Hwéeldi - The Long Walk
Above from left: Hwéeldi mural by Shonto Begay at Bosque Redondo Memorial, Fort Sumner, NM; Navajo captives under guard, and grouped at Indian Issue House, Fort Sumner ca. 1864–1868 (Smithsonian); Twelve Chiefs signers and U.S. Cavalry signers, Navajo Treaty 1868.
This page is excerpted by permission from a dissertation by Raymond Darrell Austin, submitted to the American Indian Studies Program in the Graduate College of the University of Arizona in partial fulfilment for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Justice Emeritus Austin served as an Associate Justice on the Navajo Nation Supreme Court from 1985 to 2001. In 2009, the dissertation was published as Navajo Courts and Navajo Common Law, A Tradition of Tribal Self-Governance (University of Minnesota Press).
Fort Sumner (Hwéeldi)
Beginning in 1863, the United States Cavalry and Indian allies under the command of Colonel Kit Carson waged a brutal and destructive military campaign against the Navajo people. Oral accounts by Navajo elders describe Carson’s campaign against the Navajos as “t’aa altso anaa’ silii’” (when everything — humans, plants, animals, etc. — turned enemy). Historians Garrick and Roberta Bailey draw the same conclusion about America’s war against the Navajos: “Though short, the Navajo war of 1863-1864 proved to be one of the most violent and decisive military campaigns ever waged against a major North American Indian tribe.”15
Carson marched his troops through Navajo Country in the fall and winter attacking and killing Navajos at their camps, slaughtering livestock, burning hogans and crops, and virtually destroying any property and food supply the Navajos would need to survive and prolong the war. The scorched-earth campaign worked. Approximately 8,500 starving, freezing, and raggedy Navajos surrendered over several months and were death-marched on foot in four separate large groups and a number of smaller ones for over 400 miles to a barren reservation established for them at Fort Sumner (called Hweeldi by Navajos) in eastern New Mexico.16 There, the Navajos were imprisoned under military guard from winter 1863 to June 1868.
During the second year of confinement, General James H. Carleton, Commanding Officer of the Department of New Mexico, bemoaned the tremendous burden of feeding and caring for the imprisoned Navajos and Mescalero Apaches with scant funding from Washington.17 On April 26, 1865, the military officers devised a plan intended to transform the Navajos from a scattered, pastoral people into village dwelling, self- sustaining farmers.18 Realizing that the traditional Navajo political system consisted of several independent bands, the officers decided to divide the Navajos into twelve villages, located perhaps a half-mile apart, and each headed by a principal chief.19 The twelve-village concept came from the officers’ belief that twelve principal Navajo leaders were imprisoned at Bosque Redondo, each with his band.20 Each village would be structured in a manner that prominently displayed its farm in front.21
With only 400 soldiers to guard the Navajos and Mescalero Apaches, the officers apparently believed that it would be in their best interests to let the traditional band leaders exercise limited authority over their people. Moreover, a set of Anglo-American styled criminal laws was drafted to instruct the Navajo prisoners on respect for law. The Fort Sumner plan called for each designated principal chief to “carry out and enforce laws given him [by the military] for the government of his village […]. He will be held responsible for the order and police of his village.”22 Each village would also have a sub-chief for every one hundred persons; the sub-chief’s job would be to assist the principal chief on governing the village.23 While the principal chiefs would exercise some authority, the commanding officer would retain ultimate authority over all their decisions.24
The principal chief and his sub-chiefs would establish an American form of military trial court to try criminal charges, and the twelve principal chiefs, along with a military officer as presiding judge, would compose a military-styled appellate court.25 In the case of jury trials, the Fort’s commanding officer (or a specially appointed military officer) would serve as the presiding judge and the chiefs would serve as the jurors.26 The appellate court would have jurisdiction over serious offenses, including murder, theft, property damage, and AWOL.27 The following seven criminal offenses with punishment that included hanging, whipping, imprisonment, hard labor, and fine were recommended for the Navajo prisoners of the Bosque Redondo Reservation: murder, theft, absence from or refusal to work, destroying or losing tools, destroying the reservation’s trees or farm produce, missing curfew, and being AWOL from the reservation.28
While the military officers expressed reservations about applying Anglo- American laws of punishment to the Navajo prisoners, they nonetheless believed it was necessary to the overall civilizing process.
