain gave birth to Nah’gah and stepped forward to sacrifice their lives so Nuwu could survive when times were tough and food was scarce.
Desert Bighorn Sheep were once one of the most widespread species in the so-called West, with populations estimated to be as high as two million or more.
As settler-colonists manifested their destiny in the late 1800’s their populations were destroyed leaving a remnant of about 7,500 by 1960.
Colonists killed the Bighorn through excessive hunting, habitat destruction through land and water theft and alteration, and especially spread of upper respiratory diseases from European domestic sheep.
Today, Bighorns occupy a fraction of their original home/lands and their populations are about 10% of their historic numbers.
The Desert Bighorn is the state mammal of Nevada.
The Desert Game Range was 2.25 million acres when established in 1936, and managed under both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management, mostly for the preservation of Bighorn hunting “for the benefit of present and future generations of Americans.”
Four-years later, about 846,000 acres of the Game Range was transferred to the Department of Defense (née War Department) as part of the Tonopah Bombing and Gunnery Range, now known as the Nevada Test and Training Range, dramatically increasing the size of weaponry allowed in the Range. This area is co-managed by the U.S Air Force and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Today, this 846,000 acres occupy about half of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. This land is part National Refuge part National Sacrifice Zone.
The Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) “is the largest contiguous air and ground space available for peacetime military operations in the free world. The range occupies 2.9 million acres of land.”
By militarizing this part of Nuwu lands, the U.S. government dramatically limited Nuwu access to their lands and cultural sites.
The U.S. Air Force only allows Nuwu and Newe into the NTTR twice a year, with only 15 participants per trip. The NTTR occupies places that are vital to Nuwu history and cultural identity. With more than 20 Tribes, this severely impedes on Nuwu People’s ability to pass down their culture, traditions, history, and knowledge.
“There has been no public access since the 1940s and less than 10% of the NNSS has been disturbed, leaving the remaining 90% in relatively pristine condition,” as long as you don’t count irradiation as a disturbance and mark separating Indigenous Peoples from their lands as a “pristine condition.”
The invisible is real.
In 1950, 680-square miles of Bombing and Gunnery Range was transferred to the Atomic Energy Commission for the detonation of nuclear weapons establishing the Nevada Proving Grounds (NPG), once again dramatically increasing the allowable fire power within its newly designated boundaries.
Between 1951 and 1992, 1,021 nuclear tests were conducted on the NNSS, which radiated the land.
In the 1960s the U.S. accidentally bombed the Pintwater Cave, a site significant to Nuwu religious beliefs and stories and contains Indigenous cultural objects that are thousands of years old.
In 1963, scientists began monitoring Bighorn populations within the NNSS. Only 9 Bighorn were noted in the within the NNSS boundaries between ‘63 and 2009. The U.S. Air Forces uses this information and follows erasive colonial logic to assert that the NNSS is not a habitat for Bighorns, rather than recognizing that Bighorns are smart enough to avoid a bombing range.
In 1966, Public Land Order 4079, replaced the Desert Game Range with the Desert National Wildlife Range now managed exclusively by under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (née Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife), and reduced the Range to 1,588,000 acres.
In 1971, 7 wilderness units totalling 1.4 million of the 1.6 million acres occupied by the Refuge were recommended as Wilderness under the Wilderness Act of 1964.
According to the Wilderness Act of 1964: “A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is…an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions.”
Isolation is the essence of Land Art.
The Refuge, and the so-called Sheep Mountain Range within, are known as Tuhut to Nuwu.
This land has been occupied since time immemorial by ancestors of Nuwu and Newe.
The Refuge straddles the ridge dividing the Great Basin from Mojave Desert, where these ecologies meet and become each other.
It measures 1.615 million acres with elevations up to 10,000 feet and as low as 2,500 feet and is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
It occupies 6 major mountain ranges and 7 distinct life zones which offer habitat to at least 900 plant and animal species including: 320 bird species, 52 mammal species, 35 reptile species, and 4 amphibian species.
