Trump wants to delete tribe from Death Valley visitor center
Jeniffer Solis
(States Newsroom) The Timbisha Shoshone exhibit at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center in Death Valley is currently under review after the Trump administration advised National Park Service officials to remove certain language from a display.
The review came after the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe worked with the National Park Service to add language and materials to the exhibit to mark the 25th anniversary of the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act, which formally recognized the tribe’s ancestral connection to Death Valley, granted a permanent land base to the tribe, and established co-management of much of the park.
The phrases in question “We are still here” and “This is our Homeland” have been a part of the exhibit since it was created, but came under review after the Park Service submitted plans to add a medallion and earrings to the Timbisha exhibit as part of a public ceremony for the act’s anniversary.
“We have displays in there and language that’s been in there for about 15 years, that’s having to be removed,” said Mandi Campbell, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe.
“One of the displays says ‘we are still here’ and they highlighted that they do not want that there,” Campbell said.
In addition to the medallion and earrings, the new display would have included a description with the phrase ‘Timbisha Homelands’ which was rejected by the Interior, said Campbell. The tribe, which co-manages several acres in the park under a cooperative management plan between the tribe and the Park Service, still plans to add the items but is working on revised language.
“The narrative of the display is basically our truth and how we see the truth. It’s just that they don’t accept our wording. So in that sense, we do feel a little oppressed,” said Cindy Davis, the environmental director for the tribe.
“This is our homeland. We should be able to tell our truth instead of them always putting us in the shadows all the time,” Davis said.
The Timbisha Shoshone people have occupied the desert area in and around Death Valley National Park and extending to the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada range, since time immemorial. The tribe received federal recognition in 1983, but was not granted a permanent land base until the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act was signed into law by former president Bill Clinton in 2000.
The law transferred about 7,800 acres in total to the tribe, including a 314-acre parcel at Furnace Creek in the Death Valley National Park encompassing the Timbisha village site. The law made Death Valley the first and only U.S. national park to return land to its Indigenous inhabitants.
After the act was passed, the acting park superintendent had the subheading, “Homeland of the Timbisha Shoshone,” added to the park’s entry signage, which is still there today.
“I don’t think they understand that we’re in the middle of the national park,” said Campbell, the tribal historic preservation officer.
In a statement the U.S. Department of the Interior said the park was asked to submit information in accordance with secretary’s order 3431, which directs federal land management agencies to review and potentially revise public-facing content across national parks.
“This request did not reflect a final decision, and no actions have been finalized,” the Interior Department said in a statement when asked about the status of the exhibit, adding that the secretary’s order requires “a review of certain interpretive content to ensure parks tell the full and accurate story of American history.”
“Some materials may be edited or replaced to provide broader context, others may remain unchanged,” the statement continued.
The medallion and earrings were gifted to John Reynolds, who served as the Pacific West Regional director at the time the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act was signed. He served as the lead official in the negotiations to create a reservation for the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe in Death Valley. Reynolds later donated the medallion and earrings to the Death Valley National Park archives.
“We’re just going to see what happens. We’ll work together with the Park Service and come up with language, but we would like to keep it there,” Campbell said. “Either way we are here, we live in the middle of the Park. We are going nowhere.”
Despite the uncertainty about the future of the Timbisha Shoshone exhibit, the National Park Service and tribe are moving forward with the commemorative march and public ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the Homeland Act at 10 a.m. Friday in Furnace Creek Visitor Center.
The event will include a reenactment of the 1996 Memorial Day march, led by tribal elders Pauline Esteves and Barbara Durham, which was organized after negotiations to establish a reservation for the tribe broke down two months earlier.
According to the Homeland Act’s officially commissioned administrative history, protesters marched a half-mile towards the Furnace Creek visitor center in near sweltering heat carrying signs that read “This is our homeland” and “Cultural respect, not cultural genocide.”
Reports of the march caught the attention of former President Bill Clinton and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who requested more information about the tribe’s plight from the Park Service and the Interior Department.
“We’ve come a long way as a tribe. It’s been slow but progressive,” said Davis, the environmental director for the tribe. “We’re trying to be positive. We just need to keep moving forward and not let that dim our vision.”
Campbell emphasized that co-stewardship of the Death Valley National Park with the Park Service has been fruitful for the past decade. That partnership has ensured the inclusion of traditional ecological knowledge into federal management practices which have protected sacred religious sites, burial sites, wildlife, and sources of Indigenous foods and medicines.
“We protect the land together, and now, 25 years later, we’re celebrating,” Campbell said.
When the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act was signed it also included the right for the tribe to develop and build a cultural center on their reservation in the Death Valley National Park, which the tribe is working to make a reality.
“One day we’ll have our cultural center, and the truth will be told,” Campbell said.