First an historical snippet of the white man in the US Southwest. 1847 “Brigham Young leads first company of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley, beginning the settlement of communities throughout the Great Basin. At the time, the territory was part of Mexico.”
1848 – Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo :
It gave the United States the Rio Grande boundary for Texas, and gave the U.S. ownership of California, and a large area comprising New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado. Mexicans in those annexed areas had the choice of relocating to Mexico or receiving American citizenship with full civil rights; over 90% remained.
1864 (10/31/64) – Nevada admitted to the Union.
Third. That the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States; and that lands belonging to citizens of the United States, residing without the said state, shall never be taxed higher than the land belonging to the residents thereof; and that no taxes shall be imposed by said state on lands or property therein belonging to, or which may hereafter be purchased by, the United States, unless otherwise provided by the congress of the United States.
1867 – NBC News report “Congress transfers the northwestern corner of the Arizona Territory to Nevada, including what is now Clark County.” (A state boundary and not an ownership change to federal lands.)
1877 – Bunkerville, NV established by Mormon polygamous pioneers from the Utah territory (not admitted to the Union until 1896). Pioneer leader Edward Bunker left in 1901 to establish a new Mormon colony, Colonia Morelos, Sonora, Mexico.
Cliven Bundy claims that his ancestors began ranching in and around Bunkerville shortly after it was founded. If there were any early Bundy ancestors in Bunkerville, I can’t find them. But his mother’s ancestors stretch back to Dudley Leavitt and James William Huntsman and they were there in Bunkerville’s early days. However, as his maternal ancestors had very large families and the Mormon culture is patriarchal, it’s difficult to accept that ranch land and homesteads were passed down through several generations of women to Cliven Bundy.
The Mormon Bundy clan seem to originate with Cliven’s great-grandfather was Abraham Bundy (1859 -1946 born in Illinois and died in Mt. Trumbull, AZ) married Ella Anderson (1865-1946 born Illinois; died St. George, Utah)
His grandfather (Abraham’s son) was Roy Bundy (1885-1959 – born Willow Island, Dawson, Nebraska. Married Doretta Iversaon (1987-1977 born and died in Utah) Grandma Doretta Bundy recorded her memories.
[visited Bunkerville for dances]…
About that time (1901) many people moved to Old Mexico Abraham Bundy moved his family down there. A few years later, Martin my older brother, followed them and married Lillie Belle Bundy and brought her back to Arizona. Then in about two years Roy Bundy came up to see his sister and his old stomping ground. I was eighteen at that time. … Roy and I exchanged letters during the next two years, and in the fall of 1907 on September 5, we were married in the St. George Temple, and moved to Mexico.[1912]…the U. S. Government gave all the refugees transportation any where in the U. S. that they wished to go to, we moved to Oregon, too, but only stayed there a couple of months before deciding to move to Kaolin, Nevada. …
From there they moved to Mt. Trumbull, AZ in 1916 where Cliven’s father David Ammon Bundy was born. And where they seemed to have stayed until sometime in the 1940s. David Bundy (1922-1997; buried Bunkerville, NV) married Margaret Bodel Jenson.
What’s with all these rightwingers parsing the US and Nevada Constitutions to support Cliven Bundy’s phony ancestral claim? Perhaps we could consider what some of his ancestors may have been doing before 1880?
By 1870, native resistance had been largely quelled by Mormon paramilitary action, the “Treaty of Mount Trumbull” and the establishment of several Paiute reservations.
Update #1 – Validation of my call: Bundy’s Ancestral Rights Come Under Scrutiny.
…Clark County property records show Cliven Bundy’s parents moved from Bundyville, Arizona and bought the 160 acre ranch in 1948 from Raoul and Ruth Leavitt.
Water rights were transferred too, but only to the ranch, not the federally managed land surrounding it. Court records show Bundy family cattle didn’t start grazing on that land until 1954.
Note: Mt. Trumbull and Bundyville are the same place.
There’s more about Cliven Bundy’s bs in the above linked 8NewsNow report. It also fleshes out the true ancestral land issue:
The local Paiute Indians were forced into reservations by federal troops in 1875. Two years prior, the tribe was promised the same land Cliven Bundy now grows his melons ,and until recently, grazed his cattle.
You write:
So.
You mean that his mother’s ancestors were not his? Funny, that’s not how it works in most families.
Oh.
Wait.
I forgot.
Your mind is already made up.
Sorry.
Nevermind.
