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TANASI
NEWS
Support Wamp's Moccasin Bend Bill
Opinion By Toye Heape
This coming Tuesday the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation, and Public Lands will be considering a bill sponsored by Congressman Zach Wamp that would create a National Park at Moccasin Bend in Chattanooga.
Surprisingly, for a project that would generate so much economic benefit for the region and protect a valuable cultural resource, the idea of creating a National Park at the Bend, already a National Historic Landmark because of its Native American and Civil War related historic sites, has generated a lot of controversy. Squabbles between the state of Tennessee and the city of Chattanooga over the future of Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute threatened the effort when the National Park Service feasibility study for the park recommended removing the hospital from the historic site. City officials objected to this recommendation, calling it an excuse for the state to close the only public mental health care facility in southeast Tennessee. The study also recommended removing the Moccasin Bend Golf Course, a privately run enterprise on city property which also lies within the National Historic Landmark area, upsetting golfers who patronize that business.
Wamp's bill, H.R. 980, is an attempt to appease the local politicians and golfers. It includes the Mental Health Institute in the park boundary but imposes no deadline for removing it. The golf course would not be included within the park boundary and would not be affected by creation of the park.
The problem is that, by satisfying local politicians who want the mental health hospital to stay open, and the golfers who don't want to drive a few minutes more to one of the 40 other golf courses in the Chattanooga area, Wamp's plan lost the support of the National Park Service and gained the opposition of some Indian activists. The NPS position is that the removal of the hospital and golf course in order to restore the cultural landscape to it's natural appearance are necessary conditions for establishing the feasibility of a National Park at the Bend, therefore the agency does not support the bill. Tom Kunesh of the Chattanooga InterTribal Association objects to the exclusion of the golf course property because it is part of the National Historic Landmark Area and contains significant cultural resources that may likely include Native American burials.
Moccasin Bend holds a special significance for me in my personal religious beliefs and I've been involved in the effort to protect it for a long time, personally and professionally. As a private individual I've marched through the streets of Chattanooga along with Tom Kunesh and other local Indian people to draw attention to the criminal looting of Indian burial sites at the Bend. During my time as Executive Director of the Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs I had the honor of walking some areas of the Bend with members of the Native American Reserve Force, a special unit of the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department, looking for signs of looting. I performed Section 106 reviews of federal, state, and local projects that had a potential to impact cultural resources in the area. I attended meetings and spent many hours talking to public officials, representatives of Indian tribes, and members of the local Indian community about the National Park Service plans. I reviewed and made comments on the first draft of Rep. Wamp's legislation regarding the Moccasin Bend National Park in May of 1999, and I've closely followed the political machinations surrounding this bill since then.
I've been familiar with the thickheaded attitudes of public officials regarding Indian issues for a long time, but I still find the willingness of federal, state, and local government representatives to jeopardize a project of such huge social and economic importance over the issues of the hospital and golf course to be incomprehensible. Yes, the availability of mental health care is important, but the Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute is 40 years old and already obsolete. The NPS plan doesn't call for removal of the hospital until 2009, and NPS officials expressed a willingness to extend that deadline. By then a new facility would be needed anyway, and I can't believe there is no other property in the Chattanooga area where a new one could be built. The golf course issue is ludicrous. The city leases the property to the operators of the course and their lease is up in 2005. The fact that maybe a few hundred golfers can threaten the creation of a National Park is either a testament to the lack of political courage and leadership on the part of the area's government representatives, or to the political clout of individuals who play golf, or both.
The NPS plan outlined in the feasibility study for creation of a National Park at the Bend calls for the acquisition of all property within the 956 acre Moccasin Bend National Historic Landmark and removal of all elements that infringe on the historical integrity of the area in four phases over a period of ten years or so. This is a reasonable timetable and the removal of incompatible elements makes perfect sense. We're talking about a National Park here. Imagine going to Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park and finding a mental hospital in the middle of that hallowed ground, or being directed to a spot where you can hear golfers yell "Fore!" while you read an interpretation of the nationally significant history they're teeing off on. If the Civil War sites on Moccasin Bend contained human burials or places where soldiers fought and died, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. The Native American historical sites do contain human burials. The NPS plan respects the historical integrity of Moccasin Bend and, most importantly in my view, respects the spiritual integrity of the area. The Bend deserves nothing less.
But, having gotten all that off my chest, after much consideration, I've decided to support Wamp's bill because it offers more protection for most of the sacred sites on Moccasin Bend than they currently receive. Ownership by the federal government will place that area, now mostly in state, local, and private ownership, under federal laws regarding historical properties and Native American spiritual sites. These laws are far from perfect but they are certainly many times stronger than the state and local laws that cover the Bend now. Federal ownership will also offer more opportunities for dealing with other problems, like the serious river bank erosion that eats away at the area every day, threatening some of the burial sites.
Federal protection for the Bend's sacred sites motivated the Cultural Preservation Committee of the Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes earlier this year to pledge "support through the legislative process" for Wamp's plan. This committee is composed of professional cultural resources personnel from the federally recognized Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole Nations of Oklahoma. They are well aware of the differences between federal, state, and local laws, and much prefer the protection of federal law for Indian cultural sites and sacred places.
It is disappointing that the politicians don't seem to fully comprehend the significance of Moccasin Bend and what a National Park there would mean for the area. H.R. 980 should contain some definite timetable for removing the mental hospital, and should include the golf course in the park boundary in order to protect the cultural resources that lie under the green. However, the political reality is that this bill - flawed as it is - is the best chance we're going to get for creating a National Park at Moccasin Bend at this point in time.
It is possible that sometime in the future public officials might have a greater appreciation for the Indian heritage in the area. But that could be a long time coming. You only have to look at the history of the effort to include Moccasin Bend in the National Park system to see how the vagaries of politics can delay even the most beneficial of projects. In 1950 Congress passed legislation authorizing inclusion of 1,400 acres of the Bend to be included in Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. The state, city, and county governments acquired most of the property but never passed it on to the National Park Service - politics at work again. If the land had been conveyed to the federal government and received the protection of federal law, the Indian burials and archaeological resources there might not have been subjected to the horrendous, intensive looting they've suffered in the decades since.
Its clear to me that if H.R. 980 doesn't pass, there is a very real possibility that there will never be a Moccasin Bend National Park. We should take a pragmatic approach and support Congressman Wamp's bill in order to get federal protection for part of Moccasin Bend in the immediate future. Then we can hope that over time politics will change enough that the golf course will be acquired and all incompatible uses will be removed from the park. The chance of this happening will increase if a National Park is established on part of the Bend and heritage tourism dollars start flowing into the region's economy. But if it doesn't happen, if the golf course and hospital stay where they are, at least 911.5 acres of that sacred place will be under federal protection - and the interpretive exhibits at Moccasin Bend National Park will include a couple of glaring examples of ignorance, stupidity, and racism.
If you would like to comment on this article please email me at toye@nativenashville.com or visit the Native Nashville Message Board.
Toye Heape is president of Native Nashville,
Inc.
The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Native Nashville,
Inc.
