The Navajos had been held in partial check by Spanish bribes and punitive expeditions, but after Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, the Navajos returned to raiding in behalf of all those enslaved by the Spanish. In 1823, 1833, 1836, and 1838 the Mexicans mounted large expeditions against the Navajos, sometimes sending as many as 1,500 men after them. It was during this period that Canyon de Chelly was most often referred to as the stronghold of the Navajos. Although Mexican reprisals often forced the Indians to take temporary refuge north of the San Juan River, they were too sporadic to effectively quell the raiders, who always came back with new attacks. Conditions were so bad that the Navajos boasted they let the Mexicans live on only because they made good shepherds for the tribe. The taunt hardly exaggerated their power at the time.

Navajo depredations had very nearly decimated the frontier settlements in the central Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico when the United States went to war with Mexico in 1846. Col. Stephen Watts Kearny had the task of seizing the northern Mexican provinces, an area that is now part of the American Southwest. In late June 1846 he left Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Marching over the Santa Fe Trail without opposition, Kearny and his American Dragoons arrived in Santa Fe on August 18, 1846, and proclaimed New Mexico a part of the United States.

When Kearny and the Army of the West marched off to Mexico, Col. Alexander W. Doniphan was left behind with orders to invade the Navajo country, release captives, reclaim stolen property, and either to awe or beat the Indians into submission. In August 1846 he led the first United States expedition against the Navajos. Maj. William Gilpin, with 200 men, entered the Navajo country on the north and swung south to meet Doniphan and several Navajo chiefs at Bear Springs near the town of Grants, New Mexico, later the site of Fort Wingate. The treaty signed there turned out to be little more than a scrap of paper. Five more unsuccessful military expeditions were sent against the Navajos between 1846 and 1849 in vain attempts to end the Indian raids.

In trying to contain the Navajos, the U.S. Government made the same mistake that the Mexican and Spanish Governments did before them. They all assumed that a single chief led the several Navajo bands. Actually, each local Navajo group had its own leader, and time and again treaties of “lasting peace with the Navajos” were signed by these local chiefs, who spoke only for their own small bands and had no influence with others.

The U.S. Army expedition of 1849 clearly illustrated this problem. Lt. Col. John W. Washington, military commander of New Mexico, led an expedition to Canyon de Chelly, then consideredto be the Navajo heartland. Washington met local Navajo chiefs on the crest of a small hill between the present Thunderbird Guest Ranch and the mouth of the canyon. Here on Treaty Hill a treaty of “lasting peace” was signed with the Indians. Washington had no sooner returned to Albuquerque, however, than he learned that another Navajo band had raided a small village near Santa Fe.

Col. E. R. S. Canby led the last campaign against the Navajos before the Civil War.

Regardless of treaties and punitive expeditions, Navajo depredations continued. Late in 1851, Col. E. V. Sumner marched into the Navajo country in still another effort to settle the problem. After a single encounter with the Navajo in Canyon de Chelly, Sumner returned to a spot southwest of the Chuska Mountains where he established Fort Defiance in the autumn of 1851. Fighting broke out again in 1858, when a Negro slave of the post commander at Fort Defiance was killed by a Navajo arrow. The Army retaliated with an attack on a party of peaceful Navajos, and the Indians retreated northward.

Up to this time, U.S. Army commanders had controlled Indian policies; the authority of the civil agents appointed by the Indian Department was negligible. But now the civilian agents brought political pressure to bear upon the unsuccessful Army. To soothe the politicians, the Army drew up still another treaty with the Navajos on December 25, 1858. This treaty was the second attempt to outline the boundaries of a proposed Navajo reservation. Like an earlier proposal, the Meriweather Treaty of 1855, it was never ratified.

The year 1859 was relatively peaceful, with few raids on either side. But the next year opened with a series of Navajo raids that culminated in a concentrated attack on Fort Defiance. Some of the old Navajos who participated later recalled that it was a carefully planned assault at dawn, with as many as 2,000 warriors taking part. After attacking for two hours,the Indians were forced to withdraw.

In the winter of 1860-61, Col. E. R. S. Canby led the last military expedition against the Navajos before the Civil War, but his efforts failed to bring peace. Zarcillos Largos, a great Navajo leader who had worked for more peaceful relations with whites, was killed in an ambush during the campaign. The Indians soon resorted to their old tactic of dispersing, and the campaign ended with another treaty. When troops were withdrawn from Fort Defiance in March 1861 for Civil War duty, the last restraint was removed from both sides, and raiding began once more. For the Spanish-Americans, it was the high point of their warfare against the Navajos.

