Prior Registration with OLLI required; Program to run from 1:00 pm. to 3:00 p.m. | Learn how Yavapai-Apache experiences are directly tied to discoveries of gold around Prescott and rich copper mines on Mingus Mountain and much more
The Sedona/Verde Valley Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) will present a free two hour program on the Verde Valley Campus October 10 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. on the rich indigenous natural history of Central Arizona. Registration before the program with OLLI is required. The presentation will take place in Room 137 in Building “M” on the Verde Valley Campus.
Dr. Maurice Crandall will give the presentation. Dr. Crandall is an Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University and an enrolled member of the Yavapai-Apache Nation.
The following is how OLLI describes the program:
Learn how Yavapai-Apache experiences are directly tied to discoveries of gold around Prescott and rich copper mines on Mingus Mountain, and the perennial streams of the Verde River watershed to raise the crops necessary to feed the growing numbers of non-Indian settlers who flooded the region beginning in the 1860s. Even after the Yavapai-Apache returned from forced exile around 1900, they survived by working in mining operations and infrastructure projects while squatting on United Verde Copper Company land. The natural beauty of central Arizona is contrasted by the ugly remnants of this extractive past: slag heaps, leach fields, and abandoned mines. This lecture will challenge listeners to think about their relationship to the environment, how the natural history and resources of the region have been abused to the detriment of the land and its original inhabitants, and open a discussion of how to heal and move forward, honoring the natural history of the land and its people.
Dr. Maurice Crandall is an Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University and an enrolled member of the Yavapai-Apache Nation. He previously taught at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. Professor Crandall is a multi-award-winning author and public intellectual who has presented his research throughout the United States, as well as in Canada and Europe. His first book, These People Have Always Been a Republic: Indigenous Electorates in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1598–1912, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2019. His second book, on Yavapai-Apache Scouts, is under contract with W.W. Norton & Company. He received his PhD in History from the University of New Mexico, and is a graduate of Mingus Union High School.
