When naturalists like John Muir first entered California’s Yosemite Valley in the 19th century, they marveled at the beauty of what they believed to be pristine wilderness untouched by human hands. The truth is, the rich diversity and breathtaking landscapes of places like Yosemite and other natural environments in the United States have been intentionally cultivated by Native Americans for thousands of years. And their greatest tool was fire.
“Fire was a constant companion, a kind of universal catalyst and technology,” says Stephen Pyne, Arizona State University professor emeritus, author and fire historian.
Yosemite itself was regularly burned to clear brush, open pasture, provide nutrient-rich fodder for deer, and support the growth of forest food crops to feed and sustain what was once a large and thriving native population.
“If you look at the early photographs of Yosemite and see the large and majestic oak stands, you would be led to believe these are natural,” says Frank Kanawha Lake, USDA Forest Service environmental researcher, wildland firefighter and Descendant by Karuk.
“But these trees are a legacy of native acorn management. These are tribal orchards that have been managed for thousands of years for the production of acorns and for the geophytes or “Indian potatoes” that grow below. “
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Seasonal forest fires vs cultural burning
Heavy smoke from multiple wildfires envelops the iconic El Capitan, right, and the granite walls of Yosemite Valley on September 12, 2020 in Yosemite National Park, California.
Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The extremely destructive seasonal wildfires that consume millions of acres of forest in the western United States each year are primarily triggered when lightning strikes a dangerously dry stand of trees due to the heat or drought of the end of summer.
While these types of natural fires have always existed, Indigenous peoples have also practiced what is known as ‘cultural burning’, the intentional lighting of smaller, controlled fires to provide a desired cultural service, such as promotion. the health of vegetation and animals that provide food. , clothing, ceremonial items and more.
“[Cultural burning] refers to the tribal philosophy of fire as medicine, ”says Lake. “When you prescribe it, you get the right dose to maintain the abundant productivity of all ecosystem services to support ecology in your crop.”
Examples of Native American cultural burns can be found in the American landscape. In the Appalachian forests of the eastern United States, oak and chestnut dominance was the product of a targeted burn that resulted in vigorous regrowth of the desired nut crops. The iconic tallgrass prairies of the Midwest were also likely cleared and maintained by native burning as pasture for the herd animals.
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Many different uses of native fire
Anthropologists have identified at least 70 different uses of fire among indigenous and indigenous peoples, including clearing routes, long-distance signage, reducing populations of pests like rodents and insects, and hunting.
It is well established that indigenous peoples used fire to both drive and attract game herds. For example, some tribes would open up patches of grassland within forested landscapes that attracted herds of deer and elk to new protein-rich growth each spring. In the fall, they burned the grass to bring the animals back to the woods where the tribe wintered. And in the spring, they would light fires in the woods to repel the animals in the meadow.
The tribes of the northern Great Plains were among the few to start very large fires rather than smaller, contained burns. These prairie fires – kilometer-long conflagrations raging in the dry grasslands – were an effective way of leading large herds of buffalo in the desired direction. Other tribes used fire to round up the locusts, a tasty delicacy.
Food was not the only incentive to use fire. For some western tribes, a constant harvest of plant material was essential to make woven baskets. By burning plots of soil, they could ensure the regrowth of the type of straight, slender shoots that made the strongest and most artistic baskets. Others used fire to grow specific tree species that provided roosts for woodpeckers, whose feathers were prized for ceremonial badges.
European arrival leads to disease and fire ban
A forest fire, caused by lightning, spread on August 19, 2020 in San Mateo, California.
Liu Guanguan / China News Service via Getty Images
One of the reasons John Muir and other naturalists would have believed that the greatness of the western United States was shaped entirely by natural forces is that they had no idea how many Native Americans there were. had lived. When the Spanish established missions and settlements in “Alta California” in the 18th century, they brought smallpox with them, which decimated around 70 to 90 percent of the native population.
“Much of what we see as the wilderness was a temporary artifact of the depopulation of indigenous peoples – it was a major accident,” Pyne says. “Explorers and early travelers did not believe that such small groups of Native Americans could make significant changes to the landscape. Well, there used to be a lot more.
READ MORE: Did Settlers Give Infected Blankets to Native Americans?
European settlers brought with them an attitude that fire was a destructive force with no beneficial applications. Lake points out that one of the first official proclamations of a Spanish bureaucrat in California in 1793 was to ban “Indian burning,” which was seen as a threat to Spanish cattle herds and pastures.
“By paying attention to the widespread damage to the public resulting from the burning of the fields, customary until now among the Christian and Gentile Indians of this country, whose childishness has been unduly tolerated,” wrote Don José Joaquín de Arrillaga, “I see myself obliged to have the foresight to prohibit for the future …, if necessary, all kinds of fires from the rigors of the law, not only on the outskirts of towns, but even at the most distant distances … [t]o uproot this very harmful practice of setting fire to pastures.
Successive waves of settlers brought the same dismissive attitude to the benefits of controlled burns, even though European farmers and shepherds have practiced it for centuries.
“The European elites have treated their own farmers and ranchers and their knowledge of fire with the same contempt,” Pyne says. “Europe had thousands of years of agriculture and they used fire very extensively, but it was a mark of ‘primitivism’. To be modern and rational, we had to find an alternative to fire.
The Paiute forestry debate
Not everyone agreed that banning cultural and other controlled burns was the best solution for America’s forests. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, millions of acres were destroyed by a series of deadly forest fires, many of which were caused by sparks launched by the new transcontinental railroad.
The problem with fire suppression laws is that they create a buildup of “fuel” in the forests, fallen trees and drought-ravaged undergrowth that feed and spread a forest fire. At the turn of the 20th century, some forest scientists were calling for a return to indigenous “light burning” practices to keep fuel supplies low.
Opponents of the burning of light have dubbed it “Paiute forestry,” signified as an insulting reference to the Paiute Indians of Nevada and California.
“The question was, ‘Are we burning like the pagan Indians or are we protecting our forests and forest interests? Said Lake.
The answer came in 1910 with one of the biggest wildfires in American history. Known as the “Big Blowup” or simply the “Great Fires of 1910”, this multi-state conflagration has consumed over 3 million acres and leveled entire cities. Lake says that on one tragic day, 78 firefighters were killed by the blaze.
Rather than renewing calls for a traditional approach to forest management that incorporated cultural burning, a traumatized US Forest Service doubled down on fire suppression. In response, Congress passed the Weeks Act of 1911 allowing the government to purchase millions of acres of land in which all fires would be prohibited.
