Red Rocks in Sedona, Arizona

The place we now know as Sedona, Arizona, home of the red rocks, 

was first populated about 12,000 years ago. 

Apache people came to this place about 1450 BCE and Yavapai people came here around 1300 BCE. Both groups were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer type societies. 

Both nations were forcibly removed from the valley in 1876 CE to make way for an influx of white Americans. The First Nations people, about 1500, were marched, in mid-winter, to an Indian Reservation about 300 km to the southeast. Hundreds died along the way and their survivors were interned for twenty-five years.

The rocks around Sedona are beautiful. Get away from the noise and hassle of the main drag and its T-shirts shops and time-share hustlers, and one sees how this is a special place. A sacred place. 

This is a place that allows a person to take a moment to look, to feel and take a deep breath. Sometimes even without a mobile attached to his or her ear, though that might be asking too much. This is a special place.

This place belongs to others. We should give it back.

Photos by Jim Murray.

Copyright 2014.