The job of subjugating the recalcitrant Navajos now fell to Brig. Gen. James H. Carleton, commander of the Department of New Mexico and a seasoned Indian fighter with 25 years of active service. His earlier experience in Indian affairs had convinced Carleton that establishing reservations where the Indians could be educated would be the only way to get them to settle down. Carleton said:

Soon they will acquire new habits, new ideas, new modes of life; the old Indians will die off, and carry with them the latent longings for murdering and robbing; the young ones will take their place without these longings; and thus, little by little, they will become a contented people....

Brig. Gen. James H. Carleton defeated the Navajos and built Fort Sumner at Bosque Redondo, the Navajo’s place of exile.

In 1863, Carleton drew up plans for a 40-square-mile reservation at Fort Sumner on the Pecos River in central New Mexico. He called the new reservation Bosque Redondo, which is Spanish for circular thicket.

The valiant Manuelito fought against the whites, but without permanent success. In 1863 he was one of a number of prominent Navajo leaders.

Capt. Albert Pfeiffer led his men down Canyon del Muerto between these cliffs, destroying hogans and crops.

When the reservation was ready, Carleton ordered Col. Christopher (Kit) Carson to take the field against the Navajos in June 1863. Carson’s force consisted of four companies of New Mexican Volunteers, two mounted and two unmounted, and 200 Ute Indians, who were guides and scouts, altogether a force of about 1,000 men. Their first operation was to reoccupy and repair the abandoned Fort Defiance, which they renamed Fort Canby in honor of General Canby.

The Navajos were led by Barboncito of Canyon de Chelly, a spokesman for the bands living west of the Chuska Mountains, and Manuelito, a leader of those who dwelt east of the mountains. Many subchiefs, as usual, led individual bands.

Carson had orders from General Carleton to destroy all cornfields and livestock. He sent word to the Navajos that they should surrender at Fort Canby, and then moved into the field to persuade them. The first skirmish took place in August near the fort. Under constant pressure from the military through the winter of 1863, their herds being killed and crops burned, the Navajos were soon destitute and began to surrender in small numbers.

The crowning blow to Navajo pride, however, was the Army’s ostentatious penetration of Canyon de Chelly, their most secure refuge. A detachment of men under Capt. Albert Pfeiffer carried the “Navaho Fortress” in January 1864. Entering through Canyon del Muerto, Pfeiffer guarded the junction while Capt. A. B. Carey led a detail through the main gorge of de Chelly, marching west to east. Captain Pfeiffer described his progress through del Muerto:

My travel through the cañon, for the first 12 miles, was accomplished on the ice of the bed of the stream which courses through it.... Lt. C. M. Hubbell, who was in charge of the rear, had a great deal of trouble in proceeding with the pack trains, as the mules frequently broke through the ice and tumbled down with their loads. All the Indian prisoners taken thusfar were half starved and naked. The cañon has no road except the bottom of the creek. We traveled mostly on the ice, our animals breaking through every few minutes, and one mule split completely open under the exhausting fatigue of the march. On the 12th instant traveled 8 miles; had several skirmishes with the enemy. Indians on both sides of the cañon whooping, yelling and cursing, firing shots and throwing rocks down upon my command. Killed two buck Indians in the encounter and one squaw, who obstinately persisted in hurling rocks and pieces of wood at the soldiers. Six prisoners were captured on this occasion. Lieutenant Hubbell followed up some Indians in a tributary cañon, but could not overtake them on account of the steepness of the hillsides, where nothing save an Indian or mountain goat could make their way....

This raid, which netted only about 100 prisoners, convinced the Navajos that even though Carson was not out to destroy them, he would go anywhere to ferret them out. They had no choice but to surrender at Fort Canby. Shortly after the Canyon de Chelly raid some 500 Navajos, with their flocks, straggled into the fort. By February 15, 1864, 1,500 Navajos were being fed and clothed there, and by the first of March about 2,400.

