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Road to Chinle October 17, 2008 |
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| In the Mexican-American War of 1847, one colonial power replaced the other. The Navajo, however, refused to succumb to the new aggressor. Though numerous treaties between the Navajo and the US were signed, few were ratified by Congress, constraining the Navajo to adhere to their part while the US ignored its obligations, and nowhere was the most important issue to the Diné addressed: the matter that gradually half of the tribe was being sold into private slavery by the New Mexicans.The US established forts on Navajo territory, ostensibly to protect citizens and Navajo from each other; however the mutual raids, cattle theft and kidnappings of previous years continued. At times, a few brave American individuals - Capt. Henry Linn Dodge for example - worked hard together with their Navajo headman counterparts to establish peace and prosperity, and to a significant degree of success. But with the continuing breaches of treaties on the American side, and the failure of the US Army to protect the Navajo from their Ute and Mexican neighbors, violence eventually escalated again as Navajo bands resumed reprisal raids. Beginning 1861, US government forces under Gen. James Carleton intervened directly, and together with a militia of citizen volunteers, pillaged the countryside, destroying people, crops, livestock and homes. | ||
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The 'scorched earth' campaign was an - at least partially, temporarily - successful exercise in ethnic cleansing. While many Navajo refused to surrender, and
migrated off to remote locations, many thousands surrendered to the US Army. It was that, or starve.
The 8000-9000 who surrendered were forced on a 18 day, 300 mile march - known as the Long Walk - on which 200 people, the weak, elderly, sick, died, for resettlement in a "reservation" named Bosque Redondo - or Hwééldi in Navajio - in Southeastern New Mexico. For many reasons this camp was unsustainable: it was much too small, for one thing, designed for 5000; for another, some 400 Mescalero Apaches inimical to the Navajos were already settled there; a series of forseeable crop failures in a barren land unfit for cultivation and hundreds of starvation deaths showed that long term sustenance was not possible; and there was no peace with the nearby Comanches - Bosque Redondo was strategically placed to absorb Comanchee raids otherwise destined for the New Mexican population to the South. Finally after four years of disease and starvation, in 1868, the venture was declared a failure and called off after closer examination by Washington, a reverse long walk was organized, and (after it was established that there was no gold here after all?) the Navajo were allowed to return to a small (14,000 km2) portion of their traditional land, which was later increased to its present size. | ||
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