CA CHAPARRAL INSTITUTE • September 5, 2020
John Muir was raised by a racist and abusive father, who forced him into intensive labor logging forests on their farm as a pre-teen and beating and lashing him to force memorization of the Bible. Muir’s father viewed natural areas as places to be exploited—cut down, dug up, and put to rigorous utilitarian purpose—and saw Native Americans as an impediment to this goal. When Muir first arrived in Yosemite in 1868, it was nearly two decades after white miners and loggers, backed by militias and the U.S. government, warred upon the Native American tribes in Yosemite Valley. And, Muir began to view Native Americans, their culture, and the way they lived in harmony with Nature, with growing respect. In 1871, he quit his job in the logging industry[vii] and began his personal and professional transformation. John Muir the environmental advocate was born.