Long Walk of the Navajo - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Long Walk of the Navajo, also called the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo , refers to the 1864 deportation of the Navajo people

Navajo people

The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...

by the U.S. Government. Navajos were forced to walk at gunpoint from their reservation in what is now Arizona

New Mexico Territory

thumb|right|240px|Proposed boundaries for State of New Mexico, 1850The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of...

to eastern New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

. The trip lasted about 18 days. Sometimes the term "Long Walk" includes all the time the Navajo were away from the land of their ancestors, who had arrived there in the 16th century, according to western anthropologists.

Background

The traditional Navajo homeland is called, in the Navajo language

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...

, Dinétah
Dinetah
Dinétah is the traditional homeland of the Navajo tribe of Native Americans. In the Navajo language, the word means "among the people" or "among the Navajo"...

and included land within the borders of the four sacred mountains, from northeastern Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

through western New Mexico, including Canyon de Chelly

Canyon de Chelly National Monument

Canyon de Chelly National Monument was established on April 1, 1931 as a unit of the National Park Service. It is located in northeastern Arizona within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation...

, where they had houses and raised livestock. There was a long historical pattern in the Southwest of groups or bands raiding and trading with each other. This included Navajo, Spanish, Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, Apache

Apache

Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...

, Comanche

Comanche

The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...

, Ute

Ute Tribe

The Ute are an American Indian people now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah ; Southern Ute in Colorado ; and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico . The name of the state of...

, and later (1846) the new settlers (Americans). Events in the period between 1846 and 1863 included a cycle of treaties, raids and counter-raids by the Army, the Navajo and a civilian militia, with civilian speculators often on the fringe. Most of the militia involved were long time enemies of the Navajo, Spanish descendants from northern New Mexico where Spain had established several settlements in the 16th century.

Hostilities between the Navajo and Spanish colonists began in the late 16th century. They escalated between the Americans and Navajos following the scalping of the respected Navajo leader Narbona

Narbona

Narbona was a Navajo chief who participated in the Navajo Wars. He was killed in a confrontation with U.S. soldiers on August 30th, 1849....

in 1849. In August 1851, Colonel Edwin Vose Sumner established Fort Defiance

Fort Defiance, Arizona

Fort Defiance is a census-designated place in Apache County, Arizona, United States. The population was 4,061 at the 2000 census.- History :...

for the U.S. Government(near present-day Window Rock, Arizona

Window Rock, Arizona

Window Rock is the seat of government and capital of the Navajo Nation, the largest territory of a sovereign Native American nation in North America. Window Rock contains the Navajo Nation Council, the Navajo Nation Zoological and Botanical Park, as well as the Navajo Nation World War II Memorial...

) and Fort Wingate

Fort Wingate

Fort Wingate is near Gallup, New Mexico. There were two locations in New Mexico that had this name. The first one was located near San Rafael. The current fort was established on the southern edge of the Navajo territory in 1862. The initial purpose of the fort was to control the large Navajo...

(originally Fort Fauntleroy near Gallup, New Mexico

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...

). The Bonneville Treaty of 1858 reduced the extent of Navajo land. There were also treaties negotiated and signed in 1849, 1858 and 1861, but they all failed.

There are many examples of friction between these groups between 1846 and 1863. They include the murder of a personal servant of Major Brooks

William T. H. Brooks

William Thomas Harbaugh Brooks was a career military officer in the United States Army, serving as a major general during the American Civil War.-Early life:...

, commander of Fort Defiance, by an arrow in the back on July 12, 1858 for the slaughter of the Navajo livestock on the grazing grounds. There was an attack on Fort Defiance by about 1,000 Navajo warriors under the leadership of Manuelito

Manuelito

Manuelito was one of the principal war chiefs of the Navajo people before, during and after the Long Walk Period. His name means Little Manuel in Spanish. He was born to the Clan, near the Bear's Ears in southeastern Utah about 1818. As any Navajo, he was known by different names depending upon...

and Barboncito

Barboncito

Barboncito was a famous Navajo political and spiritual leader. His name means poorly groomed child in Spanish. He also was known as , , , and...

on April 30, 1860. Navajos were angry that the Army was bringing in troops to wage war, flogged a Navajo messenger, had opened fire on tribal headsman, Agua Chiquito, during talks for peace on January 21. The army had refused to bring in feed for their many animals and took over the grazing land after killing Manuelito's livestock, which was not covered by their treaty. The army was allowing raiding and stealing of livestock and capture of Navajo tribal members by other tribes and New Mexicans resulting in the enslavement of captives. A new treaty was signed about February 15, 1861, to pacify the Navajo, but two of their four sacred mountains were lost to them, as well as about one third of their traditionally held land. In March, a company of 52 citizens led by Jose Manuel Sanchez drove off a bunch of Navajo horses, but Captain Wingate followed the trail and recovered the horses for the Navajo, who had killed Sanchez. Another group of citizens ravaged Navajo rancherias in the vicinity of Beautiful Mountain. Also during this time, a party of Mexicans and Pueblo Indians captured 12 Navajo in a raid, and three were brought in.