The much storied “Long Walk” and exile of the Navajos began on March 6, 1864, when these 2,400 people with 30 wagons, 400 horses, and 3,000 sheep and goats left Fort Canby for Bosque Redondo, 300 miles away in New Mexico Territory. Only the aged, the children, and the crippled rode in wagons—all others walked the entire distance. One old Navajo recalled the exodus in later years, saying:

It was a great sight, we stretched from Fort Defiance to the Window Rock ‘haystacks’ ... a distance of about 7 miles.

On March 14-15, a second group of about 3,000 Navajos began the foot journey. The last large escort of Navajos to Fort Sumner was on April 24, when 1,200 persons started their “Long Walk.”

This old army map shows the military posts of the 1860’s. The red line traces the “Long Walk” of the defeated Navajos to Fort Sumner at Bosque Redondo.High-resolution Map

This old army map shows the military posts of the 1860’s. The red line traces the “Long Walk” of the defeated Navajos to Fort Sumner at Bosque Redondo.

High-resolution Map

Scenes of the Navajos in their place of exile at Fort Sumner on the Pecos River. The top view shows them lined up to receive their issue of food and clothing.National ArchivesMuseum of New MexicoNational Archives

Not all the Navajos surrendered. Many tribesmen remained free and continued to raid settlements. On April 9, 1864, the very day that the Governor of New Mexico had set aside to celebrate the end of the Navajo war, a band of Navajos stole 40 head of cattle from Laguna Pueblo, 140 miles southwest of Canyon de Chelly. Those who surrendered endured extreme hardship at Fort Sumner from disease, crop failure, famine, and their sense of exile from their homeland. After 4 years, the several thousand reservation Navajos were broken in body and spirit, while their still-free tribesmen continued their troublesome guerrilla activities. Carleton’s experiment was judged a complete failure.

The Government then decided that the Navajos should return to a part of their old homeland. A new treaty signed on June 1, 1868, stated that the tribe and the United States were at peace, and in it the Navajos pledged to stop their raiding. In return, the Government promised the tribe school facilities and a reservation that included Canyon de Chelly in its total area of 3,500,000 acres. The Navajos were to stay within this reservation.

Twenty-nine Navajo chiefs and council members signed the treaty, and the Navajos began leaving Fort Sumner almost immediately, slipping away family by family. Those without horses or who had old or sick persons in their family awaited Government transportation. On June 15, a wagon train with a military escort carried the last Navajos from Fort Sumner to Fort Wingate. There the tribe waited while final arrangements were worked out.

By November the new reservation boundaries had been surveyed and shown to the tribe’s head men, and a headquarters for the Indian agent had been prepared at Fort Defiance. At long last the Navajos were allowed to go home. They were now united into a single tribe with leaders, appointed by the Indian agents, to represent them in their dealings with the whites. But their troubles were not over.

Only a fraction of the Navajos’ sheep had survived Carson’s slaughter and the years of famine at Fort Sumner. The treaty had promised sheep and goats to replenish the herds, but more than a year passed before any were received. Meantime, hunger pursued the Navajos, and they had to existon army issue rations of beef, coffee, and flour.

The treaty also promised that during the first 10 years—called the Treaty Years—each family head who took up farming would receive $25 worth of agricultural tools and supplies every 2 years to help him in his new pursuit. It was 14 years before this promise was fulfilled, and the tribe was badly hampered in their efforts to fill out their slender larder through agriculture.

During these years the Navajos eked out a living through their traditional crafts of weaving and silver working. Blankets and wool were beginning to find a market in the expanding settlements of the Rio Grande Valley, at army posts, and in the Mormon settlements of Utah. In 1869, the first trading post was established on the reservation, and it provided the tribe with a source of supplies and an outlet for their wares. As Navajo blankets, wool, and silverwork became more important, other traders entered the Navajo country.

Still there was little substantial change in either the Navajo’s mode of life or their economy by the end of the Treaty Years in 1878. True, the tribe and their flocks had increased in numbers especially after 1872, when the U.S. Government distributed 10,000 sheep among them. The coming of the railroad in 1881-82, however, accelerated change and growth in the Navajos more than any other event. New techniques for making a living, learned from working with construction crews, and new possessions brought by the railroad, started the people toward the modern world.

One vexing problem that has confronted the Navajos since their days at Fort Sumner is the lack of adequate grazing land to support an expanding population. The reservation boundaries have been enlarged many times over the years, but now there is no space for further expansion. Today the tribe numbers over 120,000 members, and tribal lands cannot support that large a population nor the uncontrolled grazing that it causes.

