Upstream: Trust Lands and Power on the Feather River

Product Description

From Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara lands in South Dakota; to Cherokee lands in Tennessee; to Sin-Aikst, Lakes, and Colville lands in Washington; to Chemehuevi lands in Arizona; to Maidu, Pit River, and Wintu lands in northern California, Native lands and communities have been treated as sacrifice zones for national priorities of irrigation, flood control, and hydroelectric development.

Upstream documents the significance of the Allotment Era to a long and ongoing history of cultural and community disruption. It also details Indigenous resistance to both hydropower and disruptive conservation efforts. With a focus on northeastern California, this book highlights points of intervention to increase justice for Indigenous peoples in contemporary natural resource policy making.

Author Beth Rose Middleton Manning relates the history behind the nation’s largest state-built water and power conveyance system, California’s State Water Project, with a focus on Indigenous resistance and activism. She illustrates how Indigenous history should inform contemporary conservation measures and reveals institutionalized injustices in natural resource planning and the persistent need for advocacy for Indigenous restitution and recognition.

Upstream uses a multidisciplinary and multitemporal approach, weaving together compelling stories with a study of placemaking and land development. It offers a vision of policy reform that will lead to improved Indigenous futures at sites of Indigenous land and water divestiture around the nation.

Review

“Upstream tackles the timely and significant topic of Indigenous resistance and activism with respect to damming, diversion, and hydropower development in northern California. Middleton Manning interweaves her study of place-making and land development with compelling stories.”—Kate A. Berry, co-editor of Social Participation in Water Governance and Management: Critical and Global Perspectives “This book is a must-read in particular for wilderness advocates and others who don’t see a role for justice for Native peoples in their brand of nature stewardship. Middleton Manning shows that Native American history should inform contemporary conservation.”—Lynn Huntsinger, Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley

About the Author

Beth Rose Middleton Manning is an associate professor of Native American studies at the University of California, Davis. Her first book,
Trust in the Land: New Directions in Tribal Conservation, focused on Native applications of conservation easements.