It may appear unjust to punish people for a violation of laws which they do not only not understand, but have heretofore been taught to regard as the highest virtue to break. But it must be recollected that these Indians have got to be made to respect the bonds which unite civilized society, and the only practical way of doing this is by inflicting a punishment, however light, for the first offence, and increasing the punishment in proportion to the increase of knowledge, until its severity would prevent further repetition. This is the only possible mode of instructing them on the subject of the law.29
The government structure the military recommended was not fully implemented, because the Navajos stubbornly refused to depart from their kinship structure way of life and their customs.30 The federal government’s reports on the Bosque Redondo Reservation after April 26, 1865 do not mention the proposed court system or criminal provisions so it is not clear whether they were implemented or not.31 Modern Navajos call the Navajo Nation Court System “Diné Bi Gooldi.” Some Navajos claim that this term is a Navajo pronunciation of the words “court day” and may have originated from the officers’ announcement of “court day” at the Bosque Redondo Reservation.32
Although the military constantly watched the Diné, they continued to practice their spiritual ceremonies in secrecy; particularly, those that implored the Holy Beings to return them to their homelands.33 The several thousand Navajos who did not surrender and remained in Navajo Country likewise performed ceremonies to ensure the freedom and return of their kinsmen from Fort Sumner.34 A well-known story from this period states that the Coyote Way Ceremony was performed after the first day of treaty negotiations to block General William T. Sherman’s recommendation that the Navajos move to Indian Territory in Oklahoma.35
A group stood away from the [treaty] negotiations, and while the Coyote way chants were sung, a coyote entered the circle. He ran around inside it, and at one point during the chant, he broke the circle and ran to the west.
That was an indication that Navajos would return west, back to Diné Bikeyah (Navajo Country), rather than to the east and Indian Territory.36
The United States Government’s Fort Sumner experiment ended in total failure.
Fort Sumner is synonymous with misery, starvation, disease, and death to the Navajo people. Over 2,000 Navajos died at Fort Sumner.37 The attempt to turn Navajos into agriculturists in the American mold was a total failure; the desert waste-land was unsuitable for farming and the water had high alkali content.38 The federal government’s proposal to exile the Navajos to Indian Territory in Oklahoma was defeated by Navajo Headman Barboncito’s oration during the first day of treaty negotiations.
[General William T. Sherman, American negotiator]: For many years we have been collecting Indians on the Indian Territory south of the Arkansas and they are now doing well and have been doing so for many years. We have heard you were not satisfied with this reservation [Bosque Redondo] and we have come here to invite some of your leading men to go and see the Cherokee country and if they liked it we would give you a reservation there.
[Barboncito, Navajo negotiator]: I hope to God you will not ask me to go to any other country except my own. It might turn out another Bosque Redondo. They told us this was a good place when we came here but it is not.39
The Navajo Treaty of 1868 (Naaltsoos Sani) between the Navajo Nation and the United States of America, and which emancipated the Navajo people, was signed on June 1, 1868. The Navajos see the 1868 Treaty as a sacred document to be honored, much like their covenant with the Holy People. The 1868 Treaty guarantees that the Diné will remain a distinct people and a sovereign nation with all sovereign powers appertaining thereto.
13 LEE CORRELL, THROUGH WHITE MEN’S EYES: A CONTRIBUTION TO NAVAJO HISTORY 2-3 (1976); James W. Zion, Law as Revolution in the Courts of the Navajo Nation, Federal Bar Association Indian Law Conference Materials (Albuquerque, NM, April 7, 1995) [hereinafter Zion, Law as Revolution]. Spanish records from this period refer to Athabascan speakers as “Querechos” and “Apaches” which likely included Navajos.
14 FRANK REEVE, NAVAJO FOREIGN AFFAIRS 1795-1846 (1983).
15 GARRICK BAILEY & ROBERTA GLENN BAILEY, A HISTORY OF THE NAVAJOS, THE RESERVATION YEARS 9 (1986) [hereinafter BAILEY & BAILEY, A HISTORY OF THE NAVAJOS].