On August 9, a Spaniard named Lt. Col. Manuel Antonio Chaves

Manuel Antonio Chaves

Manuel Antonio Chaves or Chávez , known as El Leoncito , was a soldier in the Mexican Army and then became a rancher who lived in New Mexico. His life was full of incident, and his courage and marksmanship became literally legendary in his own time...

of the New Mexico Volunteer Militia took command of a garrison of three companies numbering 7 officers and 203 men at Ft. Fauntleroy. Chaves was later accused of being prodigal in dispensing his post's supplies to the 1000 or more Navajos that had remained close to the fort, and was remarkably lax in maintaining discipline. Horse races began on September 10 and continued into the late afternoon of September 13. Col. Chaves permitted Post Sutler A. W. Kavanaugh to supply liquor freely to the Navajos. There was a dispute about which horse won a race. A shot rang out, followed by a fusillade. Almost immediately 200 well-armed and mounted Navajo advanced towards the Guard, shooting at the men. They were fired upon by the soldiers, and scattered leaving 12 dead bodies and forty prisoners. On hearing this, Gen. Canby demanded a full report from Chaves, who did not comply. Col. Canby sent Captain Andrew W. Evans to the fort, named Fort Lyon since September 25, and he took command. Manuel Chaves, suspended from command, was confined to the limits of Albuquerque pending court martial. Four years later, a Congressional committee investigating the conditions at Ft. Sumner, heard testimony that the Ft. Fauntleroy episode of the horse race resulted in mountain howitzers being fired at the Indians, resulting in 20 or 30 being killed. A few days later another soldier testified that on the day of the horse race, he saw a soldier murdering two little children and a woman and tried to stop him, but was prevented by a Lt. Ortiz. He also said 12 or 15 Navajos were killed. The rest scattered and the peace that had been hoped for was impossible. In February 1861, Manuel Chaves of the New Mexico Volunteer Militia took the field with 400 men and ransacked Navajo land, basically without federal authority.

With Confederate

Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...

troops moving into southern New Mexico, Col. Canby sent Agent John Ward into Navajo lands to persuade any who might be friendly to move to a central encampment near the village of Cubero where they would be offered the protection of the government. Ward was also instructed to warn all Navajos who refused to come in that they would be treated as enemies; he was partly successful. Captain Evans was overseeing the abandonment of Ft. Lyon and had been told that the new policy would be that the Navajo had to colonize in settlements or pueblos, mentioning the region of the Little Colorado west of Zuni

Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico

Zuni Pueblo is a census-designated place in McKinley County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 6,367 at the 2000 census...

as possibly an ideal place. In November, some Navajo were raiding again. On Dec. 1, Col. Canby wrote to his superior in St. Louis that "there is no choice between their absolute extermination or their removal and colonization at points so remote as to isolate them entirely from the inhabitants of the Territory." (McNitt, pp. 414–429)

By 1862, the Union Army

Union Army

The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...

had pushed the Confederates

Confederate States Army

The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...

down the Rio Grande

Rio Grande

The Rio Grande is a river that flows from southwestern Colorado in the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way it forms part of the Mexico – United States border. Its length varies as its course changes...

. The United States government again turned its attention to the Navajos, determined to eliminate Navajo raiding and raids on the Navajo.

Col. Jackson was ordered to relieve Canby as the Commander for the New Mexico Military Department in September 1862. Carleton gave the orders to Kit Carson

Kit Carson

Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson was an American frontiersman and Indian fighter. Carson left home in rural present-day Missouri at age 16 and became a Mountain man and trapper in the West. Carson explored the west to California, and north through the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married...

to proceed to Navajo territory and to receive the Navajo surrender on July 20, 1863. When no Navajos showed up, Carson and another officer entered Navajo territory in an attempt to persuade Navajos to surrender, and used a scorched earth

Scorched earth

A scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area...

campaign to starve the Navajo out of their traditional homeland and force them to surrender. He was partly successful by early 1863, when thousands of Navajo began surrendering to the Army.

Some Navajos evaded and refused to surrender to the U. S. Army. These groups scattered to Navajo Mountain

Navajo Mountain

Navajo Mountain is a peak in San Juan County, Utah, with its southern flank extending into Coconino County, Arizona. It holds an important place in the traditions of three local Native American tribes.-Geologic history:...

