Navajo
The Navajo are an Indigenous People of the Southwestern United States. Their language is Navajo, a Southern Athabascan language.
The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona and New Mexico. More than three-quarters of the Diné population resides in these two states.
The overwhelming majority of Diné are enrolled in the Navajo Nation. Some Diné are enrolled in the Colorado River Indian Tribes, another federally recognized tribe.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal citizens as of 2021, the Navajo Nation is the second largest federally recognized tribe in the United States. The Navajo Nation has the largest reservation in the country. The reservation straddles the Four Corners region and covers more than of land in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. The Navajo Reservation is slightly larger than the state of West Virginia.
History
Early history
The Navajo are speakers of a Na-Dené Southern Athabaskan language which they call Diné bizaad. The term Navajo comes from Spanish missionaries and historians who referred to the Pueblo Indians through this term, although they referred to themselves as the Diné, meaning ' people'. The language comprises two geographic, mutually intelligible dialects. It is closely related to the languages of the Apache; the Navajo and Apache are believed to have migrated from northwestern Canada and eastern Alaska, where the majority of Athabaskan speakers reside. Additionally, some Navajo know Navajo Sign Language, which is either a dialect or daughter of Plains Sign Talk. Some also know Plains Sign Talk itself.Southern Athabaskan peoples, including the Navajo, are thought to have descended from a southward migration of Athabaskan peoples from subarctic North America around 1,000 years ago. It has been suggested that the Navajo and Apaches may have migrated due to the effects of a volcanic explosion in the Saint Elias Mountains of Alaska around 803 AD. Part of the migration was along the Rocky Mountains before arriving in the present-day southwest United States.
Initially, the Navajo were largely hunters and gatherers. Later, they adopted farming from Pueblo people, growing mainly the traditional Native American "Three Sisters" of corn, beans, and squash. They adopted herding sheep and goats from the Spaniards as a main source of trade and food. Meat became essential in the Navajo diet. Sheep became a form of currency and familial status. Women began to spin and weave wool into blankets and clothing; they created items of highly valued artistic expression, which were also traded and sold.
Oral history indicates a long relationship with Pueblo people and a willingness to incorporate Puebloan ideas and linguistic variance. There were long-established trading practices between the groups. Mid-16th century Spanish records recount that the Pueblo exchanged maize and woven cotton goods for bison meat, hides, and stone from Athabaskans traveling to the pueblos or living nearby. In the 18th century, the Spanish reported that the Navajo maintained large herds of livestock and cultivated large crop areas.
Western historians believe that the Spanish before 1600 referred to the Navajo as Apaches or Quechos. Fray Geronimo de Zarate-Salmeron, who was in Jemez in 1622, used Apachu de Nabajo in the 1620s to refer to the people in the Chama Valley region, east of the San Juan River and northwest of present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico. Navahu comes from the Tewa language, meaning. By the 1640s, the Spanish began using the term Navajo to refer to the Diné.
During the 1670s, the Spanish wrote that the Diné lived in a region known as , about west of the Rio Chama Valley region. In the 1770s, the Spanish sent military expeditions against the Navajo in the Mount Taylor and Chuska Mountain regions of New Mexico. The Spanish, Navajo and Hopi continued to trade with each other and formed a loose alliance to fight Apache and Comanche bands for the next 20 years. During this time there were relatively minor raids by Navajo bands and Spanish citizens against each other.
In 1800, Governor Chacon led 500 men to the Tunicha Mountains against the Navajo. Twenty Navajo chiefs asked for peace. In 1804 and 1805, the Navajo and Spaniards mounted major expeditions against each other's settlements. In May 1805, another peace was established. Similar patterns of peace-making, raiding, and trading among the Navajo, Spaniards, Apache, Comanche, and Hopi continued until the arrival of Americans in 1846.
Territory of New Mexico 1846–1863
The Navajos encountered the United States Army in 1846 when General Stephen W. Kearny invaded Santa Fe with 1,600 men during the Mexican–American War. On November 21, 1846, following an invitation from a small party of American soldiers under the command of Captain John Reid, who journeyed deep into Navajo country and contacted him, Narbona and other Navajos negotiated a treaty of peace with Colonel Alexander Doniphan at Bear Springs, Ojo del Oso. This agreement was not honored by some Navajo, nor by some New Mexicans. The Navajos raided New Mexican livestock, and New Mexicans took women, children, and livestock from the Navajo.In 1849, the military governor of New Mexico, Colonel John MacRae Washington—accompanied by John S. Calhoun, an Indian agent—led 400 soldiers into the Navajo country, penetrating Canyon de Chelly. He signed a treaty with two Navajo leaders: Mariano Martinez as Head Chief and Chapitone as Second Chief. The treaty acknowledged the transfer of jurisdiction from the United Mexican States to the United States. The treaty allowed forts and trading posts to be built on Navajo land. In exchange, the United States, promised "such donations such other liberal and humane measures, as may deem meet and proper." While en route to sign this treaty, the prominent Navajo peace leader Narbona was killed, causing hostility between the treaty parties.
