Havasupai

The Havasupai people (Havasupai: Havsuw' Baaja) are a Native American people and tribe who have lived in the Grand Canyon for at least the past 800 years. Their name means "people of the blue-green water", referring to Havasu Creek, a tributary of the Colorado.

Located primarily in an area known as Havasu Canyon, this Yuman-speaking population once laid claim to an area the size of Delaware (2,500 sq mi [6,500 km²]). In 1882, however, the United States federal government forced the tribe to abandon all but 518 acres (210 ha) of its land. A silver rush and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in effect destroyed the fertile land. Furthermore, the inception of the Grand Canyon as a national park in 1919 pushed the Havasupai to the brink, as their land was consistently being used by the National Park Service. Throughout the 20th century, the tribe used the US judicial system to fight for the restoration of the land. In 1975, the tribe succeeded in regaining approximately 185,000 acres (75,000 ha) of their ancestral land with the passage of the Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act.

As a means of survival, the tribe has turned to tourism, attracting thousands of people annually to its streams and waterfalls at the Havasupai Indian Reservation.

Ethnically, the Havasupai and the Hualapai are one people, although today, they are politically separate groups due to U.S. government policy. The Hualapai (Pa'a or Pai) had three subtribes: the Plateau People, Middle Mountain People, and Yavapai Fighter. The subtribes were divided into seven bands, which themselves were broken up into thirteen regional bands or local groups. The local groups were composed of several extended family groups living in small villages: The Havasupai were just the Havasooa Pa'a regional band (or local group) of the Nyav-kapai ("Eastern People") of the Plateau People subtribe.

The tribe had traditionally relied heavily on agriculture, hunting, and gathering as their means of survival. Although living primarily above and inside the Grand Canyon, which consists mostly of harsh terrain, the tribe's reservation was also home to some lush vegetation and the aquamarine blue water of Havasu Creek. Their name, meaning "the People of the Blue-Green Waters," reflects this.

The Havasupai are said to have existed within and around the Grand Canyon for over eight centuries. Little is known about the tribe before their first recorded European encounter in 1776 with Spanish priest Francisco Garcés. Garcés reported seeing roughly 320 individuals in his time with the Havasupai, a number that would diminish over the centuries as westward expansion and natural catastrophes significantly decreased the population size.

In the first half of the 19th century, with the exception of the introduction of horses by the Spanish, U.S. westward expansion affected the Havasupai less than it did other indigenous populations of the West. Even as interaction with settlers slowly increased, day-to-day life did not change much for the tribe until silver was discovered in 1870 by Cataract Creek. The migration of prospectors to the area was unwelcome. The Havasupai sought protection from the intrusion of Western pioneers on their land and sought out assistance, but to little avail. An executive order by President Rutherford Hayes in 1880 established a small federally protected reservation for the tribe, yet it did not include the mining areas along the Creek (Hirst, 1985).

During this era, Havasupai relations with other Native American tribes were generally mixed. Bonds and interactions with the Hopi tribe, whose reservation was in close proximity, were strong, as the two peoples did a great deal of trading with each other. The Hopi introduced crops, such as the gourd and sunflower, that would eventually become a staple of the Havasupai diet. Still, the Havasupai were not without enemies as they were consistently at odds with the Yavapai and the Southern Paiute, who would steal and destroy crops planted by the Havasupai.