The Navajo Campaigns

The Navajo Campaigns. . In the course of the continuing efforts of Fort Craig troops to protect settlers and travelers from Indian raids in New Mexico and Arizona, encounters with Navajo Indians were common. The Navajos were hunting-and-gathering nomads who had arrived in the Southwest in the early 1500s from the north and west. Archeologists tell us that by the time of the Spanish entrada, they had begun to expand their subsistence to include agriculture., Early on, the Navajos were known to have traded with the Hopi and Zuni Pueblo Indians. They also helped the Pueblo people during the Pueblo Revolt against the Spanish in 1680, and supported them when they became refugees during the Spanish reconquest 10 years later. Conversely, the Navajos also raided and feuded with the Pueblos off and on over the years., But the seemingly perpetual enemy of the Navajos was the Spaniards. Even though the Navajos adopted Spanish methods of raising sheep and horses, and growing peaches and other crops, they continued their warring against the Spaniards., As Mexico achieved independence and increased trade with the United States, New Mexicans found firearms more readily available. Soon they began to target Navajos for the slave trade. By the 1830s, warfare between the Americans and the Navajos had escalated still further, and the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 did little to defuse the conflict. Even by 1850, after three treaties had been signed, the conflict and killings continued on both sides. The Navajos almost succeeded in capturing Fort Defiance in April 1860, but Kit Carson's troops, which had subdued the Mescalero Apache in 1862, now turned their sights toward the Navajo. The outcome was disastrous for the Indians. Carson established a "scorched-earth" policy, in which his troops forced subdued Navajo leaders to take their followers on "The Long Walk" to Fort Sumner. Carson instructed his troops to leave no Navajos behind. Some Navajos were able to flee to remote areas to evade capture, but the rest ended up spending up to four years at Fort Sumner. Finally, when the Navajos returned home, they were assigned land for a reservation. Today, the Navajo Reservation is the largest Indian reservation in America., Captions , Navajo Chief Manuelito , National Archives and Records Administration