The largest bighorn population within lands occupied by Nevada lives within the Refuge.
The Desert National Wildlife Refuge is described as “an untouched sanctuary” and contains more than 450 Nuwu and Newe cultural sites. Because of this land’s Refuge designation, the U.S. government limits Tribal access to their ancestral lands and cultural sites.
It was established “for the benefit of present and future generations of Americans.”
The land is not the setting for the work but a part of the work.
In the late 1800s Mormon and other U.S. colonists began grazing European cattle and sheep in Bighorn habitat occupying major springs.
Sixty-three years after Nuwu were forced onto reservation, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Desert Game Range for the preservation of the Nah’gah, or Desert Bighorn Sheep to save it from extinction so that “present and future generations of Americans,” may get to hunt the Bighorn in perpetuity.
Desert Bighorn Sheep, Ovis Canadensis Nelsoni, known to Nuwu as Great Mountain Sheep and Nah’gah measure an average of 5 to 6 feet tall and weigh between 90-180 pounds.
They can live an average of 10-20 years.
All Bighorns develop horns soon after birth which continue to grow throughout their life. The horns of an adult ram way weigh more than 30 pounds.
Desert Bighorn Sheep are herbivores and mostly eat grasses.
Bighorns are mostly eaten by mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes and golden eagles.
Like their Nuwu kin, Bighorns spend warmer months in the mountains and cooler months in the desert valleys.
Moapa Nuwu consider Nah’gah to be sacred kin and feel a “duty to protect the mountain sheep for if they all die then we die too.”
Nuwu legends tell that so-called Mormon Mountain gave birth to Nah’gah and stepped forward to sacrifice their lives so Nuwu could survive when times were tough and food was scarce.
Desert Bighorn Sheep were once one of the most widespread species in the so-called West, with populations estimated to be as high as two million or more.
As settler-colonists manifested their destiny in the late 1800’s their populations were destroyed leaving a remnant of about 7,500 by 1960.
Colonists killed the Bighorn through excessive hunting, habitat destruction through land and water theft and alteration, and especially spread of upper respiratory diseases from European domestic sheep.
Today, Bighorns occupy a fraction of their original home/lands and their populations are about 10% of their historic numbers.
The Desert Bighorn is the state mammal of Nevada.
The Desert Game Range was 2.25 million acres when established in 1936, and managed under both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management, mostly for the preservation of Bighorn hunting “for the benefit of present and future generations of Americans.”
Four-years later, about 846,000 acres of the Game Range was transferred to the Department of Defense (née War Department) as part of the Tonopah Bombing and Gunnery Range, now known as the Nevada Test and Training Range, dramatically increasing the size of weaponry allowed in the Range. This area is co-managed by the U.S Air Force and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Today, this 846,000 acres occupy about half of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. This land is part National Refuge part National Sacrifice Zone.
The Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) “is the largest contiguous air and ground space available for peacetime military operations in the free world. The range occupies 2.9 million acres of land.”
By militarizing this part of Nuwu lands, the U.S. government dramatically limited Nuwu access to their lands and cultural sites.
The U.S. Air Force only allows Nuwu and Newe into the NTTR twice a year, with only 15 participants per trip. The NTTR occupies places that are vital to Nuwu history and cultural identity. With more than 20 Tribes, this severely impedes on Nuwu People’s ability to pass down their culture, traditions, history, and knowledge.
“There has been no public access since the 1940s and less than 10% of the NNSS has been disturbed, leaving the remaining 90% in relatively pristine condition,” as long as you don’t count irradiation as a disturbance and mark separating Indigenous Peoples from their lands as a “pristine condition.”
The invisible is real.
In 1950, 680-square miles of Bombing and Gunnery Range was transferred to the Atomic Energy Commission for the detonation of nuclear weapons establishing the Nevada Proving Grounds (NPG), once again dramatically increasing the allowable fire power within its newly designated boundaries.