During the next 10 years, the U.S. established forts on traditional Navajo territory. Military records cite this development as a precautionary measure to protect citizens and the Navajos from each other. However, the Spanish/Mexican-Navajo pattern of raids and expeditions continued. Over 400 New Mexican militia conducted a campaign against the Navajo, against the wishes of the Territorial Governor, in 1860–61. They killed Navajo warriors, captured women and children for slaves, and destroyed crops and dwellings. The Navajos call this period Naahondzood,.
In 1861, Brigadier-General James H. Carleton, Commander of the Federal District of New Mexico, initiated a series of military actions against the Navajos and Apaches. Colonel Kit Carson was at the new Fort Wingate with Army troops and volunteer New Mexico militia. Carleton ordered Carson to kill Mescalero Apache men and destroy any Mescalero property he could find. Carleton believed these harsh tactics would bring any Indian tribe under control. The Mescalero surrendered and were sent to the new reservation called Bosque Redondo.
In 1863, Carleton ordered Carson to use the same tactics on the Navajo. Carson and his force swept through Navajo land, killing Navajos and destroying crops and dwellings, fouling wells, and capturing livestock. Facing starvation and death, Navajo groups came to Fort Defiance for relief. On July 20, 1863, the first of many groups departed to join the Mescalero at Bosque Redondo. Other groups continued to come in through 1864.
However, not all the Navajos came in or were found. Some lived near the San Juan River, some beyond the Hopi villages, and others lived with Apache bands.
Long Walk
Beginning in the spring of 1864, the Army forced around 9,000 Navajo men, women, and children to walk over to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, for internment at Bosque Redondo. The internment was disastrous for the Navajo, as the government failed to provide enough water, wood, provisions, and livestock for the 4,000 to 5,000 people. Large-scale crop failure and disease were also endemic during this time, as were raids by other tribes and white civilians. Some Navajos froze in the winter because they could make only poor shelters from the few materials they were given. This period is known among the Navajos as "the Fearing Time". In addition, a small group of Mescalero Apache, longtime enemies of the Navajos, had been relocated to the area, which resulted in conflicts.In 1868, the Treaty of Bosque Redondo was negotiated between Navajo leaders and the federal government, allowing the surviving Navajos to return to a reservation on a portion of their former homeland.
Reservation era
The United States military continued to maintain forts on the Navajo reservation in the years after the Long Walk. From 1873 to 1895, the military employed Navajos as "Indian Scouts" at Fort Wingate to help their regular units. During this period, Chief Manuelito founded the Navajo Tribal Police. It operated from 1872 to 1875 as an anti-raid task force working to maintain the peaceful terms of the 1868 Navajo treaty.By treaty, the Navajos were allowed to leave the reservation for trade, with permission from the military or local Indian agent. Eventually, the arrangement led to a gradual end in Navajo raids, as the tribe was able to increase their livestock and crops. Also, the tribe gained an increase in the size of the Navajo reservation from to as it stands today. But economic conflicts with non-Navajos continued for many years as civilians and companies exploited resources assigned to the Navajo. The US government made leases for livestock grazing, took land for railroad development, and permitted mining on Navajo land without consulting the tribe.
In 1883, Lt. Parker, accompanied by 10 enlisted men and two scouts, went up the San Juan River to separate the Navajos and citizens who had encroached on Navajo land. In the same year, Lt. Lockett, with the aid of 42 enlisted soldiers, was joined by Lt. Holomon at Navajo Springs. Evidently, citizens of the surnames Houck and/or Owens had murdered a Navajo chief's son, and 100 armed Navajo warriors were looking for them.
In 1887, citizens Palmer, Lockhart, and King fabricated a charge of horse stealing and randomly attacked a dwelling on the reservation. Two Navajo men and all three whites died as a result, but a woman and a child survived. Capt. Kerr examined the ground and then met with several hundred Navajos at Houcks Tank. Rancher Bennett, whose horse was allegedly stolen, told Kerr that his horses were stolen by the three whites to catch a horse thief. In the same year, Lt. Scott went to the San Juan River with two scouts and 21 enlisted men. The Navajos believed Scott was there to drive off the whites who had settled on the reservation and had fenced off the river from the Navajo. Scott found evidence of many non-Navajo ranches. Only three were active, and the owners wanted payment for their improvements before leaving. Scott ejected them.
In 1913, an Indian agent ordered a Navajo and his three wives to come in and then arrested them for having a plural marriage. A small group of Navajos used force to free the women and retreated to Beautiful Mountain with 30 or 40 sympathizers. They refused to surrender to the agent, and local law enforcement and military refused the agent's request for an armed engagement. General Scott arrived, and with the help of Henry Chee Dodge, a leader among the Navajo, defused the situation.