Readers React: Yosemite was stolen, but John Muir still deserves praise

To the editor: Daniel Duane’s historical account of the genocidal antecedents to American wilderness preservation may be accurate, but in 2015, it amounts to little more than hand-wringing liberal guilt. (“The armed theft of John Muir’s Yosemite,” Opinion, Dec. 24)

While it is right to acknowledge and confront this ugly history, we must also remember that the real option for places like Yosemite Valley in John Muir’s time was either to protect it or to leave it to be trashed, plundered and zipper cut with logging roads and clearcuts.

Early wilderness preservationists like Muir were scrambling to save what precious little land was left in the continental U.S. from the ravages of industrial development that was sure to come without these conservation efforts.

We can both acknowledge the “violent history” of Yosemite — where indigenous populations were wiped out before conservationists arrived in the 19th century — and John Muir for saving it.

Paul Keeling, Del Mar, Calif.

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