Henry Chee Dodge
Encyclopedia
Henry Chee Dodge also known in Navajo
Navajo language
Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...

 by his nicknames (~ "Mister Interpreter") and ("Red Boy"), was chairman of the Navajo Business Council from 1922 until 1928, and chairman of the then Navajo Tribal Council
Navajo Tribal Council
The Navajo Nation Council is the legislative branch of the Navajo Nation government. As stipulated in the Navajo Nation Code, "The Legislative Branch shall consist of the Navajo Nation Council and any entity established under the Navajo Nation Council...

 from 1942 until 1946. Thereafter, he became the first and only Navajo politician elected vice-president who died before being able to take office. He was the father of Thomas Dodge
Thomas Dodge
Thomas Dodge was born in 1900, the son of Henry Chee Dodge and half-brother of Annie Dodge Wauneka. He earned a law degree from St. Louis University Law School after which he took up a private practice in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was elected to the Navajo Tribal Council in 1933 and served as the...

, who served as Tribal Council chairman from 1932 until 1936, and activist Annie Dodge Wauneka
Annie Dodge Wauneka
Annie Dodge Wauneka was an influential member of the Navajo Nation as member of the Navajo Nation Council. As a member and three term head of the Council's Health and Welfare Committee, she worked to improve the health and education of the Navajo. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom...

.

Biography

Dodge was born around 1860 near (Fort Defiance) into the clan; his father was of Mexican
Mexican people
Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....

 ancestry. There is speculation that he was actually born three years earlier and that he was the son of Indian Agent Henry L. Dodge, known in Navajo as .

During the Long Walk
Long Walk of the Navajo
The Long Walk of the Navajo, also called the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo , refers to the 1864 deportation of the Navajo people by the U.S. Government. Navajos were forced to walk at gunpoint from their reservation in what is now Arizona to eastern New Mexico. The trip lasted about 18 days...

 of 1864, Dodge got separated from his mother, was taken in by a family who found him wandering around as an orphan, and he was subsequently raised by his aunt. As his step-uncle was Anglo-American, the young Chee quickly became fluent in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 and eventually replaced Jesus Arviso as the official Navajo interpreter to the U.S. military.

In 1883, Dodge became head of the Navajo Tribal Police
Navajo Tribal Police
The Navajo Nation Police is the law enforcement agency on the Navajo Nation in the Southwestern United States. It is under the Navajo Division of Public Safety. It is headed by a Chief of Police, six Police Captains and eight Police Lieutenants...

, and a year later, he was appointed "Head Chief of the Navajo" by the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...

 — a position and title that had no basis in traditional Navajo concepts of governance and was presented to the people as "". When he became the first chairman of the Navajo Business Council in 1922, Dodge managed to secure over one million dollars in royalties for the Navajo Nation, but caved to demands for giving oil-drilling rights to Anglo-companies. Most Navajos were unaware of the council's existence, and its main function was to rubber-stamp the decisions of the local Indian commissioner.

In 1924, he became a citizen of the United States
Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, also known as the Snyder Act, was proposed by Representative Homer P. Snyder of New York and granted full U.S. citizenship to America's indigenous peoples, called "Indians" in this Act...

.

In 1942, he was elected chairman of the Navajo Tribal Council and served until 1946. During his tenure, he lobbied for improved education opportunities for Navajo children, and traveled to Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 to convince the Federal Government to secure more funding.

In the subsequent election of 1946, Dodge was chosen as vice-chairman, but died in January 1947 at the age of 86 or 87 before the sixth Tribal Council convened and he could take office; Zhealy Tso was appointed Vice-Chairman in his stead. Dodge was buried near his home in Fort Defiance.

Chee Dodge Elementary School in Yatahey, New Mexico and Chee Dodge Boulevard near Gallup
Gallup, New Mexico
- Demographics :As of the census of 2000, there were 20,209 people, 6,810 households, and 4,869 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,513.7 people per square mile...

are named in Dodge's honor.
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