, the Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, the 15th national park in the United States...

, the territory of the Chiricahua

Chiricahua

Chiricahua are a group of Apache Native Americans who live in the Southwest United States. At the time of European encounter, they were living in 15 million acres of territory in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona in the United States, and in northern Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico...

Apache, and to parts of Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

Long Walk

The Long Walks started in January 1864. Bands of Navajo led by the Army were relocated from their traditional lands in eastern Arizona Territory and western New Mexico Territory to Fort Sumner (in an area called the Bosque Redondo or by the Navajo) in the Pecos River valley. Bosque Redondo means "round forest" in the Spanish language. At least 200 died along the 450-mile (500 km) trek that took over 18 days to travel on foot. Between 8,000 and 9,000 people were settled on an area of 40 square miles (104 km²), with a peak population of 9,022 by the spring of 1865.

There were actually three groups, taking their own path. They each took a different path but were on the same trail and when returning to the Navajo lands they reformed their group to become one, this group was ten miles (16 km) long.

Bosque Redondo

Like some internment camps involving several tribes, the Bosque Redondo had serious problems. About 400 Mescalero

Mescalero

Mescalero is an Apache tribe of Southern Athabaskan Native Americans. The tribe is federally recognized as the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Apache Reservation in southcentral New Mexico...

Apache

s were placed there before the Navajos. The Mescaleros and the Navajo had a long tradition of raiding each other; the two tribes had many disputes during their encampment. Furthermore, the initial plan was for around 5,000 people, certainly not 10,000 men, women and children. Water and firewood were major issues from the start; the water was brackish and the round grove of trees was quite small. Nature and humans both caused crop failures every year. The corn crop was infested with army worm

Army worm

The Fall Armyworm is part of the order of Lepidoptera and is the caterpillar life stage of a moth. It is regarded as a pest and can wreak havoc with crops if left to multiply. Its name is derived from its feeding habits...

s and failed repeatedly. The Pecos River flooded and washed out the head gates of the irrigation system. In 1865 Navajo began leaving. By 1867 the remaining Navajo refused to plant a crop. Comanche

Comanche

s raided them frequently, and they raided the Comanche, once stealing over 1000 horses. The non-Indian settlers also suffered from the raiding parties who were trying to feed their starving people on the Bosque Redondo. And there was inept management of what supplies were purchased for the reservation

Indian reservation

An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...

. In 1868, the experiment—meant to be the first Indian reservation

Indian reservation

An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...

west of Indian Territory

Indian Territory

The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...

—was abandoned.

Treaty of Bosque Redondo

The Treaty of Bosque Redondo between the United States and many of the Navajo leaders was concluded at Ft. Sumner on June 1, 1868. Some of the provisions included establishing a reservation, restrictions on raiding, a resident Indian Agent and agency, compulsory education for children, the supply of seeds, agricultural implements and other provisions, rights of the Navajos to be protected, establishment of railroads and forts, compensation to tribal members, and arrangements for the return of Navajos to the reservation established by the treaty. The Navajo agreed for 10 years to send their children to school and the US government agreed to establish schools with teachers for every 30 Navajo children. The US government also promised for 10 years to make annual deliveries of things the Navajos could not make for themselves.

The signers of the document were: W.T. Sherman (Lt. General), S.F. Tappan (Indian Peace Commissioner), Navajos Barboncito

Barboncito

Barboncito was a famous Navajo political and spiritual leader. His name means poorly groomed child in Spanish. He also was known as , , , and...

(Chief), Armijo, Delgado, Manuelito

Manuelito

, Largo, Herrero, Chiquito, Muerte de Hombre, Hombro, Narbono, Narbono Segundo and Ganado Mucho. Those who attested the document included Theo. H. Dodd (Indian Agent) and B. S. Roberts (General 3rd Cav).

Return and end of Long Walk

On June 18, 1868, the once-scattered bands of people who called themselves Diné, set off together on the return journey, the "Long Walk" home. This is one of the few instances where the U.S. government relocated a tribe to their traditional boundaries. The Navajos were granted 3.5 million acres (14,000 km²) of land inside their four sacred mountains. The Navajos also became a more cohesive tribe after the Long Walk and were able to successfully increase the size of their reservation since then, to over 16 million acres (70,000 km²).

After relating 20 pages of material concerning the Long Walk, Howard Gorman, age 73 at the time, concluded:

"As I have said, our ancestors were taken captive and driven to for no reason at all. They were harmless people, and, even to date, we are the same, holding no harm for anybody...Many Navajos who know our history and the story of say the same." (Navajo Stories of the Long Walk)

External links

New Mexico State University: The Long Walk