Long Walk of the Navajo

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The Long Walk

The Long Walk of the Navajo, also called the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo, was a 20 day or more foot walk many Navajos made in 1864 to a reservation in southeastern New Mexico. Sometimes the "Long Walk" includes all the time the Navajo were away from the land of their ancestors, who had arrived there in the 16th century.

“	This story is about the long walk to Fort Sumner. There are two points of view regarding it—the White man's and the Navajo's.	”
—Howard W. Gorman, Navajo Stories of the Long Walk Period, page 42.

1 Background
2 Long Walk
3 Bosque Redondo
4 Treaty of 1868
5 Return and end of Long Walk
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Background

These lands are called, in the Navajo language, Dinétah. (Dinetah included land within the borders of the four sacred mountains, from northeastern Arizona through western New Mexico, and north into Utah and Colorado.) The Navajo cultivated crops on the fertile floors of canyons, including Canyon de Chelly, and raised sheep, which they traded or stole from the Spanish and Mexicans. There was a long historical pattern in the southwest of groups or bands raiding and trading with each other. This included Navajo, Spanish, Mexican, Pueblos, Apache, Comanche and later Americans.

The hostilities escalated with the Americans following the killing of respected Navajo leader Narbona in 1849. Treaties negotiated and signed in 1849, 1858 and 1861 were broken. In August 1851, the U.S. government established Fort Defiance (near present-day Window Rock, Arizona) and Fort Wingate (originally Fort Fauntleroy). The Bonneville Treaty of 1858 reduced the extent of Navajo land.

Typical events in the period between 1846 and 1863 included a cycle of treaties, raids and counter-raids by the Army and Navajo and a civilian militia, with civilian speculators often on the fringe. Some examples include the murder of Major Brooks's personal servant in July 1858, and an alleged raping of a Navajo by a servant of the commander of Fort Defiance, William T. H. Brooks. There was an attack on Fort Defiance by about 1,000 Navajo warriors under the leadership of Manuelito and Barboncito on April 30, 1860, who were angry that the Army did not bring in feed for their animals and often used the best grazing land. A treaty was signed on February 15, 1861, to pacify the Navajo. Then Lt. Col, Manuel Chaves of the New Mexico Volunteer Militia took the field with 400 men and ransacked Navajo land. By 1862, the Union Army had pushed the Confederates down the Rio Grande and again turned its attention to the Navajos.

The plan to relocate the Navajos to a series of reservations was first proposed by General Canby, former commander of the New Mexico Military Department. Maj. Gen. James H. Carleton was ordered to relieve Canby as the Commander for the New Mexico Military Department in September 1862. Carleton gave the orders to Kit Carson to proceed to Navajoland and to receive the Navajo surrender on July 20, 1863. When no Navajos showed up, he used a scorched earth campaign to starve the Navajo out of their traditional homeland and force them to surrender.

Some Navajos managed to escape the U. S. Army and scattered into the territory of the Chiricahua Apache, the Grand Canyon, on Navajo Mountain, and in Utah.

[edit] Long Walk

The Long Walks started in January 1863. 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 (also called the Bosque Redondo or Hwééldi by the Navajo) in the Pecos River valley. Bosque Redondo means round grove of trees in Spanish. At least 200 died along the 300-mile (500 kilometer) trek that took over 18 days to travel by foot. Between 8,000 and 9,000 people were settled on a 40 square mile (104 km²) area, with a peak population of 9,022 by the spring of 1865.

“	By slow stages we traveled eastward by present Gallup and Chusbbito, Bear Spring, which is now called Fort Wingate. You ask how they treated us? If there was room the soldiers put the women and children on the wagons. Some even let them ride behind them on their horses. I have never been able to understand a people who killed you one day and on the next played with your children...?	”
—Very Slim Man, Navajo elder, quoted by Richard Van Valkenburgh, Desert magazine, April, 1946, p. 23.

[edit] Bosque Redondo

Like some concentration camps involving several tribes, the Bosque Redondo had serious problems. About 400 Mescalero Apaches 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 9,000 men, women and children. Water and firewood were major issues from the start. Nature and humans both caused crop failures every year. Comanches raided them on a regular basis. 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. In 1868, the experiment—meant to be the first Indian reservation west of Indian Territory—was declared a failure.

[edit] Treaty of 1868

A treaty with the United States was concluded at Ft. Sumner on June 1, 1868. Some of these provisions included establishing a reservation, conditions of behavior, providing an Indian Agent and agency, compulsory education for children, suppling of seeds, agricultural implements and other provisions, rights of the Navajos to be protected, establishment of railroads and forts, compensation to and arrangement of the return of Navajo to the reservation established by treaty. The Navajo agreed for 10 years to send their children to school and the US government to establish schools with teachers for every 30 Navajo children. The US government also promised to make yearly deliveries of things the Navajos could not make for themselves for 10 years.

Signers of the document were: W.T. Sherman (Lt. General), S.F. Tappan (Indian Peace Commissioner), Navajos Barboncito (Chief), Armijo, Delgado, Manuelito, Largo, Herrero, Chiqueto, 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).

[edit] 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 Hwééldi for no reason at all. They were harmless people, and, event to date, we are the same, holding no harm for anybody...Many Navajos who know our history and the story of Hwééldi say the same." (Navajo Stories of the Long Walk)

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Bailey, Lynn R. (1970). Bosque Redondo: An American Concentration Camp. Pasadena, California: Socio-Technical Books. (No ISBN).
Bial, Raymond (2003). Great Journeys: The Long Walk—The Story of Navajo Captivity. New York: Benchmark Books. ISBN 0-7614-1322-7.
Brown, Dee (1970). Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. ISBN 0-330-23219-3.
Kelly, Lawrence (1970). Navajo Roundup. Colorado: Pruett Pub. Co. (No ISBN).
McNitt, Frank (1972). Navajo Wars. Colorado: Univ. New Mexico Press. (No ISBN).
Roberts, Susan A., and Calvin A. Roberts (1988). New Mexico. Albuquerque: Univ. New Mexico Press. ISBN 0-8263-1145-8.
Thompson, Gerald (1976). The Army and the Navajo: The Bosque Redondo Reservation Experiment 1863-1868. Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press. ISBN 0-8165-0495-4.
Compiled (1973). in Roessel, Ruth: Navajo Stories of the Long Walk Period. Tsaile, Arizona: Navajo Community College Press. ISBN 0-912586-16-8.