How Do You Mediate a Land Battle between National Counties and Native Tribes? Share a Few Stories

The following is an excerpt from Lucy Moore's new book Common Ground on Hostile Turf: Stories from an Environmental Mediator ( Island Press, 2013):

Chapter 3: The Power of Story

When I was born, my father ran out of the hospital and headed straight for his suburban garden on the outskirts of Seattle. I assume he gave me a decent welcome into the world, a beaming smile, a little male-style coo of some kind, and a brief holding of my sturdy little newborn body. But he had a special job to do. It was April. His garden was on his mind, and he didn’t want to waste a minute.

In those days, new mothers stayed in the hospital a luxurious amount of time, up to two weeks for a normal delivery. My mother enjoyed every minute of it and still talks about the divine taste of those scrambled eggs every morning, the kind nurses who educated her about how to care for her first baby, and the marvel of her little Lucy, with jet-black hair and chubby, red cheeks.

After ten days, my father brought us home. But before he allowed my mother in the house, he led her to his garden. With me in her arms, she rounded the corner of the house and saw a freshly spaded and planted area. She has told me over the years, every time with tears in her eyes, “And there was the name ‘Lucy’ planted in radishes. He had planted the seeds to spell ‘Lucy’ the day you were born, and they were just popping up, so new, so fresh—just like you.”

It is a story that I have always loved. It says something about my father, my mother, and me, who we were, how we felt about one another, what it was like back then. And, of course, I like it because it is the first story about me. It is also a “naming story.” Many cultures have rituals for naming new babies, and thanks to my father I have my own story of my naming. Had my babies been born in the right season, and in a fertile land, I might have followed in his footsteps and created a tradition, but that was not the case. And so I keep it as my own first story.

For me as a mediator, it is all about the story. Each of us is made up of our stories—stories about our ancestors, our childhoods, crises that have changed our lives, moments of insight and inspiration. 

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I have seen the impact a story can have on a group struggling to find common ground, and I am always amazed at the courage some people have to open up and tell those stories. One of my earliest experiences came in Denver in 1992.

I had been called by the director of the National Association of Counties (NACo) to bail the group out of a very tough situation. Headquartered in Washington, DC, NACo is a powerful lobbying organization dedicated to the well-being of counties and their officials and employees throughout the United States. The membership includes all elected county officials in the country—sheriffs, clerks, commissioners, and so on. A small percentage of NACo members also happen to be members of Indian communities, reservations, and nations, since many counties, especially in the western United States, include Indian lands within their borders.

The overlapping jurisdictions of tribes and counties had become a point of contention in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was too difficult, said county leadership in Wisconsin, Washington, and Utah, among other states, to try to serve county citizens when a significant piece of the county’s land base was reservation land. Expected to serve all citizens, including tribal members, they claimed the counties were denied taxation, law enforcement, and regulatory authority on Indian land. Furthermore, and this was particularly irritating, some tribes were beginning to compete with local government, setting up businesses, attracting county dollars to casinos, and levying their own taxes on county citizens. It was time for Native Americans to leave their entitlements behind, said these county officials, and become “regular citizens.” The disgruntled counties pressured NACo to initiate legislation that would abrogate treaties with tribes.