“The more things change, the more they remain the same.” — Jean-Baptise Alphonse Karr

Recently, a contractor working for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Mountain West state of Colorado unintentionally released 3 million gallons of toxic mine waste into the Animas River. Right now, people in the US are debating the efficacy of the EPA (the right-wing is using the spill as anti-government propaganda) and the noxious aftermath the spill will undoubtedly have on local economies and ecosystems.

So far, the disaster has contaminated the Animas River, San Juan River, and the Colorado River in Utah. According to reports, “the disaster also poses a risk to the drinking water of 17, 000 people living in Durango, Colorado and 45,000 residents of Farmington, New Mexico.” If history is any indication, the situation is likely more critical than the authorities are currently telling people.

However, there’s a larger lesson to learn from the spill: namely, the fact that indigenous communities continue to endure the horrific legacies of colonization and settler culture. Unsurprisingly, they’ve been disproportionately impacted by the US Government’s latest environmental blunder.

Without question, singular events can sometimes illuminate larger political-historical realities. In many ways, modern environmental disasters serve as literal and symbolic reminders of the absolutely barbarous history of colonization, a history built on resource extraction and ecological devastation, a history many in power hope to silence and forget.

An Old Story

The Animas River, otherwise known as the River of Souls, is situated in the San Juan Mountains and runs over 125 miles. According to history, some say legend, “In 1765, explorer Juan Maria Antonio Rivera was sent north from Santa Fe looking for gold, Indian settlements and evidence of European activity,” eventually stumbling upon the Animas.

Geopolitical calculations and nation-state disputes (treaties, wars, assassinations) between France, Mexico, Spain and the US dominated the region for the next one hundred years. Following the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. As a result, North American frontiersmen (settlers) and businessmen (criminals) inundated the Mountain West region in search of new land and wealth.

In 1850, frontiersman Lewis Ralston, traveling westbound by wagon towards California, panned $5 worth of gold in Clear Creek. Nine years later, Ralston joined the Green Russel crew and founded Auraria, kickstarting the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush. Less than a year later, miners all but exhausted gold deposits in the Denver area, forcing settlers and gold diggers to seek riches in other portions of Colorado and Western North America. By 1861, outgoing US President James Buchanan developed the “free Treaty of Colorado,” beginning the process of statehood. On August 1, 1876, the state of Colorado was formally codified and became an official member of the union.

However, there is another portion of Colorado’s history, a history prior to colonization (plunder) and settlement (genocide), an old story. What is today known as the state of Colorado was initially inhabited by Native Americans for more than 13,000 years:

The Lindenmeier Site in Larimer County contains artifacts dating from approximately 11200 BC to 3000 BC. The eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains was a major migration route that was important to the spread of early peoples throughout the Americas. The Ancient Pueblo peoples lived in the valleys and mesas of the Colorado Plateau. The Ute Nation inhabited the mountain valleys of the Southern Rocky Mountains and the Western Rocky Mountains, even as far east as the Front Range of present day. The Apache and the Comanche also inhabited Eastern and Southeastern parts of the state. At times, the Arapaho Nation and the Cheyenne Nation moved west to hunt across the High Plains.

Likewise, it’s important to recall a darker portion of Colorado’s history. For example, the Sand Creek massacre of 1864, where “a 700-man force of Colorado Territory militia attacked and destroyed a peaceful village of Cheyenne and Arapaho in southeastern Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 70–163 Indians, about two-thirds of whom were women and children.” Indeed, from Sand Creek to Fallujah, US state-sponsored terror always produces the same results: massacres, mutilated bodies and unprosecuted perpetrators.

Today, Native Americans account for 1.1% of Colorado’s total population. Their history is all but erased, their lives destroyed in the insane pursuit of resource extraction. Strip malls, skyscrapers, and a few superficial statues and hollow tributes now stand where vibrant human communities once lived for millennia. The US Government, unrecognized by vast portions of Native Americans, hence illegitimate in their eyes, ruthlessly imposed treaties, laws, cultural mandates and regulations on the remaining portion of the indigenous population who wasn’t genocidally murdered. Of course, resistance occurred, but it was sadistically stamped out.

Still Paying for the Sins of Others

Surely, the toxification of the Animas River is both practically and symbolically important. Of course, the event is practically important because peoples’ lives will continue to be negatively impacted as a result of the spill: contaminated drinking water, farming irrigation, etc. Symbolically speaking, the incident is prescient because the spill represents the latest in a long line of ecological and social disasters facilitated by North American colonization.

Native Americans who once inhabited the Mountain West region for over ten thousand years were driven from their lands in the pursuit of gold, a mineral with virtually no use-value. Today, 175 years later, indigenous lives are still being ruined by those very same gold mines.

In the end, little changes, for Native Americans and the Animas River are still enduring the toxic legacy of colonization.

Vincent Emanuele can be reached at vincent.emanuele333@gmail.com

Vincent Emanuele

Vincent Emanuele is a combat veteran, writer, and activist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Vincent testified to U.S. Congress in 2008 about war crimes and atrocities after refusing a third deployment to Iraq with the United States Marine Corps. Since then, he has worked with a wide range of social movements, community organizations, and labor unions. His writings and interviews have been featured in ZNet, CounterPunch, Alternet, TruthOut, and Verso. Vincent is also a contributor to the anthology ‘Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America’s Misguided Wars’ (Metropolitan, 2022). He can be reached at vincent.emanuele333@gmail.com