This study of Sino-Tibetan northern Sichuan provides a framework for understanding changes in western China's landscape and among its indigenous populations from late imperial to contemporary times. It highlights the significant role that Tibetans first had in shaping local institutions, markets, and natural landscapes, and then how the "modern" Chinese state later set its own indelible stamp on local people and environments. This is a story of the conflicts and contradictions that rise out of manipulation of peoples, ecologies, and identities.