Between 1951 and 1992, 1,021 nuclear tests were conducted on the NNSS, which radiated the land.
In the 1960s the U.S. accidentally bombed the Pintwater Cave, a site significant to Nuwu religious beliefs and stories and contains Indigenous cultural objects that are thousands of years old.
In 1963, scientists began monitoring Bighorn populations within the NNSS. Only 9 Bighorn were noted in the within the NNSS boundaries between ‘63 and 2009. The U.S. Air Forces uses this information and follows erasive colonial logic to assert that the NNSS is not a habitat for Bighorns, rather than recognizing that Bighorns are smart enough to avoid a bombing range.
In 1966, Public Land Order 4079, replaced the Desert Game Range with the Desert National Wildlife Range now managed exclusively by under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (née Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife), and reduced the Range to 1,588,000 acres.
In 1971, 7 wilderness units totalling 1.4 million of the 1.6 million acres occupied by the Refuge were recommended as Wilderness under the Wilderness Act of 1964.
According to the Wilderness Act of 1964: “A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is…an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions.”
Isolation is the essence of Land Art.
The LandBack
“there is no hope for restoring the planet’s fragile and dying ecosystems without Indigenous liberation...it’s decolonization or extinction.”
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The Red Nation, "The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save our Earth", 2021
Federal Land and Indian Reservations map centered on Traditional Nuwu Territories.
Map features parts of so-called Utah, Nevada, California, and Arizona.
“Public Land is Stolen Land!”
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The Red Nation
On a 2019 visit to his People’s home/lands occupied by the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, Greg Anderson, former Chairman Moapa Band of Paiutes, examined a petroglyph of a deer. This millenia deep connection to his People etched into the land gave him “goose bumps all up and down (his) arm.”
Nuwu culture, history, and knowledge is held not only in their languages, stories, arts, songs, and dances, but in their lands themselves. After a Nuwu baby’s umbilical cord falls off it is buried in their People’s Mountains. “(T)his is to let the child always know where they belong…If you do not do this then the child will grow up always searching for something” as if “he is lost and doesn’t know where he belongs.”
Nuwu honor Nah’gah through song and dance, telling their story. Part of telling that story today means protecting what land remains from their brother the Great Mountain Sheep.
“Just as our people were in danger years ago of losing our lands," said former Moapa Band of Paiutes Chairman, Greg Anderson, "so too is the mountain sheep, who struggle to survive with the expansions of land taken away for modern development and the Government. It is our duty to protect the mountain sheep for if they all die then we die too. This is not something we share with so openly to the people who come from foreign lands, but when our traditional homelands and very culture is threatened, then you will hopefully see and understand why our hearts cry with the importance of protection as we continue to survive in this modern society.”
“Through the many songs we sing,” Anderson continued, “that talk about the natural landscape that bestows food, medicine, wildlife, water and the air we breathe, we connect to the loves, joys and struggles of our many ancestors who were here long before us.”
The Desert National Wildlife Refuge and the Sheep Mountain Range within it holds special meaning for Nuwu people. These lands are central to Nuwu history, stories, and beliefs and have been militarized by the United States Air Force for decades. “Cultural sites, bighorn sheep, and the endangered desert tortoise are among the many other precious resources central to (Nuwu) People’s ways…found within the refuge.
In the late 2010’s, the U.S. sought to expand its genocidal destruction of Nuwu history and culture by transferring another 300,000 acres of its Desert National Wildlife Refuge to its Bombing Range.
The U.S. Air Force already occupies 2.9 million acres of Nuwu and Newe land including 51% of the 1.6 acres of the DNWR. The public isn’t allowed access to these 846,000 acres of land supposedly set aside for “present and future generations of Americans” now rendered blast zone.
“Much harm would also come to our nah-gah, the bighorn sheep, who we consider one in the same with our peoples. We have shared these sacred lands with the nah-gah since time immemorial,” writes The Las Vegas Band of Paiutes Tribal Council.
