Black Mesa Trust to host legal expert’s talk on Hopi land and water rights

KYKOTSMOVI, Ariz., April 1, 2005

Black Mesa Trust Executive Director Vernon Masayesava: “When I was a youth growing up in Hotevilla, I heard from the elders that some day Hopi will be caught in a struggle over land and water.

“’It will be a paper war,’ they said. Stacks of documents will pile up arguing over who has superior rights. In the pile of papers, ‘reaching to the ceiling,’ choose the one at the very bottom to fight with. Not the one in the middle or on the top.

“Many years later, I came to realize that perhaps the legal document they were referring to is the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, an international law, superior to our federal law, that legally protected the property rights of Pueblo people, who were citizens of the Republic of Mexico, when a friendship treaty was signed between the U.S. and Mexico.”

On April 28 at 7 p.m., attorney Lana Marcusson, an expert in water law, Indian law, and public land law, will speak on this issue at the Hopi Veterans’ Memorial Center.

Ms. Marcusson will talk about how the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the United States and Mexico guaranteed the property rights, which include the land and water rights, of the Hopi Indians. These rights derive from the Hopis’ recognition by Spain, and later in the Mexican Constitution of 1824, as fully enfranchised citizens who have maintained their independence since the Pueblo Rebellion of 1680.

“As a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), the aboriginal possessions of the Hopi Indians were brought within the exterior boundaries of the United States with a right to title as Mexican citizens to property that had come down through the Spanish and Mexican periods undisturbed,” wrote Ms. Marcusson, who argues that the Hopi have never surrendered those property rights, even though they came under the “protection” of the United States.

The argument is that the pueblos must be treated exactly as they would have been treated under the Mexican Constitution, as these are the conditions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo by which Mexico agreed to cede territory to the United States. “In the case of the 19 pueblos in New Mexico, this has been done,”according to an 1893 report to Washington on the status of the pueblos to Washington by Special Agent Thomas Donaldson. But, he continued, “In the case of the Moqui [Hopi] pueblos of Arizona this has not been done as yet.”

So what does this mean to the land and water rights of the Hopi people in relation to the United States? How does it affect the trust responsibility of the United States to the Hopi Tribe? What legal remedies are uniquely available to the Hopi because of their special status as asserted in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?

Ms. Marcusson’s talk is a Black Mesa Trust event in celebration of the Decade of Water. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated. Funds will be used to support the March 2006 Run from Hopi to Mexico City to address the World Water Forum.

Please come to hear Ms. Marcusson speak on April 28. The public is invited to a reception for Ms. Marcusson at 6:30 p.m. at the Veterans’ Memorial Center; her presentation will begin at 7 p.m.

For more information please call (928) 213-9009