Rick Bowmer / Associated Press
Rick Spilsbury looks in the direction of Rocky Mountain juniper trees on Nov. 11, 2023, in Bahsahwahbee, a site in eastern Nevada that is sacred to members of the Ely Shoshone, Duckwater Shoshone and the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation. Their ancestors were massacred by white people on several occasions at this site and tribal members believe their spirits live on in the trees.
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I am 86 years old. One of my life’s goals is to protect the site where my people were massacred, our communities desecrated, and sanctity vulgarized by U.S. government officials and vigilantes.
My grandmother escaped the last massacre of Western Shoshone people at Bahsahwahbee in 1897, living to tell the stories of the horrors. But despite those unthinkable and sickening tragedies, my grandmother and others were also able to share the spiritual and cultural significance of Bahsahwahbee, or as many locals call it, Swamp Cedars.
Bahsahwahbee is a national treasure and one of the most significant sites for Western Shoshone people in the Great Basin. For thousands of years, my people gathered at this unique place, with its majestic groves of swamp cedar trees, to use the spring water for special healing ceremonies. It was also a place where many tribes came from far away to celebrate with each other, for vision questing, and spiritual renewal. Our people were targeted and killed in three separate massacres at this site, one being one of the largest massacres of Indian people in America.
Places like Little Bighorn, Big Hole, Sand Creek, Manzanar and Pearl Harbor are among those that this nation chose to preserve and commemorate within the National Park System to bring forward good and bad history for the benefit of all Americans. Bahsahwahbee must be added to that list for similar reasons.
While I hope to be around for many more years, time is running out to get this done for my people. That is why tribes are urging Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, as well as President Joe Biden, to enact our proposal to preserve Bahsahwahbee as a national monument within the National Park System.
That designation is long overdue, but the road to get here hasn’t been without significant challenges.
Since colonization overtook present-day Nevada in the mid-1800s, the federal government has made no lasting and meaningful efforts to honor Western Shoshone culture in a way that is truly tribal-led.
As it relates to Bahsahwahbee, the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation, Duckwater Shoshone and Ely Shoshone have endured massacres, discrimination, erasure, litigation and — even during our national monument campaign — subversion and disinformation.
Our tribes spent decades fighting and litigating against the Bureau of Land Management, under Democratic and Republican federal administrations, for approving a major pipeline proposal to drain and export the water from this region, which would have completely destroyed Bahsahwahbee and the rest of White Pine County. The generational fight to defend this place so sacred to us devastated our tribes, elders and bank accounts. It was the wisdom of a judge, not the BLM, that prevented this environmental disaster, allowing us to close that chapter and start a new one — this time written by the tribes in partnership with the Park Service.
Along the way, entities have questioned the tribes’ history and desires. Some have suggested that a small roadside panel — not recognition within the National Park System — is more than enough to commemorate our rich yet tragic history. Others have even sought to punish the Tribes by telling us that our national monument could only be managed by the BLM agency we fought for decades, even going so far as peddling false claims that cattle grazing (a land use at Bahsahwahbee that tribes support continuing) can’t be continued under the Park Service.
It has been extremely hurtful that some interests, including within the federal government, have sought for our tribes to fail. But the efforts to harm and deceive tribes are outweighed by the support tribes have secured for our proposal, ranging from local businesses and the state Legislature to the National Congress of American Indians and renewable energy developers in the region. It has been rewarding for me and other tribal members to collaborate with energy, mining, business and other interests on a matter that is at the heart of our tribes’ cultural survival — and our shared future.
I have been at this for decades, but I can’t do this myself. Time is running out for Cortez Masto and Rosen to fulfill their promises to get the tribes’ proposal across the finish line. It’s an election year, and we know there are many other priorities for U.S. politicians and White House officials. But the Western Shoshone people have waited far too long for the proper recognition at Bahsahwahbee.
Let’s not forget: As Americans, our shared history is worth honoring and commemorating to the highest standards — the National Park System. It makes us a better nation. And it’s fundamental to our shared prosperity.
Delaine Spilsbury is the Ely Shoshone Tribe’s Cultural Preservation Liaison for Bahsahwahbee.