U.S. Air Force cultural resources manager, Kish LaPierre claims that this land grab would actually better preserve the Indigenous cultural landscape. “(T)hings are better kept, easier to manage,” LaPierre said. “We don’t have the public coming out, unknowingly or knowingly damaging sites.”
Greg Anderson refutes this pointing to the Pintwater Cave bombing. When he visited Pintwater cave, a Nuwu cultural history site with objects up to 6,500 years old, he found missile fragments embedded near the entrance to the cave.
“They are supposed to be protecting our cultural resources,” Anderson said. “Is that protecting them — dropping a bomb on them?”
Representatives of 17 tribes from lands occupied by Nevada, Arizona, Utah and California do not support the “harmful land disturbing activities currently conducted or planned” within the Air Force training area.
Nuwu were forced off their lands in the late 1800s now they’re only allowed to visit their home/lands occupied by the U.S. Air Force twice per year, 15 persons at a time. This gatekeeping of cultural history and knowledge is a part of the centuries long U.S. settler colonial project to destroy Indigenous Peoples and their sovereign lands through destruction and assimilation.
“We’re in a never-winning battle with the government,” said Anderson.
On March 12, 2018, the Moapa Band of Paiutes passed Resolution #M-18-03-07 opposing the expansion of the Air Force Test Range into the Wildlife Refuge. The Las Vegas Paiute Tribe similarly passed Resolution #19-005 on March 11, 2019 for the same purpose. “Both were both passed unanimously by the Tribal Councils and are the words and will of the Tribes.”
Nuwu culture, history, and knowledge is held not only in their languages, stories, arts, songs, and dances, but in their lands themselves. After a Nuwu baby’s umbilical cord falls off it is buried in their People’s Mountains. “(T)his is to let the child always know where they belong…If you do not do this then the child will grow up always searching for something” as if “he is lost and doesn’t know where he belongs.”
Nuwu honor Nah’gah through song and dance, telling their story. Part of telling that story today means protecting what land remains from their brother the Great Mountain Sheep.
“Just as our people were in danger years ago of losing our lands," said former Moapa Band of Paiutes Chairman, Greg Anderson, "so too is the mountain sheep, who struggle to survive with the expansions of land taken away for modern development and the Government. It is our duty to protect the mountain sheep for if they all die then we die too. This is not something we share with so openly to the people who come from foreign lands, but when our traditional homelands and very culture is threatened, then you will hopefully see and understand why our hearts cry with the importance of protection as we continue to survive in this modern society.”
“Through the many songs we sing,” Anderson continued, “that talk about the natural landscape that bestows food, medicine, wildlife, water and the air we breathe, we connect to the loves, joys and struggles of our many ancestors who were here long before us.”
The Desert National Wildlife Refuge and the Sheep Mountain Range within it holds special meaning for Nuwu people. These lands are central to Nuwu history, stories, and beliefs and have been militarized by the United States Air Force for decades. “Cultural sites, bighorn sheep, and the endangered desert tortoise are among the many other precious resources central to (Nuwu) People’s ways…found within the refuge.
In the late 2010’s, the U.S. sought to expand its genocidal destruction of Nuwu history and culture by transferring another 300,000 acres of its Desert National Wildlife Refuge to its Bombing Range.
The U.S. Air Force already occupies 2.9 million acres of Nuwu and Newe land including 51% of the 1.6 acres of the DNWR. The public isn’t allowed access to these 846,000 acres of land supposedly set aside for “present and future generations of Americans” now rendered blast zone.
“Much harm would also come to our nah-gah, the bighorn sheep, who we consider one in the same with our peoples. We have shared these sacred lands with the nah-gah since time immemorial,” writes The Las Vegas Band of Paiutes Tribal Council.