16 Id. at 10. The reservation at Fort Sumner was called the Bosque Redondo Reservation. The march to Fort Sumner is called “The Long Walk.” The Long Walk was not a single march, but involved at a minimum four forced marches over different routes from Fort Wingate, New Mexico to Fort Sumner. My ancestors were held at Fort Sumner for over 4 years. My maternal great, great grandmother and her relatives left the Canyon de Chelly area near present-day Chinle, Arizona and arrived at Fort Sumner with the initial group in the winter of 1863.
17 General Carleton had to plead with his superiors in Washington for funds:
I beg to impress upon your mind, General that the government should at once take some action for the immediate support and the prospective advance of the Navajos …. [T]he government is so greatly the gainer by their giving it [Navajo lands] up, that an annuity of at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars should be given them in clothing, farming implements, stock, seeds, stockhouses, mills, etc., for ten years, when they will not only have become self-sustaining, but will be the happiest and most delightfully located pueblo of Indians in New Mexico – perhaps the United States ….
Letter from Carleton to General Lorenzo Thomas in Washington, D.C., printed in ROBERT A. ROESSEL, PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE NAVAJO, FROM 1860 TO 1910, at 31- 32 (1980) [hereinafter, ROESSEL, PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE NAVAJO].
18 Id. at 22.
19 Id.
20 Id.
21 Id.
22 Id.
23 Id. at 23.
24 Id. at 24.
25 Id.
26 Id.
27 Id.
28 Id.
29 Id. at 23-24.
30 DAVID E. WILKINS, THE NAVAJO POLITICAL EXPERIENCE 79 (1999)(the planned government did not take effect because the Navajos preferred to live in extended family groups); But see BAILEY & BAILEY, A HISTORY OF THE NAVAJOS, supra note 15, at 29 (“At Bosque Redondo the military organized the tribe into twelve bands and appointed a chief for each one,” citing LAWRENCE C. KELLY, THE NAVAJO INDIANS AND FEDERAL INDIAN POLICY 1900-1935, at 14 (1968) [hereinafter KELLY, THE NAVAJO INDIANS]). The plan failed because the Navajos refused to live in a house where a person died.
31 One author suggests that the proposed court system and criminal laws were implemented: “An elaborate court system was established which was always subject to final government authority. An important element was to provide a ‘legal’ framework so as to force Navajos to work in the fields.” ROESSEL, PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE NAVAJO, supra note 17, at 22.
32 I have heard this theory during casual conversation with different Navajos in the past. But see Vicenti, Jimson, Conn & Kellogg: “The court (gooldi) can be seen as possibly being derived from the Navajo word for Bosque Redondo or Fort Sumner (hweeldi), the American concentration camp in which the majority of the Navajo Tribe was imprisoned after the Long Walk.” DAN VICENTI, LEONARD B. JIMSON, STEPHEN CONN & M.J.L. KELLOGG, DINÉ BIBEE HAZ’AANII 157 (1972) [hereinafter VICENTI ET AL., DINÉ BIBEE HAZ’AANII].
33 The Navajos call the Holy Beings, “Diyin Diné’e.” The Holy Beings (also called Holy People) are the Supernatural Beings that teach and guide the Navajos.
34 TIANA BIGHORSE, BIGHORSE THE WARRIOR 40-45 (1990).
35 See Zion, Law as Revolution, supra note 13, at 8. I have heard similar stories from my grandparents.
36 Leonard Watchman told this story to James W. Zion, id.; See also PETER IVERSON, DINÉ, A HISTORY OF THE NAVAJOS 60 (2002) [hereinafter IVERSON, DINÉ].
37 MARTIN A. LINK, THE NAVAJO TREATY – 1868, at Introduction (KC Publications, 1968).
38 For a description of the conditions at Fort Sumner, see IVERSON, DINÉ, supra
note 36, at 57-59.
39 LINK, THE NAVAJO TREATY, supra note 37, at 4-6.