Indian rolling (or Injun rollin')
[Nieves, Evelyn. ]
In Navajo country, racism rides again.
' salon.com 2 September 2006.[Donaldson, Lisa Weber. ''"Indian rolling": White violence against Native Americans in Farmington, New Mexico.'' Dissertation (Publication 3220935). University of New Mexico, 2006.] is the assault, and in some cases murder, of often homeless
[Linthicum, Leslie.]
. ''Albuquerque Journal''. 19 July 2009. Accessed 2011-03-26. Navajo and
Apache individuals committed by non-Indians in the
Southwestern United States, especially in the border towns surrounding the
Navajo Nation
The Navajo Nation ( nv, Naabeehó Bináhásdzo), also known as Navajoland, is a Native American reservation in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah; at roughly , the ...
and
Jicarilla lands.
In her 2006 dissertation, Lisa Donaldson classifies ''Indian rolling'' as a "thrill-seeking hate crime" and traces its roots to the colonization of the Southwest which created a "power differential between groups that led to negative feelings toward minorities among law enforcement and local citizens".
The assaults, which often target comparatively defenseless alcoholic men, are variously described as "rites of passage",
"sport",
[Linthicum, Leslie. ]
Farmington Struggles With Civil Rights Issues.
' Albuquerque Journal. 1 May 2004. Accessed 2011-03-26. and a "recreational pastime"
to the perpetrators.
Survivors report the act involves being assaulted with rocks,
pellet gun
A pellet is a non-spherical projectile designed to be shot from an air gun, and an airgun that shoots such pellets is commonly known as a pellet gun. Air gun pellets differ from bullets and shot used in firearms in terms of the pressures encounte ...
s, bottles, eggs, and baseball bats. Victims claim, furthermore, that law enforcement officials often refuse to intervene.
[Banish, Laura. ''Homeless: ‘Indian rolling’ still takes place today.'' The Daily Times. Farmington. 23 April 2004.]
The term first came to public notoriety in the spring of 1974 when three Navajos were beaten and murdered
by white teenagers in the city of
Farmington, New Mexico
Farmington is a city in San Juan County in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2020 census the city had a total population of 46,624 people. Farmington (and surrounding San Juan County) makes up one of the four Metropolitan Statistical Area ...
, and their mutilated bodies were subsequently found in a nearby canyon.
The perpetrators were not convicted of murder but were sent to a
reform school
A reform school was a penal institution, generally for teenagers mainly operating between 1830 and 1900.
In the United Kingdom and its colonies reformatories commonly called reform schools were set up from 1854 onwards for youngsters who wer ...
. Subsequent protests by tribal members turned into riots when permits to march peacefully were revoked or not granted.
[Research Report: Navajo Community and Farmington, New Mexico (2006).](_blank)
The Pluralism Project at Harvard University. Accessed 2011-03-26. The incident triggered a report by the New Mexico Advisory Committee to the
United States Commission on Civil Rights
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (CCR) is a bipartisan, independent commission of the United States federal government, created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957 during the Eisenhower administration, that is charged with the responsibility fo ...
and inspired the
true crime
True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people associated with and affected by criminal events.
The crimes most commonly include murder; about 40 pe ...
-novel ''The Broken Circle—A True Story of Murder and Magic in Indian Country'' by Rodney Barker.
[Barker, Rodney. ''The Broken Circle—A True Story of Murder and Magic in Indian Country.'' Simon & Schuster. New York: 1992.]
Concerns about the practice's revival emerged in the 1970s to 2000s after a resurgence of attacks against Native Americans in the area.
[Draper, Electa. ''Attacks recall racist history of N.M. town.'' Denver Post. 13 July 2006.] Assaults have allegedly taken place in the Arizona cities of
Flagstaff,
Phoenix
Phoenix most often refers to:
* Phoenix (mythology), a legendary bird from ancient Greek folklore
* Phoenix, Arizona, a city in the United States
Phoenix may also refer to:
Mythology
Greek mythological figures
* Phoenix (son of Amyntor), a ...
, and
Page
Page most commonly refers to:
* Page (paper), one side of a leaf of paper, as in a book
Page, PAGE, pages, or paging may also refer to:
Roles
* Page (assistance occupation), a professional occupation
* Page (servant), traditionally a young m ...
and in
Gallup, New Mexico.
See also
*
Hate crime
*
Lynching
*
Saskatoon freezing deaths
The Saskatoon freezing deaths were a series of suspicious deaths of Indigenous Canadians in and immediately outside of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in the 1990s and early 2000s, which were confirmed to have been caused by members of the Saskatoon P ...
*
Police brutality against Native Americans
*
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) is an epidemic of violence against Indigenous women in Canada, the United States, and Latin America; notably those in the FNIM (First Nations in Canada, First Nations, Inuit, Métis) and Native Amer ...
References
{{reflist
External links
The Farmington Report: A Conflict of Cultures.New Mexico Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. 1975.
American phraseology
Euphemisms
Hate crime
Anti-indigenous racism in the United States
Navajo history
Native American topics
Violence against indigenous peoples
Alcohol and Native Americans