Navajos During The Long Walk

From 1863-1868, the Navajos, or Diné, found themselves the target of a major campaign by the Union Army and surrounding enemies in the American Southwest, resulting in a program of removal and internment. The Navajos know it as “The Long Walk” a series of devastating acts of violence from multiple factions of various enemies. The perspectives of Navajos regarding the “Long Walk” can grant a new context to the changes occurring in the American Southwest during the American Civil War, where the focus of the Union’s military might fell upon Native Americans instead of Confederate forces. Thus, rather than as a program of Indian removal resulting from the Civil War militarization of the Southwest. Navajos perceived the forces working against them

The Navajos being forced to leave behind those such as, the elderly and pregnant women who could not endure the difficulties of the arduous trek to Bosque Redondo. While those who could keep pace, must continue to deal with the abuses of their military escorts’ and starvation from the lack of resources. Despite the abuse facing the Navajo from their Anglo-American escorts, stories of compassion from soldiers on the road to Bosque Redondo create a more nuanced picture of relations between the Navajos and Americans. Some soldiers are noted to have allowed women and children to ride upon wagons or on the backs of the soldier’s own horses, and to this, one Navajo elder expressed his confusion, “I have never been able to understand a people who killed you one day and on the next played with your children." Bosque Redondo stood at the end of the Long Walk for the Navajos, and many of the memories of their time there depict the difficulties of survival on the reservation. Of the time spent at Bosque Redondo the Navajos state that, “The memories are filled with such anguish, pain, and humiliation that we cannot help but feel overwhelmed with sadness for our ancestors, who were forced to debase themselves in order to survive” Rather than as a place for the Navajos to find peace, the Navajos found themselves immersed in a host new

One of the purposes of Bosque Redondo was that it would transform interned Native Americans, nullifying the danger they posed prior to placement on the reservation through a process of assimilation whereby the Navajos would become productive citizens. The ‘civilizing’ efforts of the U.S. military were ineffective on a fundamental level when dealing with the Navajos due to a lack of understanding of Navajo culture. The leadership in charge of Bosque Redondo failing to understand the facets of the culture that the ‘civilizing’ efforts were intended to modify, and futilely attempted to shoehorn Anglo-American institutions onto the Navajos. In contrast, earlier attempts made by Agent Dodge to aid the development prior to the placement of Navajos on Bosque Redondo proved to be notably more effective in harboring positive responses from the Navajos, being generally allowed to develop on their own terms with instruction rather than imprisoned on foreign land. Of all the external threats facing the Navajos, the attempts at Bosque Redondo regarding the ‘civilizing’ effects of the reservation were the most direct threat in the overwhelming of what was ‘Navajo’ through direct attempts at cultural erasure. The attempt to ‘civilize’ the Navajos had the effect of penetrating the most internal aspects of Navajo identity with the external