U.S. Air Force cultural resources manager, Kish LaPierre claims that this land grab would actually better preserve the Indigenous cultural landscape. “(T)hings are better kept, easier to manage,” LaPierre said. “We don’t have the public coming out, unknowingly or knowingly damaging sites.”
Greg Anderson refutes this pointing to the Pintwater Cave bombing. When he visited Pintwater cave, a Nuwu cultural history site with objects up to 6,500 years old, he found missile fragments embedded near the entrance to the cave.
“They are supposed to be protecting our cultural resources,” Anderson said. “Is that protecting them — dropping a bomb on them?”
Representatives of 17 tribes from lands occupied by Nevada, Arizona, Utah and California do not support the “harmful land disturbing activities currently conducted or planned” within the Air Force training area.
Nuwu were forced off their lands in the late 1800s now they’re only allowed to visit their home/lands occupied by the U.S. Air Force twice per year, 15 persons at a time. This gatekeeping of cultural history and knowledge is a part of the centuries long U.S. settler colonial project to destroy Indigenous Peoples and their sovereign lands through destruction and assimilation.
“We’re in a never-winning battle with the government,” said Anderson.
On March 12, 2018, the Moapa Band of Paiutes passed Resolution #M-18-03-07 opposing the expansion of the Air Force Test Range into the Wildlife Refuge. The Las Vegas Paiute Tribe similarly passed Resolution #19-005 on March 11, 2019 for the same purpose. “Both were both passed unanimously by the Tribal Councils and are the words and will of the Tribes.”
MOAPA BAND OF PAIUTES
Tribal Resolution: M-18-03-07
RESOLUTION OF THE GOVERNING BODY OF
THE MOAPA BAND OF PAIUTES
THE MOAPA BAND OF PAIUTES
Subject: Oppose Department of Defense Increased Use and Expansion of the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge
WHEREAS, the region encompassing the NTTR and the Desert National Wildlife Refuge remain central to the lives of Native American Tribes. These lands are known to contain traditional and ceremonial use along with traditional gathering and collection locations for Native American people. The region contains abundant ecological resources and special power places that are crucial in the continuity of Native American culture, religion and society; and
WHEREAS, the Mountains of Southern Nevada are considered sacred lands to the Southern Paiute Nuwu, where great legends were said to have begun and ended and where our hearts belong to this land. Since time immemorial, our people have lived and traveled across these lands. They carved their stories on the rocks, cooked their food in the now ancient roasting pits, and left artifacts that show how our people thrived in this beautiful desert and mountain environment. These are the objects of antiquity that tell the story of the Nuwu; of how we thrived on the land and of how our home lands were stolen by white colonizers. We cannot forget this history; and
WHEREAS, much of the Refuge has not been properly inventoried for cultural resources and 80% of the Sheep Range is designated as the Sheep Mountain Archaeological site on the National Register of Historic Places; and
WHEREAS, the bighorn sheep are sacred to the Moapa people. Creation stories say that the Paiute people enter the mountains and left as sheep. In essence the sheep are people. lt is our duty to protect the mountain sheep for if they all die, then we die too. The Refuge was originally protected for the sheep and the mountains in the Desert Refuge/NTTR and are key habitat for desert bighorn sheep;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Moapa Business Council strongly prefers the Department of Defense Alternative I which would maintain the status quo and does not increase the use or size of the NTTR
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Moapa Business Council urges the Department of Defense to increase coordination directly with the Moapa Tribe pertaining to any additional land withdrawal and change in use and provide more access to important cultural sites within the boundaries of the NTTR including, but not limited to, Pinhwater Cave.
