The Havasupai Indian Reservation is a Native American reservation for the Havasupai people, surrounded entirely by the Grand Canyon National Park, in Coconino County in Arizona, United States. It is considered one of America's most remote Indian reservations. The reservation is governed by a seven-member tribal council, led by a chairman who is elected from among the members of the council. The capital of the reservation is Supai, situated at the bottom of Cataract Canyon, one of the tributary canyons of the Grand Canyon. Havasupai is a combination of the words Havasu (meaning "blue-green water") and pai (meaning "people"), thus meaning "people of the blue-green waters".
History
The Havasupai lived, farmed, and hunted throughout their traditional territory, comprising the canyons and plateaus in and around Havasu Canyon, for centuries before the arrival of Europeans. They farmed in the canyons in spring and summer, and moved to the plateau lands for fall and winter. In the 1870s, when European miners, ranchers, and settlers arrived in the Arizona Territory in increasing numbers, pressure increased to confine the Havasupai and other tribes to small and demarcated reservations. In 1882, President Chester Arthur established the Havasupai Indian Reservation by Executive Order, and restricted the tribe to 518 acres in Havasu Canyon. The rest of their ancestral lands were taken by the federal government for public use. According to reports, the Havasupai were completely unaware of the Executive Order for several years. The reduction of their lands led to a disruption on the tribe's way of life, and constant tension between the tribe and the U.S. government.
With the creation of the Grand Canyon National Park in 1919, the reservation was completely surrounded by National Park lands. By agreement with the federal government, the reservation and the trails which led down to it remained sovereign to the Havasupai tribe. The tribe continually lobbied the United States to restore more of their ancestral land to them, although to no avail. In the 1950s a superintendent of the Grand Canyon, John McLaughlin, proposed to take over the reservation, but he was rebuffed by the tribe.
Eventually the persistence of the tribe began to pay off. In 1968 the tribe won a case against the government with the Indian Claim Commission. The ruling stated that the lands had been taken illegally from the tribe in 1882, and that the tribe had the right to recover the lands by paying the government fair market value for the property. At a rate of 55 cents an acre, the value of the lands was set at slightly more than one million dollars. However, the tribe still fought for having the lands returned to them, without having to pay for them. The tribe found support from the Nixon administration, and began to lobby for passage of congressional bill S. 1296, which would return the lands to the tribe. Finally, in 1975, the U.S. Congress passed the Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act, which was signed into law by President Gerald Ford on January 4, 1975. Among other things, the Act returned of plateau and canyon lands to the Havasupai, which is what forms the reservation today.
The tribe still speaks Yuman, one of about 200 indigenous languages still spoken in North America.
Government
The tribe passed their Constitution on March 27, 1939. In it the governing body was defined as a seven-member tribal council, which handles most policy matters. Four of the councilmen were to be elected and serve two years, with the remaining three councilmen being hereditary chiefs of the tribe, who would serve for life. The council is led by a chairman who is elected from among the members of the council. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is the entity charged with law enforcement and protection for the Tribe, while the Indian Health Service clinic provides health care and emergency services.