50 Years Ago: Navajo pay in 1965 – less than $50 a week

So just how much were Navajos making back in 1965?

Not a lot.

A study put out by the state of Arizona said many Navajos and other Indians in the state were making less than the minimum wage which is remarkable since the minimum wage at the time was $1.25 an hour or $50 a week.

Efforts were underway nationwide to increase that to $2 an hour but Navajo Tribal Chairman Raymond Nakai, who was making about $10 an hour as the leader of the tribe, said that many Navajos who were making a living raising sheep or doing jewelry or rugs probably made less than $50 a week.

He had been trying to get some kinds of statistics for years on just how much money the average Navajo made but officials for the Bureau of Indian Affairs said that when they tried to raise the question on surveys with Navajos, they were shut down, especially when they tried to find out how much the Navajo raising sheep were making.

Navajo ranchers still remembered the stock reduction program – most of them were alive when that happened and witnessed the reduction program firsthand.

Nakai said he could understand why Navajos would be reluctant to give out any financial information to the BIA. The reason for that was because they were afraid that the BIA officials would ferret out information on how many sheep could use it and cattle were being grazed on reservation land.

BIA land officials felt that despite the hundreds of animals that were slaughtered or removed from reservation lands during the reduction, most Navajo families had livestock herds that were substantially higher than their permits allowed them to have.

But because of the havoc and ill feelings that was caused by the stock reduction program some 25 to 30 years ago, BIA officials were reluctant to start any major reduction program in 1965.

And Nakai, knowing it would be political suicide to do anything to help the BIA determine a reliable livestock count, would publicly tell Navajo ranchers that he would also not cooperate with BIA officials as well.

A television crew from CBS News was on the reservation in mid-February getting material for a show the network was doing on Annie Wauneka, probably known to more Americans than any other member of the tribe for her work in getting Navajos to trust Anglo medicine.

Entitled “The Navajos and Annie Wauneka”, the program is set to run on he network’s “Twentieth Century” series, which focuses on people and events that are shaping the United States.

Walter Cronkite, the popular CBS newscaster, will narrate the program, which will be seen nationwide.

The big subject of discussion in Window Rock these days has nothing to do with issues affecting the Navajo Nation but a confrontation that occurred between Maurice McCabe, director of administration for the Navajo Tribe and Allen Y. Hill, who is assistant director of public relations for the tribe.

Hill claimed that he was at the Window Rock Airport when McCabe, for no known reason, came up to him and assaulted him. He was so upset that a few days later he filed a suit for assault and battery in the Window Rock court asking for $70,000 in general damages and $30,000 in punitive damages.

McCabe immediately filed a countersuit saying that the allegations made by Hill were “totally false.”

He said it was Hill who started the fight and struck him first. “Mr. Hill failed to tell the truth in that he initiated this whole matter by attacking me without warning,” McCabe said in a statement to the news media.

“I am the one who received the blows with my glasses on and what would any man do but retaliate, which I did after being assaulted by Hill,” McCabe said.

“It is unfortunate that Mr. Hill wishes to try his case in the press,” McCabe said, “but I have no desire to do so. I will stand on my own record and veracity.”

On a sadder note, the Navajo Times reported on its front page 50 years ago the death of Geneva Davidson, 15, of Fort Defiance.

The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Davidson, she fell off a 200-foot cliff while she was attending Globe High School in Globe, Ariz. She was a freshman and was staying with her uncle David Tsosie.

“Miss Davidson and her girlfriends were out hunting wild onions,” the Times reported. “Before she fell, she complained that she didn’t put her tennis shows on before going on the hike. She was killed instantly.”

---