A bill recently re-introduced in the U.S. House would give a small northern Arizona tribe its own reservation for the first time. The San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe is the only Arizona tribe without its own dedicated homeland.
In 2000, the San Juan Paiute and the Navajo Nation signed a treaty earmarking 5,400 acres of land in northern Arizona and southern Utah as a new reservation. Congress has to ratify the agreement for it to become official, but lawmakers have failed to do so, leaving the Paiute without their own territory and water rights.
The tribe wasn’t federally recognized until 1989 and has been advocating for its own reservation for more than four decades. The Paiute and Navajo have shared their ancestral homelands for more than 160 years, but the tribes remain politically and culturally distinct.
Members of the San Juan Paiute Tribe mainly live near the communities of Navajo Mountain, White Mesa and Blanding in Utah, and near Willow Springs and Tuba City in Arizona. Former Democratic Congressman Tom O’Halleran first introduced the bill to ratify the treaty between the Paiute and Navajo last year and it’s now been revived by Republican Eli Crane.