The old way of life is gradually being replaced. In 1924, Congress granted citizenship rights to all Indians in recognition of their service during World War I when their men enlisted by the hundreds, even though exempt from the draft. After 1923 Navajo tribal business became less of a haphazard affair. A tribal council,made up of elected delegates, began to handle contacts with the world beyond the reservation. Little or no work was done to remedy undesirable conditions on the reservation until the public works program of the 1930’s, when a good many schools and hospitals were built. During World War II, hundreds of young Navajo men enlisted in the armed forces and other thousands went into war work. These involvements in American society demonstrated that an education was essential if Indians were to compete successfully in the outer world, and so the tribal council passed a compulsory schooling law in 1947. Many schools and hospitals were built in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

A Navajo weaver, 1873. Their looms have changed little in the years since then.

Little by little the Navajos became acquainted with the world outside the reservation and learned its ways and advantages. Today their prospects for a better life are brighter. Oil, gas, coal, timber, and uranium deposits on their lands are being developed for the benefit of all the Navajos. Children are more eager to attend school, and many Navajos are now leaving the reservation to put their education to work at jobs in the larger community. The Navajo people are beginning to find a place within the Nation.

Despite these changes and prospects, many Navajo families are still seminomadic camp dwellers, following old traditions. Each family’s grazing land covers about 10 to 15 square miles. Within this area they have two or more hogans and corrals, built near suitable grass, water, and wood.

In winter the family moves to the foothills or mesa tops to be near a plentiful wood supply, for winters in the Navajo country are severe. The winter hogans, or houses, are constructed with considerable care by the men. Brush shelters are used for cooking and camping in summer.

Navajo headmen inside a summer brush shelter, 1898.

A Navajo cribbed (log-cabin) style hogan in the high pine forest in 1908.

A modern hogan built of stone and mud-plaster with a pane glass window, at Standing Cow Ruin.

Several types of hogans can be seen on the reservation today. Some recent ones attempt to copy houses in off-reservation towns, but most follow traditional styles. The earliest type of hogan known is the so-called “forked-stick” hogan. This is a tipi-shaped structure made of three poles with forked ends that interlock at the top. Spaces between this framework are filled with smaller poles; the whole is plastered with mud. Another style of hogan is made of cribbed logs and usually has six or eight sides, a design made necessary by the shortness of the logs available. Circular hogans of stone, adapted from Pueblo Indian masonry construction, are sometimes built. The roofs on both types of hogans are constructed of cribbed logs and appear domed rather than flat. A feature common to every hogan is its door facing east, toward the sunrise.

A Navajo forked-pole hogan, traditionally the earliest form used by the tribe. Shaped like a tipi, it is built of heavy logs covered with soil.National Archives

Furnishings of hogans were simple and limited, but today tables, chairs, cabinets, and beds are commonly used. Food was once cooked in a firepit in the center of the floor, below a hole in the roof which allowed the smoke to escape, but today it isprepared on stoves which increasingly are butane gas or electric models. In good weather, cooking is done outside. Iron and aluminum pots and pans have replaced homemade pottery and baskets as kitchen utensils.

Water is scarce over much of the reservation and must be hauled in wagons or pickup trucks from as far away as 10 miles. Water is used sparingly.

The Navajos are fond of goat meat and mutton, which have almost entirely replaced the wild game of the old diet. Canned goods from the traders’ shelves have supplanted the wild plants that used to be gathered and, in some homes, have eliminated garden plots of corn and squash. At Fort Sumner the Navajos learned to roast and brew coffee and to use wheat flour. Now coffee and wheat bread are important items in their diet.

In aboriginal times Navajo clothing was meager. Women wore an apron and men a breechclout of buckskin. Footwear probably consisted of yucca fiber sandals, although moccasins of animal skins were also common. During winter, blankets of animal skins or yucca were added for warmth.

After the Spaniards arrived in the Rio Grande Valley, the Navajos copied Spanish costumes. This style, which prevailed until after the return from Bosque Redondo in 1868, consisted of tightly buttoned knee-length breeches of buckskin, worn with knitted blue stockings copied from those of Pueblo men. A V-neck shirt was made from a small blanket or piece of flannel and was worn outside the trousers. The shirt was held by a leather belt heavily ornamented with silver. Moccasins and leggings of dyed buckskin completed the men’s dress. When Navajo women began loom weaving, they copied the Pueblo woman’s woven cotton dress in wool and wore it with a woven belt. Dyed buckskin moccasins with wrap-around leggings were their footwear.

