Module 11: Language Policy

The Long Walk

Evelyn Wicklund

            Forced from their homes, the Navajo walked at gunpoint to their imprisonment 300 miles away. In 1864 approximately 9,000 Navajo walked from their home in Arizona, to Fort Sumner at Bosque Redondo (also known as Hwéeldi) where about 400 Mescalero Apaches were already being held. To make matters worse, these tribes have a large history of disputes and raiding each other. The encampment was able to hold 5,000 people, but by the time all the Navajo arrived, there were about 10,000 people. 10,000 people were expected to survive off the resources that were provided for the estimated 5,000, which only caused more discord between the Navajo and the Mescalero Apaches. After a deplorable walk, the Navajo came to a land that would be unable to provide for them.

During the trek that lasted 18 days, a least 200 Navajo died. When they started the walk, many of them were not physically able to walk such a large distance. One account of this was passed down through many generations:

“It was said that those ancestors were on the Long Walk with their daughter, who was pregnant and about to give birth [...] the daughter got tired and weak and couldn't keep up with the others or go further because of her condition. So my ancestors asked the Army to hold up for a while and to let the woman give birth, but the soldiers wouldn't do it. They forced my people to move on, saying that they were getting behind the others. The soldier told the parents that they had to leave their daughters behind. "Your daughter is not going to survive, anyway; sooner or later she is going to die," they said in their own language. "Go ahead," the daughter said to her parents, "things might come out all right with me," But the poor thing was mistaken, my grandparents used to say. Not long after they had moved on, they heard a gunshot from where they had been a short time ago”

The U.S. soldiers who led them provided no aid, if fact they made matters worse for the people walking, and the soldiers did not even tell the Navajo how long they had to walk or where they were going or why they were being relocated. Howard Gorman said, “our ancestors were taken captive and driven to Hwééldi for no reason at all. They were harmless people, and, even to date, we are the same, holding no harm for anybody ... Many Navajos who know our history and the story of Hwééldi say the same.” Laura Tobe asked her grandmother about the Long Walk, who did not tell her much, only that they walked to a gathering place. Although her grandmother did remember a story about a girl who escaped the journey at a great cost:

“She was a young girl and lived with her mother, father, and her brother. One day the soldiers came and the family ran away. They hid wherever they could. The next day the girl went home to see if her parents were still alive. When she got home her home was burned down and the place was still smoking. Then she saw the beads of her mother and father on the fence posts. The girl left after that.”

            On June 18, 1868 the Treaty of Bosque Redondo was made and marked the end of the Long Walk. This treaty included establishing a reservation, restricting raiding, established an agency, declared that children would be sent to school, regulations on seed supply were made, Navajo rights were to be protected, arrangements were to be made for the Navajo to return to their homeland and more. The many people imprisoned there for four years then made the 300 mile walk back to their homeland. In just four years, the Navajo population was massively reduced. This reduction of population caused a genetic bottleneck making certain genetic diseases become more prominent amongst the Navajo. The Long Walk has affected many generations of the Navajo by forcing their children into schools, this put their language and culture to be at risk of endangerment. Not only the people who survived walking the distance to and from Fort Sumner were affected, but their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren as well.

References

"The Navajos begin 'Long Walk' to imprisonment - Timeline - Native Voices." U.S. National Library of Medicine. National Institutes of Health, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2017.

Tohe, Laura. “Hwéeldi Bééhániih: Remembering the Long Walk.” Wicazo Sa Review, vol. 22, no. 1, 2007, pp. 77–82., www.jstor.org/stable/30131304.