WHEREAS, the region encompassing the NTTR and the Desert National Wildlife Refuge remain central to the lives of Native American Tribes. These lands are known to contain traditional and ceremonial use along with traditional gathering and collection locations for Native American people. The region contains abundant ecological resources and special power places that are crucial in the continuity of Native American culture, religion and society; and
WHEREAS, the Mountains of Southern Nevada are considered sacred lands to the Southern Paiute Nuwu, where great legends were said to have begun and ended and where our hearts belong to this land. Since time immemorial, our people have lived and traveled across these lands. They carved their stories on the rocks, cooked their food in the now ancient roasting pits, and left artifacts that show how our people thrived in this beautiful desert and mountain environment. These are the objects of antiquity that tell the story of the Nuwu; of how we thrived on the land and of how our home lands were stolen by white colonizers. We cannot forget this history; and
WHEREAS, much of the Refuge has not been properly inventoried for cultural resources and 80% of the Sheep Range is designated as the Sheep Mountain Archaeological site on the National Register of Historic Places; and
WHEREAS, the bighorn sheep are sacred to the Moapa people. Creation stories say that the Paiute people enter the mountains and left as sheep. In essence the sheep are people. lt is our duty to protect the mountain sheep for if they all die, then we die too. The Refuge was originally protected for the sheep and the mountains in the Desert Refuge/NTTR and are key habitat for desert bighorn sheep;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Moapa Business Council strongly prefers the Department of Defense Alternative I which would maintain the status quo and does not increase the use or size of the NTTR
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Moapa Business Council urges the Department of Defense to increase coordination directly with the Moapa Tribe pertaining to any additional land withdrawal and change in use and provide more access to important cultural sites within the boundaries of the NTTR including, but not limited to, Pinhwater Cave.
CERTIFICATION
We, the undersigned Chairman and Secretary of the Business Council of the Moapa Band of Paiute Indians, do hereby certify that the foregoing resolution was considered and passed at a duly called meeting of the Business Council of the Moapa Band of Paiute Indians, at which a quorum was present, held on the 12th day of March 2018, with (4) For (0) Against (0) Abstaining, and (1) Absent
(Signed) Chairman Gregory Anderson Sr., Tribal Council Secretary Delaine Bow
Despite clear, direct, and legislative communications from Nuwu Nations, in 2020, Utah Mormon and Congressman Rob Bishop tried to sneak an amendment into the National Defense Authorization Act which would have eliminated the Desert National Wildlife Refuge all together and transfer that Nuwu land to the National Training and Testing Range–even further limiting Nuwu access to their home/lands. If this had passed Nuwu “would lose irreparable pieces of (their) history, identity, culture, and even a piece of (their) hearts forever.”
“This is a grave injustice to [Nuwu] ancestors." said Greg Anderson "Tuhut, is a place where our brother, the Nah’gah (Bighorn sheep), live, we are connected as one. He gives us the puha (power) of life through sustenance, healing, songs, knowledge and strength ... Let the Nah’gah roam free without the threat of removal, bombing or cages as his brothers the Paiute people have gone through.”
Rob Bishop, like his religious ancestors and fellow U.S. settler colonists, seeks to put capital over land and life. As a legislator he has worked to repeal Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA), claiming it impedes economic development while ignoring that the history of colonial economic development in this land is the reason the ESA was needed in the first place (or that we're living in the sixth extinction.)
In 2015, Bishop was identified by the Center for Biological Diversity as one of five congressmen responsible for nearly 25% of legislative attacks on the ESA, which protects both the Desert Bighorn Sheep and the Desert Tortoise. Bishop his place on this list with another Mormon congressmen, Mike Lee, meaning 10% of all legislative attacks on the ESA are enacted by Mormon congressmen. (2015 congress was 3.0% Mormon with 16 members.) The Center also marked Bishop in 2017 as one of the fifteen “Public Land Enemies” in Congress. On this list he is one of six Mormon congressmen. (2017 congress was 2.4% Mormon with 13 members.) Both lists were 40% Mormon. The dominance of Mormons who fight against federal land conservation is rooted in the Mormon fight against the U.S. for control of the majority of the so-called American West. Bishop's attempt to abolish the Desert National Wildlife Refuge is a generational project to privatize all federal lands. A sort of attempt to make Deseret rise again.
