Fort Sumner was a military fort in De Baca County in southeastern New Mexico charged with the internment of Navajo and Mescalero Apache populations from 1863-1868 at nearby Bosque Redondo. Table of Fortification, from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... De Baca County is a county located in the state of New Mexico. ... Capital Santa Fe Largest city Albuquerque Area  Ranked 5th  - Total 121,665 sq mi (315,194 km²)  - Width 342 miles (550 km)  - Length 370 miles (595 km)  - % water 0. ... Map of the Navajo Nation The Navajo Nation (Dineé in Navajo language) is a Native American sovereignty. ... Categories: Stub | Na-Dené languages | Native American tribes | Native American languages | Apachean languages | Apache tribe | Languages of North America | Athabaskan languages ...

History

On October 31, 1862, Congress authorized the creation of Fort Sumner. General James Henry Carleton initially justified the fort as offering protection to settlers in the Pecos River valley from the Mescalero Apache, Kiowa and Comanche. He also created the Bosque Redondo reservation, a 40 square mile area where over 8,500 Navajo were forced to live. is the 304th day of the year (305th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Congress in Joint Session. ... James Henry Carleton (December 27, 1814 – January 7, 1873) was an officer in the Union army during the Civil War. ... Pecos River near Villanueva, New Mexico Pecos River near the Rio Grande Santa Rosa Lake and Dam on the Pecos River in Guadalupe County, New Mexico The Pecos River or Rio Pecos, as it is known in New Mexico, rises near Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States, and flows for... The Kiowa are a nation of Native Americans who lived mostly in the plains of west Texas, Oklahoma and eastern New Mexico at the time of the arrival of Europeans. ... This article includes a list of works cited or a list of external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ...

The purpose of the reservation was to be self-sufficient, while teaching Mescalero Apaches and Navajos how to be modern farmers. General Edward Canby, who Carleton replaced, first suggested that the Navajo be moved to a series of reservations and be taught new skills. Some in Washington D.C. thought that the Navajos did not need to be moved and a reservation should be created on their land. Some New Mexico citizens encouraged death or at least complete removal of the Navajo off their lands. Army Officers and Indian Agents soon realized that the Bosque Redondo had poor water and lacked of firewood for the numbers of people who were going to be put there. The reservation plan for the Mescaleros and Navajos continued. Gorgonia, Mescalero Medicine Man This article is about the Native American tribe; for other uses of the word see Mescalero (disambiguation). ... The Navajo (also Navaho) people of the southwestern United States call themselves the Diné (pronounced ), which roughly means the people. They speak the Navajo language, and many are members of the Navajo Nation, an independent government structure which manages the Navajo reservation in the Four Corners area of the United... Major General E.R.S Canby Edward Richard Sprigg Canby (November 9, 1817 – April 11, 1873) was a career U.S. Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War and Indian Wars. ... Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, DC. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the United...

Gen. Carleton ordered Col. Christopher "Kit" Carson to do whatever necessary to bring first the Mescaleros and then the Navajos to the Bosque Redondo. All of the Mescalero Apache were there by the end of 1862, but the Navajo did not get there in large numbers until early 1864. The Navajos refer to the journey from Navajo land to the Bosque as the Long Walk. While a bitter memory to many Navajo, one who was there reports as follows: “By slow stages we traveled eastward by present Gallup and Chusbbito, Bear spring, which is now called Fort Wingate. You ask how they treated us? If there was room the solders put the women and children on the wagons. Some even let them ride behind them on their horses. I have never been able to understand a people who killed you one day and on the next played with your children...?" ^[1] Kit Carson Kit Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868), born Christopher Houston Carson, was an American frontiersman. ... The Long Walk The Long Walk of the Navajo, also called the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo, was a 20 day or more foot walk many Navajos made in 1864 to a reservation in southeastern New Mexico. ... See: Gallup poll (opinion poll) Gallup, New Mexico ...

There were about 8,500 Navajo and 500 Mescalero Apache interned at Bosque Redondo in April 1865. The Army had only anticipated 5,000 would be there, so food was an issue from the start. The Navajo and Mescalero Apache had long been enemies and now that they were in forced proximity to each other, fighting often broke out. The environmental situation got worse. The interned Natives had no clean water, it was full of alkaline and there was no firewood to cook with. The water from the nearby Pecos River caused severe intestinal problems and disease quickly spread throughout the camp. Food was also in short supply because of crop failures, Army and Indian Agent bungling, and criminal activities. In 1865, the Mescalero Apache, or those strong enough to travel, managed to escape to their own country. The Navajo were not allowed to leave until three years later when it was agreed by the U. S. Army that Fort Sumner was a failure. The common (Arrhenius) definition of a base is a chemical compound that either donates hydroxide ions or absorbs hydrogen ions when dissolved in water. ...

A treaty was negotiated with the Navajos and they were allowed to return to their homeland, to a "new reservation." There they were joined by the thousands of Navajo who had been hiding out in the Arizona hinterlands. This experience resulted in a more determined Navajo, and never again were they surprise raiders of the Rio Grande valley.^[2] In subsequent years they have expanded the "new reservation" into well over 16 million acres (65,000 km²), far larger than Yellowstone National Park with 2 million acres (8,000 km²). ^[3] Official language(s) English Spoken language(s) English 74. ... For other uses, see Rio Grande (disambiguation). ... Yellowstone National Park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest intact ecosystem in the Earths northern temperate zone. ...

Fort Sumner State Monument

In 1968--one hundred years after the signing of the treaty that allowed the Navajo people to return to their original homes in the Four Corners Region--Fort Sumner was declared a New Mexico state monument. The property is now managed by the New Mexico State Monuments division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. In 2005, a new museum designed by Navajo architect David Sloan was opened on the site as the "Bosque Redondo Memorial." Plans are now underway to construct Phase II of the museum. Created in 1978 by the New Mexico Legislature, the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs is an executive branch agency of the New Mexico state government. ...

Notes

1. ^ Very Slim Man, Navajo elder, quoted by Richard Van Valkenburgh, Desert Magaine, April, 1946, p. 23.
2. ^ Indian Depredations in New Mexico, John S. Watts, Wash. D.C., 1858, 66 pages
3. ^ Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, Avon, 1983, p. 586)

References

• Bosque Redondo — destination of the long walk
• The Long Walk Trail Of The Navajos
• Thompson, Gerald (1976). The Army and the Navajo: The Bosque Redondo Reservation Experiment 1863-1868. Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press. ISBN 0816504954

External Links

• New Mexico State Monuments
• New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs