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| Photos courtesy Museum of New Mexico Photo Archive/Fort Sumner State Monument -- These two unidentified Navajo girls were among some 9,000 Navajo and Apache who were subjected to the Long Walk and imprisonment at the prison camp of Bosque Redondo at Fort Sumner, N.M. in 1863. (Bottom photo) A U.S. Army soldier counts Navajo captives at the Bosque Redondo prison camp at Fort Sumner, N.M. |
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - Reflecting on the Long Walk and imprisonment at Bosque Redondo at Fort Sumner, N.M., Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. said the suffering of those days made Navajos what they are today.
''Fort Sumner does not hold very good memories for the Navajo people. Many of our people died while being herded there and upon our travel back after we had been released,'' Shirley told Indian Country Today.
Shirley's comments came as New Mexico prepares the new Bosque Redondo Memorial for dedication on June 4 at Fort Sumner.
''If anything positive is going to come out of the monument being erected on the site, it would be the truth that the Navajo people are very resilient, very determined to continue to be, and are of a culture and belief that, no matter the challenge, prayer will get one through. A person, and a people, need to be steadfast with prayer,'' Shirley said.
''There really are secrets in ways of life. What brought the Navajo people through the hard times at Fort Sumner needs to be taught to our children and grandchildren.''
Although the U.S. Army claimed in 1863 that Navajo and Apache were removed from their homelands because of raiding, researchers reveal that it was mining that lured non-Indians to these aboriginal homelands. The lust for gold and silver resulted in the forced removal of 8,000 Navajos. Other Navajos avoided capture and hid in remote canyons and mountains, including Navajo Mountain on the Arizona and Utah border.
Neal W. Ackerly wrote in ''A Navajo Diaspora: The Long Walk to Hweeldi'' that General James H. Carleton's Indian policy of the 1860s, which led to the Long Walk and imprisonment at Bosque Redondo, was at least in part because of the lure of potential mineral riches.
Among the recorded historical accounts of the Long Walk was that of Navajo survivor Peshlakai Etsed. Etsed told of how the elderly, including Hosteen Deel, died shortly after leaving Toseto (Old Fort Wingate, N.M.) on the Long Walk.
While the starvation, rape and murder of Navajos and Apaches at Bosque Redondo is often documented, Army accounts reveal a lesser-known fact that Navajos, including women and children, were sold by soldiers as slaves along the way.
Navajos were also stolen by non-Indians on the Long Walk. They were robbed and forced into slavery on the way to Fort Sumner, several hundred miles from Tse Ho Tso (Fort Defiance, Ariz.) and Fort Wingate, N.M. Captured Navajos remained in Taos, Albuquerque, Bernalillo, Abiquiu, Belen, San Juan and other communities, according to historical documents.
Kirby Benedict, Chief Justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court, stated in his deposition to the Doolittle Commission of 1865, ''They are bought and sold by and between the inhabitants at a price as much as is a horse or ox.
''A likely girl of not more than eight years old, healthy and intelligent would be held at a value of four hundred dollars, or more.''
An account in the Santa Fe New Mexican in 1864 said General Carlton gave Navajo children as gifts, including a 3- or 4-month-old girl.
After the hunger, brutality and cruelty suffered at Bosque Redondo, which began in 1863, Lt. Gen. William T. Sherman negotiated the terms of release in May 1868. Navajos returned to their homeland following the signing of the treaty of 1868.
Currently preparing for the dedication of the new Bosque Redondo Memorial, New Mexico Monuments Director Jose' Cisneros said the completion of Phase I of the new monument would honor Mescalero Apache and Navajo who suffered at Bosque Redondo. One third of the 9,000 held under Army guard in deplorable conditions succumbed to pneumonia, dysentery, exposure and starvation.
Cisneros said a second phase of the Bosque Redondo Memorial construction, which would add a large exhibit hall for a permanent Long Walk exhibit and complete the landscaping, is planned.
''Phase I of construction goes a long way toward fulfilling our commitment to commemoration and healing, but the job is not complete,'' Cisneros said in a statement.
A companion federal project is also under consideration. In 2003, Congress authorized the National Park Service to study the feasibility of designating the Long Walk routes from the Four Corners area to Bosque Redondo as a unit of the National Trails System.
Cisneros said funding for the new Bosque Redondo Memorial came from an initial $2 million provided by the U.S. Department of Defense. The New Mexico state Legislature added $500,000.
The local government contributed in-kind donations of land and buildings in the amount of about $500,000. The village of Fort Sumner donated 61 acres adjacent to the existing 50-acre monument in order to make construction possible. DeBaca County donated an old fire station for use as a maintenance shed.
Scott Smith, monument manager, said, ''Over the past 10 or 12 years, representatives of both the Navajo Nation and the Mescalero Apache Tribe have given generously of their time in order to share their story with us. And it is their story, their history.''