“This is a grave injustice to [Nuwu] ancestors." said Greg Anderson "Tuhut, is a place where our brother, the Nah’gah (Bighorn sheep), live, we are connected as one. He gives us the puha (power) of life through sustenance, healing, songs, knowledge and strength ... Let the Nah’gah roam free without the threat of removal, bombing or cages as his brothers the Paiute people have gone through.”
Rob Bishop, like his religious ancestors and fellow U.S. settler colonists, seeks to put capital over land and life. As a legislator he has worked to repeal Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA), claiming it impedes economic development while ignoring that the history of colonial economic development in this land is the reason the ESA was needed in the first place (or that we're living in the sixth extinction.)
In 2015, Bishop was identified by the Center for Biological Diversity as one of five congressmen responsible for nearly 25% of legislative attacks on the ESA, which protects both the Desert Bighorn Sheep and the Desert Tortoise. Bishop his place on this list with another Mormon congressmen, Mike Lee, meaning 10% of all legislative attacks on the ESA are enacted by Mormon congressmen. (2015 congress was 3.0% Mormon with 16 members.) The Center also marked Bishop in 2017 as one of the fifteen “Public Land Enemies” in Congress. On this list he is one of six Mormon congressmen. (2017 congress was 2.4% Mormon with 13 members.) Both lists were 40% Mormon. The dominance of Mormons who fight against federal land conservation is rooted in the Mormon fight against the U.S. for control of the majority of the so-called American West. Bishop's attempt to abolish the Desert National Wildlife Refuge is a generational project to privatize all federal lands. A sort of attempt to make Deseret rise again.
Luckily, Bishop’s amendment and the Air Force's attempted land grab failed to pass, thanks in large part to the stewardship and activism of The Moapa Band of Paiutes, Las Vegas Band of Paiutes, Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, the Intertribal Council of Nevada and the National Congress of American Indians all of whom passed resolutions opposing the land seizures and made numerous trips to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress. “Nevada’s Native American nations played a crucial role in securing this victory," said Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Their determined advocacy for their ancestral lands was decisive in achieving this outcome.”
This "determined advocacy for their ancestral lands" is common among Indigenous Peoples. In fact, Indigenous Peoples globally caretake 80% of the planet's remaining biodiversity on 25% of the land as only 5% of the human population. Add to this statistic the fact that 96% of the mammalian biomass is occupied by humans and mostly cows, and that 70% of bird biomass is occupied by poultry. Perhaps this wouldn't so much the case in these lands occupied by the U.S. if 96% of all agricultural lands weren't owned by white-settler colonists. Perhaps if a people who see the land as a direct relative and the source of life rather than as a fallen state meant to be dominated, exploited, and overcome we wouldn't be faced with "man-made horrors beyond (our) comprehension" in the form of climate collapse, the sixth extinction, biological annihilation, and the growing threat of a global nuclear war.
Colonial lifeways which we militarily and economically force upon the world have created dire crises with which we must now reckon. I suggest we settler-colonists, for the first time in our history, do the right thing and give the LANDBACK and abolish the United States. The United States military consumes more oil than any other organization, thus are the greatest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. This impact is multiplied when we recognize that the U.S. military also consumes this oil in order to fight wars, predominantly over economic domination of oil and capitalist extractive dominance in general. "Indigenous people protect the land, air, and water we all need to live," writes Nick Estes. "This is why Indigenous environmental activisits are so severely criminalized and targeted for assassination in response to our organizing throughout the world –– we are always in the way."
This "determined advocacy for their ancestral lands" is common among Indigenous Peoples. In fact, Indigenous Peoples globally caretake 80% of the planet's remaining biodiversity on 25% of the land as only 5% of the human population. Add to this statistic the fact that 96% of the mammalian biomass is occupied by humans and mostly cows, and that 70% of bird biomass is occupied by poultry. Perhaps this wouldn't so much the case in these lands occupied by the U.S. if 96% of all agricultural lands weren't owned by white-settler colonists. Perhaps if a people who see the land as a direct relative and the source of life rather than as a fallen state meant to be dominated, exploited, and overcome we wouldn't be faced with "man-made horrors beyond (our) comprehension" in the form of climate collapse, the sixth extinction, biological annihilation, and the growing threat of a global nuclear war.
