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The Long
Walk of the
Navajo,
also called the Long
Walk to Bosque Redondo, was an
Indian removal effort of the United States government in 1863 and
1864.
Early relations
between Anglo-American settlers of
New Mexico were relatively peaceful, but the peace began to
disintegrate following the killing of a respected
Navajo
leader by the name of Narbona in 1849. By the 1850s, the U.S.
government had begun establishing forts in
Navajo
territory, namely Fort Defiance (near present-day Window Rock,
Arizona)
and Fort Wingate, in northeast
New Mexico. Further, the Bonneville Treaty of 1858 reduced
the extent of
Navajo land, and the relatively pro-Navajo
local U.S. Army leader and
Indian agent was reassigned to West Point.
By the 1860s, as more and more Americans
pushed westward, they met increasingly fierce resistance from the
Mescalero
Apache and
Navajo people who fought to maintain control of their traditional
lands and their way of life.
Under the leadership
of the new commander of Fort Defiance, William T. H. Brooks, the
Navajo
and the U.S. Army began a destructive cycle of raids and counter-raids
culminating in the near-sacking of Fort Defiance by approximately
1,000 Navajo
warriors under the leadership of
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