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Lehi » As a former BYU law professor, Larry EchoHawk is an expert in Indian tribal law and how the federal government twisted the Constitution and the Congress to break treaties, push tribes off their traditional lands and commit atrocities on the nation's indigenous peoples.
That's why, he said Wednesday, he hesitated when President Barack Obama's transition team offered him the position of assistant secretary for Indian affairs in the Interior Department a week before the president's inauguration.
"They used a good line," he said during Utah's annual Native American Summit. "They said, 'Your country is calling you into service.' "
But becoming an employee of the government that for nearly three centuries beat down, cheated and murdered tribal people wasn't an easy decision.
"There are some dark chapters in this country," EchoHawk said, "when it comes to Indian affairs."
While he considered the offer, he read Dee Brown's 1970 classic, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee , a study of U.S. military warfare on tribes from 1860 to 1890, battles aimed at taking Indian lands and shoving Indians onto reservations often far from home.
In his emotional speech Wednesday -- after detailing some, but by no means all, of the perpetual outrages, including the Bear River Massacre in southern Idaho of nearly 500 peaceful Shoshone in 1863 -- EchoHawk grew passionate about his
"The assistant secretary is the face of the federal government when it comes to Indian affairs," he said, his voice breaking. "I want only to do what is right and just for America and native people, the first Americans."
More than 200 summit attendees quickly were on their feet, giving EchoHawk a long ovation.
A former Brigham Young University law professor and a member of Oklahoma's Pawnee Nation who at one time represented Idaho's Shoshone-Bannock tribes, EchoHawk now runs the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education. He manages 10,000 employees and a $2.5 billion budget and answers to 562 tribes occupying 66 million acres of sovereign lands.
The dark history, he said, never should be forgotten but neither should it continue to divide tribal nations. "Together," EchoHawk said, "we can write a new chapter of American history."
Other speakers Wednesday included leaders of six tribes whose lands lie wholly or in part within Utah: the Confederated Tribes of Goshute Reservations, Navajo Nation, the Northwestern Band of Shoshone, Paiute Indian Tribe and the Ute and Ute Mountain tribes.
Utah Division of Indian Affairs Executive Director Forrest Cuch, whose agency sponsored the summit, said EchoHawk's speech pleased the conference audience because it was emotional, not bureaucratic droning.
"They would be disappointed if they heard him talking from his head instead of his heart," Cuch said, predicting tribes will support EchoHawk even during controversy.
Speaking for the tribes whose members came to the summit, "we're going to stand by him," Cuch said, "because we consider him a native son of Utah."
The head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in Utah to attend a three-day Native American Summit, said Wednesday that tribal leaders are grateful at ramped-up federal efforts to safeguard ancient American Indian artifacts from looters and grave robbers.
Larry EchoHawk, a former Brigham Young University law professor and President Barack Obama's assistant secretary of the Interior, said that when he meets with tribal leaders, "they will talk about protection of their sacred sites."
"That often comes up," he said.
A recent federal raid netted dozens of defendants, mostly Utahns, accused of illegal artifacts trafficking in the Four Corners region. Authorities recovered hundreds of relics in the continuing investigation and recently confiscated more items at homes in Utah and Colorado.
"I'm amazed to see how many articles were involved," said EchoHawk, who attended the June 10 news conference, with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman, announcing the indictments.
EchoHawk said it was "uncomfortable" for him even to view photographs of some of the stolen artifacts, many of which came from burial sites and are considered holy.
- Patty Henetz
Utah's Native American Summit wraps up today at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi with a welcome from Gov. Gary Herbert and forums on health care, economic development, education and homeland security.