Navajo clothing of the 19th century, a pair of moccasins and a shirt.

Shirt.

After Bosque Redondo, cotton clothing in Anglo-American and Mexican styles became popular.Today Navajo men wear typical western ranch and farm clothing: blue jeans, shirts, and broad-brimmed felt or straw hats. The women still prefer the bright calico skirts and velveteen blouses which they copied from the styles worn by American women in the mid-19th century. The skirt is ankle length and voluminous, containing from 12 to 15 yards of material. Moccasins of dyed buckskin are still popular with the women at home, but modish shoes and stockings have been adopted for town wear. In winter, both men and women use commercially made blankets draped over their shoulders for protection against the cold.

Today many Navajo men take off-reservation jobs with railroads, in lumber camps, or as migratory workers following crop harvests. Sheep still play a major role in the family economy, and annual income is supplemented by the sale of rugs and, sometimes, silverwork and jewelry.

The Navajos have worn silver ornaments for many years. A 1795 Spanish reference mentions that the Navajo captains were rarely seen without their silver ornaments, but there is no evidence that they made them at that time. They got most of their silver pieces by trading, and picked up others on raids against Ute and Commanche Indians, who in turn had obtained them from eastern Indians who were in contact with Anglo-American or French traders. A great many silver ornaments probably came from the Spaniards.

Present evidence indicates that the Navajos learned silversmithing sometime after 1850. Old silversmiths in the tribe have claimed that Mexicans taught them the craft during the Bosque Redondo captivity, citing their first smith, Atsidi Sani or “Old Smith,” who was taught by a Mexican blacksmith.

An early Navajo silversmith named Slim-Maker-of-Silver.Museum of New Mexico

Ring.

Navajo silver bracelets and ring from the period 1880-1900.Smithsonian Institution

Recent Navajo bracelets.

A Navajo vegetal-dye rug, hand woven from hand-spun, home-grown wool. It is representative of the Chinle style.

A Navajo wife weaving a rug in her front yard at their home near Standing Cow Ruin.

A Navajo girl and her dogs guard the family sheep near Big Cave.

By 1881 they had completely mastered the art, and began to use turquoise in their jewelry. Commercialization of their silver-work began in 1899, when the Fred Harvey Company first placed large orders for pieces to sell to tourists.

Perhaps more than anything else, the colorful rugs and silver and turquoise jewelry produced by these people have made the name “Navajo” a household word. The two crafts did not develop simultaneously, for weaving is almost two centuries older than silversmithing. The Navajo mastery of both skills is exceptional, however, and both lend themselves readily to Navajo designs.

The loom used in Navajo weaving is a native American device, similar to that of the ancient Pueblo people. It has changed little over the centuries. Men usually construct the loom and women do the weaving.

In spite of three centuries of work by Christian missionaries, the Navajos have clung to their native religion. Their religious leaders are medicine men, or healers, and their rites are intended primarily to secure and maintain good health.

The ceremonies, called chants, sometimes last as long as 9 days. They consist of songs, dances, the construction of sand paintings, and the administration of herbal medicines and sweat baths.

The Navajos, a unique people in many ways, are far from being “vanishing” Americans. Vigorous and growing in numbers, they have only recently begun to understand their potential. While they are making rapid strides to join the world around them, they are keenly aware of their own heritage and what it can contribute to the larger culture of America.

Kluckholm, Clyde, and Dorothea Leighton.The Navaho.Cambridge, Mass. 1946.

McGregor, John C.Southwestern Archeology.Second Ed. Urbana, Ill. 1965.

Morris, Ann A.Digging in the Southwest.N.Y. 1934.

Underhill, Ruth M.The Navajos.Norman, Okla. 1956.

Wormington, H. M.Prehistoric Indians of the Southwest.Third Ed. Denver, Colo. 1956.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR · March 3, 1849

As the Nation’s principal conservation agency, the Department of the Interior has basic responsibilities for water, fish, wildlife, mineral, land, park, and recreational resources. Indian and Territorial affairs are other major concerns of America’s “Department of Natural Resources.” The Department works to assure the wisest choice in managing all our resources so each will make its full contribution to a better United States—now and in the future.

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