Fighting for Justice

Death Valley is no stranger to the challenges that have confronted American society over the past 150 years: the Timbisha fought to hold on to their homeland, Depression-era workers struggled for an economic foothold through the Civilian Conservation Corps and Japanese Americans were rushed to Cow Creek from their incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.

 

Timbisha Huts at Furnace Creek - 1928

The Death Valley Shoshone have populated the desert for centuries. Some archeological objects found southwest of the park may be from the Lake Mojave period (10,000 to 5,000 BCE). During that period, there were more plants and large fauna than there are now. As the climate warmed, indigenous people wintered on the floor of Death Valley, and moved to the cooler climes of the mountains during the summer months. They took the name “Timbisha Shoshone” when they received federal recognition in the 1980s.

 

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Credit: Photographer: Burton Frasher; Courtesy HJG Frashers Fotos Collection

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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Shoshone Workers at Scotty's Castle - ca. 1930

As the borax mines started closing, a group of Panamint Shoshone who were living and working in Death Valley started to work for Albert Johnson to help build Scotty's Castle. As Euro-American society encroached on the traditional lands and livelihoods of the indigenous people of Death Valley, they were forced to work for white men in order to make ends meet. Construction of Scotty’s Castle was one such opportunity. A hatless Death Valley Scotty is in the white shirt and tie, posing with some of these workers.

 

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Credit: Images of America: Death Valley by Robert Palazzo 2008 Arcadia Publishing

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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Camp Cow Creek - ca. 1935

Shortly after Death Valley was established as a national monument in February 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) sent two companies of men (400) into the park They were housed in three camps – Wildrose, Funeral Range, and Cow Creek and were paid $25 per month, of which $20 went to their family and $5 to the men.

The CCC transformed Death Valley. Its workers built trails, roads, and buildings, creating the beginning of the monument’s infrastructure as the number of visitors (mostly arriving by car) grew dramatically. Visitation to the park in 1934 was 22,377, but it doubled to 50,000 in 1935. Since then, visitation has continued to increase each decade. By 2019, a record 1,740,945 people visited Death Valley National Park.

 

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Credit: Death Valley National Park Museum #28036

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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Baseball at Manzanar - 1943

President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, authorizing the military to remove “any or all persons” of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. Over 11,000 of the 120,000 people affected by this order were incarcerated at Manzanar, just west of Death Valley and south of Independence in the Owens Valley of California.

While the inmates did their best to live as normal a life as they could, as this photograph by Ansel Adams of a baseball game illustrates, by the end of 1942, tensions in the camp were high due to conflicts that had been simmering even before the Japanese Empire attacked Pearl Harbor. Members of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) were targeted because of rumors that they had encouraged cooperation with the mass forced removal and worked closely with the FBI.

 

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Credit: Photographer: Ansel Adams; Library of Congress

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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Manzanar Nurseryman - 1943

Gardens and parks built by those incarcerated at Manzanar served as a respite from the reality of being torn from their pre-war lives and being imprisoned by their own country. The circumstances created by the government contributed to the rising tensions that erupted in the revolt of December 1942.

Manzanar had five directors in its first eight months. Promises made by one director were broken by the next. Resentment towards those who were seen as working with the administration added to feelings of animosity towards them.

The Manzanar Revolt began with the December 5 beating of a JACL member who had just returned from a conference and announced that the JACL encouraged drafting Japanese Americans from behind barbed wire. One of the men fingered in the beating was an outspoken critic of the administration. After the attack, protesters demanded the release of the suspect and Military Police were brought in to quell the crowd. The revolt ended with MPs firing into the crowd, killing two and injuring nine more Japanese Americans. This was the government’s first use of deadly force against Japanese Americans and would lead to a series of events that still have repercussions today.

In the aftermath of the revolt, the administration moved the Japanese Americans who were perceived to have been in support of the administration and their families to Cow Creek in Death Valley.

 

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Credit: Photographer: Dorothea Lange; UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Cow Creek Camp - 1942

Between December 1942 and February 1943, 65 Japanese Americans who had been incarcerated at Manzanar in the Owens Valley were removed to the old Civilian Conservation Corps facilities at Cow Creek. These families were removed to Death Valley after a series of protests ended with Military Police firing on a group of incarcerated people at Manzanar. While at Death Valley they worked in the then monument and helped to improve infrastructure. They were eventually placed in jobs outside the West Coast.

For more information about Manzanar and Japanese American incarceration during World War II, please visit the Manzanar National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)

 

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Credit: NPS Death Valley Archives

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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Timbisha Demonstration for Homeland Restoration - 1996

For generations, the native people of Death Valley and the Eastern Sierra fought for legal status as a tribal organization. They were pushed to the edge of existence first by the growth of mining interests and then by the National Park Service’s approach to “wilderness,” from which the government removed all people.

The federal government began to change its approach to Native American issues after the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. The Timbisha finally received federal recognition in 1983, but it came without a formal land base.

When Death Valley became a national park with the passage of the California Desert Protection Act of 1994, a provision was included authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to consult directly with the tribe to identify suitable lands for reservation. In November, 2000, the Timbisha Homeland Act was passed creating the first tribal reservation within a national park.

 

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Credit: NPS Death Valley Archives

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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone