The Hopi-Navajo Colony on the Lower Colorado River: A Problem in Ethnohistorical Interpretation

A great deal of history and of ethnohistory is written which has a purely local focus. Thus we dredge through an Indian Claims Commission case report that chronicles the contact between non-Indians and Pimas or we read about the famous shoot-it-out in the OK Corral between the Clantons and the Earps. Journals of history devote many more pages to local history and to specific events, as a rule, than they do to regional history and to general themes. We are more likely to learn about the Port of Los AngelesI than we are about the role of Pacific Coast ports in the development of the economy of the West. Still less likely are we to find a study analyzing the role of ports in modern world economy. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this. Just as trees make the forest, so do specific contacts between nonIndians and Indians, specific battles, specific treaties, and specific Congressional Acts form a part of what we call relations between the United States and its Indian population. Most scholars, perhaps, feel more comfortable perched in