Orme Dame Rhetorical Analysis

           Rhetorical Analysis

 Many people of the Fort McDowell Tribe have felt for a long time that they have been dealt a bad hand or that they have been taken advantage of. The Yavapai people were moved from place to place by force. They were expected to give up the land that they were on and move to a new home. Congress had authorized the building of Orme Dam in 1968 (AZPBS). The building of this dam would have meant that the Yavapai people would have to again move and pack up their belongings to start over in a new place, even if that place was just a few miles away. According to Orme Dam Activist Caroline Butler this would have been detrimental to the tribe, “which is rocky and dry and not fertile. The tribe would cease to exist if they had been relocated (AZPBS).” Anthropologist believed that moving the tribe would also increase the Tribes ability to be economically self-sufficient (Ravashiere). Which would cause them to have to rely on outside help to be successful.

            One of the key terms of this protest is the activist of the protest being referred to as the “little people”. Dr. Bob Witzeman calls the outcome of the Orme Dam, “a Victory of the “little people.’” He was referring to the size of the population that makes up the Yavapai Nation going up against the government. These ‘little people’ stood up to fight against the Orme Dam being built by the government in what many have referred to as a David vs. Golith type of battle. It seemed from many to be an impossible task. There are about 950 Tribal members that belong to the Yavapai Fort McDowell Tribe (Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation); about 90 percent of them physically live on the reservation. The Tribe borders the town of Fountains Hills where the median income is $71,409 (City-Data 2013).  When you drive up to the community of Fort McDowell it looks a lot different than their neighboring town of Fountain Hills. At first sight the Reservation may look deserted but as you drive more deeply into the community you will see a recreation center where people meet to play different sporting events and a Tribal-Government building where the President, Vice-President, and Council members meet daily. However, the two buildings along with a small percent of houses look like they are maintained well. The medium income for the Fort McDowell Tribe is  $17,394 where the state of Arizona medium income is $25,680 (AZCIA 2010). 

            Fort McDowell has always been a close net community. They all have one thing in common; they are Yavapai Indians. With the proposed building of Orme Dam, the community knew they had to stand together in order to defeat the big guns of Washington. At first glace it might have looked impossible. How could a Tribe of 950 with an income lower than that of the state they reside in defeat powerful politicians? Fort McDowell didn’t see it that way. They didn’t focus on the amount of people or income they had, they focused on the commitment from the community and the amount of fight they got from each member. “Fort McDowell also called upon other Tribal leaders and Tribal Members from other Indian Nations to join them in their fight” (Wilson). Fort McDowell knew they would have to take the attention of building of the Orme Dam off of the site and put the focus on the people that would be affected. The focused had to go from “where” the Dam was going to be built and put the focus on “who” was it going to damage and how badly they would be damaged. The identity of the protest became the Yavapai Indians of Fort McDowell along with a second identity being the bald eagle. The bald eagle is an endangered species that lives on the reservation (AZPBS). The bald eagle gave the Fort McDowell tribe another angle to work from, now it wasn’t just the people of Fort McDowell that live in the area but also an endangered species. “The Audubon Society say that if the area is inundated, the sensitive eagles, already down to five according to some state estimates, will be wiped out” (Ravashiere 1981). This brought environmentalist to help fight against the Orme dam. If they weren’t concerned about how the Orme Dam would affect the people who would have to be relocated maybe they would care about an extremely endangered species that would be wiped out. The Tribe would later use the figure of a bald eagle, as a symbol to emphasis the damage the dam would cause.

            The goal of the protest was to stop the building of the Orme Dam but it was also a chance for the so-called ‘little people’ Indians of Fort McDowell to finally take a stand for what was given to them. The Tribal people were established not only in the community within just the reservation but the kids of the Tribe who attended local schools, Tribal members who worked and contributed to the economy outside of the reservation, and local stores who benefited from Fort McDowell Tribal members shopping at their stores. As a side note from what has come from the Orme Dam not being built, the Fort McDowell Tribe has lease their farm lands out to none-Native American farmers (Arizona Farm Bureau), which the farmers and Tribe work together to benefit each other. If the Dam were to be built those living in the community would have to build a new community from the ground up, not to mention having to convince everyone that lived there to actually move with them. The Tribe would have to build new houses, community buildings, roads, signs, fencing, irrigation systems for housing and farming, phone lines, and many more things that come with everyday living. The mere $33 million the Tribe would get from the Federal Government for moving (AZPBS) simply wouldn’t have been enough.