Colonial lifeways which we militarily and economically force upon the world have created dire crises with which we must now reckon. I suggest we settler-colonists, for the first time in our history, do the right thing and give the LANDBACK and abolish the United States. The United States military consumes more oil than any other organization, thus are the greatest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. This impact is multiplied when we recognize that the U.S. military also consumes this oil in order to fight wars, predominantly over economic domination of oil and capitalist extractive dominance in general. "Indigenous people protect the land, air, and water we all need to live," writes Nick Estes. "This is why Indigenous environmental activisits are so severely criminalized and targeted for assassination in response to our organizing throughout the world –– we are always in the way."
"If prisons, police, and the military are the caretakers of violence, then educators, health-care workers, counselors, Water Protectors, and Land Defenders are caretakers of human and non-human relations. Compare the pay gaps between carceral and military workers (mostly men) to that of care workers (mostly women), and you’ll see the values of this current society."
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Nick Estes, Kul Wicasa of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, Assistant Professor and co-founder of The Red Nation, 2019
Visualize a world in which Nuwu were sovereign in their lands. Visualize this land and its supposed wildernesses being cared for as kin, as home, rather than as a place in which we are visitors, in which we do not belong. Visualize this nation's stolen wealth returning through reparations and LandBack, rather than funding war and police brutality. Visualize Indigenous peoples with the means to properly care for and restore their lands' health. Visualize a land in which Nuwu have the final say in what happens to their lands rather than having to shout over "the winds from the many bombs that blast through where (their) umbilical cords lay." Visualize Nuwu with full jurisdiction over the so-called Desert National Wildlife Refuge rather than just being invited to collaborate as co-managers with the U.S. military and Department of Interior, institutions whose founding goals were the extermination and assimilation of all Indigenous Peoples whose land is occupied by the United States.
We have to be able to visualize a world in which life is more valuable than capital even as "it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism," colonialism, and the U.S. settler-colonial military occupation of not only this land, but the whole world. If we want to survive, we must stop perpetuating the project of our ancestors. We settler-colonists must stop working to pioneer terra nulliparious––to fabricate a mythic land of no People and in the process create a land that can no longer support life. We must act in care. And we must support Indigenous movements for sovereignty and LANDBACK. "It's DECOLONIZATION or EXTINCTION."
We have to be able to visualize a world in which life is more valuable than capital even as "it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism," colonialism, and the U.S. settler-colonial military occupation of not only this land, but the whole world. If we want to survive, we must stop perpetuating the project of our ancestors. We settler-colonists must stop working to pioneer terra nulliparious––to fabricate a mythic land of no People and in the process create a land that can no longer support life. We must act in care. And we must support Indigenous movements for sovereignty and LANDBACK. "It's DECOLONIZATION or EXTINCTION."
“I think it’s a time in our world―not just in our country, but our entire world―to listen to Indigenous people when it comes to climate change, when it comes to our environment.”
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Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland of Laguna Pueblo, 2020
Pioneering Terra Nulliparous (Detail) - nicholas b jacobsen (2023)
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Pioneering Terra Nulliparous (Detail) - nicholas b jacobsen (2023)
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Pioneering Terra Nulliparous (Detail) - nicholas b jacobsen (2023)
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Modern Desert Markings
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Chapter 1 - Las Vegas Mormon Fort
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Chapter 2 - Mormon Mountains Wilderness
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The End: Coming Soon
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>>> tap the images to view the sections <<<
Mormon Well Road: Reservations and Preservation - nicholas b jacobsen, Digital collage on ceramic decal on Nuwu clay (2023)
