Subjugated Lands: Internment, Colonization, and Development on the Colorado River Indian Reservation, 1942-1960

“Subjugated Lands” explores the internment camp turned “colonization project” on the Colorado River Indian Reservation near Parker, Arizona. The largest of the Japanese internment camps, the Colorado River Relocation Center, known as Poston, opened in 1942 as one of the largest of the ten sites throughout the United States. Then in 1945, even before all the Japanese had been released, the Office of Indian Affairs began colonization efforts to settle the former internment camp, comprising of families from nearby Indian reservations that had little to no economic resources. The Office of Indian Affairs’ goal was to provide these families with land made cultivable because of Japanese labor. Scholars who have written about Poston acknowledge that it had a dual purpose but they claim that the site’s repurposing was decided only after internment ended. This thesis challenges the chronology of Poston’s operation, arguing instead that administrators in the Office of Indian Affairs along with other government agencies such as the War Relocation Authority and Bureau of Reclamation had in reality long strategized to create a program in the region that would increase agricultural production, irrigation, and Indian self- sustainability. They used Japanese internment to actualize their efforts, and the idea of an “Indian colony,” coupled with the historic struggles to develop the land even as it was conceived as a reservation, was the driving factor for Poston’s unique placement. This thesis also explores the extent to which the government was able to achieve its long-term goals up until a new phase of economic development on the reservation in 1960.