Yore friend…
Emily Litella
P.S. Keep trying. Where do you live? Where did you grow up? What land in the U.S. was not stolen from its original inhabitants? How can you live with yourself, residing on stolen land? How did your ancestors get their property? Were your mother’s ancestors your ancestors? And so on.
Just askin’…
GMAFB. All I’ve done is tackle one aspect of Cliven Bundy’s story that the media has accepted as fact without checking it out. Confirming that Bundy has some ancestors that inhabited Bunkerville some time around 1880 only says that technically the ancestors in Bunkerville in the late 19th century isn’t a lie. Very thin gruel considering that all of us have ancestors that lived somewhere in 1880. And in Bundy’s case, it’s legally irrelevant. He trumpets this fact as PR to gain support from people too stupid not to ask any questions about his family’s story. People that assume from that fact that his ancestors have been continuously ranching and grazing on this federal land since that time. Where’s the evidence that any of his ancestors were ranchers? That he is a direct descendant of a family of 1880 Bunkerville colonists that never left Bunkerville?
The story of how and when Cliven Bundy acquired the Bundy Ranch has not been disclosed – but it couldn’t have been Bundy property before the mid-1940s and may have been much later than that. His maternal grandmother, Abigail Christina (Abbott) Jensen (1891-1960) was born in Bunkerville, but it appears that she, her father and siblings all left Bunkerville which seems clear enough from the Huntsman family record. Cliven’s mother was most likely born and raised in Mesquite, NV (as her sister was) Thus, Cliven is not a direct descendant of continuous Bunkerville ranchers. “My daddy bought this ranch in 1950 (with the GI bill)” or “I bought this ranch in 1975” doesn’t have the same cachet as “my ancestors have been here since 1880” does it?
Have to wonder if those Oath Keepers that have armed themselves and rushed to Cliven’s defense bothered to ask if ole Cliven is a veteran or did somebody else serve for him in Vietnam?
—
Lifelong Californian (except for four dreadful years in PA). Your other questions don’t merit a response. But unlike Cliven, the descendants of my maternal farm owning ancestors aren’t making fools of ourselves concocting some property rights that never existed.
Your libertoon (CPAC white guys) position has now put you in the company of those that planned to use women as human shields in their manufactured battle with the BLM. That’s such ugly and scary shit that I don’t want to have any further interaction with you on this blog or anywhere else.
Human shields?
That’s your take. A sexist take, or at the very least a take that based on the assumption of sexism on the part of the male ranchers.
What were they going to do, hogtie the women and force them into the front lines? Maybe the women wanted to be there. Did that ever occur to you? Probably not, because you obviously have no appetite for confrontation with the forces that are ruining all of our lives. Yours included.
Maybe those women were ready to fight. My mother would have been there had she lived in that area. Voluntarily. Bet on it. She and my father left the U.S. in the late ’30s to join the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Battle of Britain. She was a radar operator during the blitz and my father flew Spitfires. There are good wars and not-so-good-wars. This opposition to the PermaGov is a good war as far as I can see. The U.S. is being consumed by corporate interests that use massive force…force of arms and force of money…to take whatever they damned please. You watch, Marie. This kind of resistance is going to spread, and fast. The cities are the next field of battle.
Watch.
AG
The Cliven Bundy Bible
Publisher NCCS
What he really thinks – because he has 1st Amendment rights under a constitution that he doesn’t recognize. — According to NYTime’s Adam Nagourney via WAPO
Still want to know if he has received any direct government subsidies – Medicaid (pregnancy and delivery of fourteen children isn’t cheap), Food Stamps (feeding sixteen people isn’t cheap), Medicare (he’s 67 years old), Social Security (he’s 67 years old).
More — from the Las Vegas Review-Journal
A check of Clark County property records by another reporter indicated that what became the Bundy Ranch was purchased in 1948 and not 1949. Also, it would have been Cliven’s mother’s father and not his mother that homesteaded in Mesquite.
Not to be missed – A Day in the Life of The Negro (according to Cliven Bundy) by GenXangster.
Hope old Cliven starts ‘splainin his religion to the country. That would nail the coffin shut on any Romney or Huntsman POTUS aspirations.
It’s MLK, Jr.’s fault that Cliven’s words sound racist. In Bundyville it was MLK’s job to teach “The Negro” and liberals tolerance for bigots and their habits of speech.
From 1995 Village Voice article by James Ridgeway and Jeffrey St. Clair; reprinted with update as Rage, Race and Violence on the Western Range
Add gravel thief to the charges against Bundy.