If You Poison Us

The supply of uranium that fueled the Cold War came largely from the Four Corners area of the United States. Some of the richest deposits were found on the Navajo Reservation. Between 1950 and 1980 as many as fifteen thousand people worked in uranium mines. About one-quarter of the miners and millers were Native Americans. Responding to an urgent plea to help defend our country, and eager to earn miners' wages, poverty-stricken Native Americans labored to feed the atomic mill. For nearly three decades in the face of growing evidence that uranium mining was dangerous, state and federal agencies avoided the responsibility for warning the miners or imposing safety measures in the mines. In this untold chapter of the U.S. government's legacy of the nuclear age, Eichstaedt reveals the sacrifices made by Native Americans to provide raw materials for the buildup of the American nuclear arsenal. He details the devastating physical, psychological, and cultural impact uranium mining has on the Navajo people and on their lands.