The heart of the Enchanted Desert, consisting of the Hopi Reserve and a wide strip of Navajo country surrounding it as a frame, was not troubled by the liquor problem among its natives so long as the State of Arizona remained generously wet. The Hopi Indians have no use for liquor, and will not tolerate it. On one occasion men of the mesas, who were without authority to act as policemen, arrested and brought in a Navajo who had simply exhibited a suspicious bottle; a very singular thing for Hopi to do, since they are not bold, even when commissioned. For years Hopi and Navajo freighters packed Government stores from the railroad town of Holbrook, distant eighty miles from the Agency and nearly fifty of them outside the reservation, without engaging in sprees or bootlegging. The Navajo rather likes his beverages, and they do not improve him as a neighbor; but drunkenness was rare even among the Navajo in those days.
When the State went dry, the acquisition of liquor presented something of adventure to those who were naturally lawless. And it was not long before cargoes of cheering fluids began to arrive in the Navajo country from New Mexico. The town of Gallup became a point of interest for Indians who never before had visited it. Gallup is one hundred and five miles from the Hopi Agency, and of course contraband is not packed along highroads. [[298]]When the “special officers” of the Indian Liquor Service descended on Gallup, the Navajo organized relays to serve the back country; and the special officers did not follow into the lonesome places. One might be sure that at every Navajo gathering there would be boozing, and at points one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles from the source, and that same distance from special officers. The smugglers would hide the liquor beyond the great circle of campers, in the black of some thicket, and along in the early morning hours, when chance visitors had departed and watchers were tired out, the bibulous would appear in various stages of intoxication. They were then dangerous.
My police force consisted of eight Indians, half of them Navajo. This was the “army” granted me in 1911, with due regard for Colonel Scott’s recommendation that I should have twenty-five men headed by a white officer. And in 1921, ten years after that first recommendation, Major-General Scott, retired, of the Board of Indian Commissioners, reviewed the Hopi-Navajo situation, and again reported:—
In 1882 an Executive Order set apart 2,472,320 acres (3863 square miles) of land for the Moqui Reservation, for the use and occupancy of the Hopi and such other Indians as the Secretary of the Interior might designate.
At that time someone with a ruler drew on a map a parallelogram which represented an area, approximately 75 by 55 miles, for a reservation, without the least regard to topographical and ethnological conditions, and misnamed it the “Moqui Reservation.”
It is quite apparent that in 1882 the authorities in Washington either were densely ignorant of the situation in this country at that time, or were utterly indifferent to it; and by laying out the reservation with a desk ruler and an utter disregard [[299]]of the welfare of the Hopi, they laid the foundations for trouble and suffering which have developed a situation that calls for remedial action by the Indian Office.
This whole land is semi-arid, and a large portion of it is absolute desert. The Navajo are aggressive and independent. There is no doubt that the majority of those on the Moqui Reserve have come in from all sides with a deliberate purpose of taking the grazing land which rightfully belongs to the Hopi. When a Navajo sees a Hopi with anything he wants, he takes it, and there is no recourse.
For years this preventable situation has continued. In 1911 I was sent by President Taft to Keams Cañon with troops, to enforce some regulations of the Indian Office. I then found the Navajo encroaching on Hopi land and mistreating the Hopi Indians. The Agent, at that time, was given but three policemen, too poorly paid to attract the right men with which to maintain order on a reservation having the area of an empire. I then recommended that he be given twenty-five well-paid policemen with a white chief. The number was increased to eight without change of compensation, which number has lately been reduced to six.
This statement is enough to show the absurdity of any expectation that the superintendent can keep order. The superintendent is powerless to maintain the dignity of his office, with the result that the authority and dignity of the Indian Office and of the United States are made a mock over a large section of Arizona.