The establishment of national parks in America was used to justify the removal of Native peoples from their ancestral lands, despite a prevalent knowledge that these lands were historically utilized by these communities. Even influential advocates of the national park system, such as Samuel Bowes, attempted to rationalize these actions.
The speaker shares personal experiences of witnessing American tourists showing entitlement and cultural ignorance while traveling abroad, including expecting everyone to speak English in non-English-speaking countries.
The establishment of national parks in the United States involved the removal of native peoples from their lands, with a belief that the wilderness areas were never actually used by the natives, viewing them as a disease that had to be eradicated from the landscape, all under the justification of establishing those same places as national parks.
The establishment of Yellowstone National Park in 1872 triggered a conflict between Native tribes and white settlers, leading to the forceful removal of Natives through violence, broken treaties, and starvation. Native peoples were systematically removed from national park lands and historically oppressed in other ways.