124 An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
US state at the end of 1845. California quickly acquired statehood
in 1850, followed by Nevada in 186 4, Colorado in 1876, Wyoming
in 1890, Utah in 1896, but the more densely populated Arizona and
New Mexico not until 1912.
The Land Ordinance of I]85 had established a national system
for surveying and distributing land, and as one historian has noted,
"Under the May 1785 ordinance, Indian land would be auctioned off
to the highest bidder."13 The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 , albeit
guaranteeing Indigenous occupancy and title, set forth an evolution
ary colonization procedure for annexation via military occupation,
territorial status, and finally statehood. Conditions for statehood
would be achieved when the settlers outnumbered the Indigenous
population, which in the cases of both the Mexican cession area and
the Louisiana Purchase territory required decimation or forced re
moval of Indigenous populations. In this US system, unique among
colonial powers, land became the most important exchange com
modity for the accumulation of capital and building of the national
treasury. To understand the genocidal policy of the US government,
the centrality of land sales in building the economic base of the US
wealth and power must be seen. Apologists for US expansionism see
the 1787 ordinance not as a reflection of colonialism, but rather as
a means of "reconciling the problem of liberty with the problem of
empire," in historian Howard Lamar's words.14
Following the Mexican War, the United States faced problems
more pressing than that of reconciling conflicting ideologies. For
one thing, the vast majority in the annexed territory were Indigenous
peoples or Mexican farmers and ranchers, landed communities. As
for the Navajos, Apaches, and Utes who had resisted for centuries all
colonization efforts by the Spanish and then the Mexican authori
ties, they continued to resist the new colonial regime. To understand
how the peoples of these regions responded to the US invasion and
conquest, and to understand their particular relationship with the
United States today, it is essential to understand their history under
Spanish colonization.