History of the Navajo Tribe

The Navajo Nation represents a fascinating paradox of 21st Century America.  Other Indian tribes have either vanished or become small in size and influence, but not the Navajo.

The current tribal population is estimated at 180,000 people on the Reservation proper, with thousands more living in cities in the West (See Census 2000 information).  This number represents a growth rate four times as high as the rest of the United States.  While most speak English very well, a significant percentage of the people living on the 16 million acre reservation are still fluent in their native tongue.

The Navajos, who call themselves Dine' [di-NEH]--the People-- migrated to the Southwest sometime during the 14th Century from the region of northwestern Canada and Alaska.  When arriving in their new home, agriculture and livestock became their way of life.

During the 17th Century they began to acquire horses, sheep, and goats from the Spanish who had infiltrated parts of the Navajo land area.  Later these same Spanish would drive the Navajo out of their homeland south towards modern day Mexico and southwestern Texas.

This change forced the Navajo to adopt a pastoral economy, which is still common today.  Later the Dine' were able to return to their cultural homeland on the present site of the reservation.

In 1863, another fate fell upon the Dine'.  This fate was the cavalry led by Colonel "Kit" Carson of the United States Army.  Carson's mission was to round up all Navajos for retention at Fort Sumner, New Mexico.  Many died tragic deaths from this time of captivity in what history called the "Long Walk" of the Navajo.  Others escaped their captors and lived high in the mountains of northern New Mexico and Arizona.

Five years later, in 1868, General William Tecumseh Sherman signed a treaty with the tribe allowing them reservation land of 3 1/2 million acres in New Mexico and Arizona territories.  The Federal Government also granted them 30 thousand head of sheep and goats, along with the promise to build a school house for every 30 children.  Neither of these promises were ever completely kept.

Successive presidential orders gave the Navajo people more land, and the herds and lifestyle of the People flourished.  Agriculture and pastoral herding dominated Navajo lifestyle, and the population of the tribe soon rebounded to pre-Civil War levels.

World War II changed forever the face of Navajoland as railroads and war industries demanded more land and people to fill the vacancies left by a mass departure of men from the American labor force.  Over 3,500 Navajos served in the War, with the now famous "Navajo Code Talkers" emerging as heroes from this encounter with the Japanese and Germans.

The Code Talkers were a highly elite group of Navajo men who wrote and sent messages throughout the Pacific theater during the later parts of WWII.  Known as the "code the Japanese could not break," the Navajo regiments came home great heroes in the eyes of both Indian and Anglo Americans alike.  Some of the Code Talkers still survive, but their numbers are shrinking.

courtesy of SamSmithSr.

The continued growth and land expansion of the Navajo Tribe will mean a greater need for more reservation economy and local jobs for those who now choose to not work the herds as their sole income.

The greatest challenge of the modern Navajo Nation is to train their people in the skills that will enable them to work a variety of jobs in government and the private sector, on and off the Reservation. while at the same time attracting and starting Navajo-run businesses to employ this new generation of workers.