As the Navajo surrendered or were captured by the U.S. they were sent to the nearest U.S. fort. The next phase of the Navajo relocation was a series of forced marches from these American forts to Fort Sumner in Bosque Redondo. The marches ranged from 350-475 miles depending on the staring fort. (The Long Walk, Denetdale) These paths crossed miles of deserts, mountains, the Rio Grande, and many of its tributaries. The length of time varied in each of the walks based on the weather, the number of prisoners, and the humanity of their captors. The prisoners were usually forced to walk an average of 15 miles a day. (Broken Rainbow) These harsh conditions were made worse by the U.S. because the military escorts were riding horses and could switch out with other soldiers. This let the walking stop less and made the Navajos have to walk for an even longer amount of time. (Navajo Stories of the Long Walk Period, Roessel)
The video above shows Navajo Musician Clarence Clearwater discussing his grandfather who went on The Long Walk. (The Dine Death March 10:04-11:12)
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This map shows one of the main routes the Navajo were forced to take to Bosque Redondo. Note the fact that they had to pass through an American settlement, which caused even more conflict as will often happen when displaced people and the people who are displacing them meet. (Moving Together, Goodall) As Goodall says in her report for the UNHCR, when the two different communities meet it "can result in the marginalization of the new arrivals, discrimination, and harsh [treatment]. The newcomers can be seen as competing against the local population." (Goodall 6) Basically, since both of the cultures didn't respect or understand each other they interacted violently, and the less powerful Navajo were the ones to be harmed.
(Waldman, Carl. Long Walk of the Navajo, 1864. Digital image. American Indian History. Infobase Learning, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.) |
Kids who couldn’t keep up with the group were just left there and were usually shot and killed or were left to be part of the carnivores' dinner.
-Clarence Clearwater, The Dine Death March
Thanks to Navajo oral tradition many first hand accounts of the Long Walk are known. These accounts give us more knowledge about how bad the U.S. truly made the conditions. Many report soldiers shooting anyone who fell behind, and leaving weak young children or elders to the wild animals or to drown crossing the Rio Grande. There is an account in which it describes how if a baby “would cry they would just shoot ‘em” (The Dine Death March 04:24- 04:33). There are accounts, and even U.S. military logbooks, that mention how some of the groups of the Navajo were led on routes that were, as historian Frank McNitt put it, “especially arduous” with “no explanation found” as to why this course was taken (Denetdale 58). The following is an excerpt from a book full of these first hand accounts;
It was said that those ancestors were on the Long Walk with their daughter, who was pregnant and about to give birth. Somewhere...south of Albuquerque, the daughter got tired and weak and couldn’t keep up with the others or go any farther 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 soldiers told the parents that they had to leave their daughter behind. ‘Your daughter is not going to survive, anyway; sooner or later she is going to die,’ they said... '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.
-Interview with Howard Gorman, a Navajo Tribal Councilman (Navajo Stories of the Long Walk Period, Roessel)
First-hand accounts such as this one not only capture the cruel and unnecessary treatment used by the soldiers, they also show how the Navajo were thought of as sub-human. This inhumane treatment exists even today in milder forms, causing many to wonder if problems created by The Long Walk have or ever will be solved. (Legacy of Forced March… ) This is discussed more in depth in the Legacy section of this website. Other than first hand accounts, illustrations and the few photographs from the time are helpful in showing the conditions of the march. Below are some artistic representations of The Long Walk done by various artists.
The drawings below are part of the 11 original illustrations that were made by Discovery Exhibits for the Bosque Redondo Memorial. The artists of these drawings consulted with members of the tribes to ensure the accuracy of the depictions. These illustrations are particularly relevant because they show the sheer amount of Navajo that were in only one group of the march. Because there were so many people and the soldiers wouldn't let them rest, people who couldn't keep up with the pace were often crushed by accident. The one on the left also shows how they were forced to cross large rivers, such as the Rio Grande, though many of them did not know how to swim.
To the left is shown artist Olaf Wieghorst imaginings of what this event looked like. The snow in his painting does a good job of showing that even though the temperature of the Southwest is generally warm, because of some higher elevations the Navajo had to cross, they sometimes had to journey through harsh snow and winds.
(Wieghorst, Olaf. Long Walk of the Navajos (Heritage Series). 1974. The Print Cavvy, Olaf Wieghorst, Accessed 7 Nov. 2016.) |
The above pictures show four different aspects of The Long Walk complex emergency. The picture furthest to the left shows U.S. soldiers chopping and burning down Navajo peach orchards. This destruction was an integral part of Carson's scorched earth campaign. It created an environment in which the Navajo could hardly survive if they didn't surrender. (The Dine Death March) The second picture depicts the Navajo being forced out of Canyon de Chelly after their final stand. The single file line the Navajo were forced in, though maybe not entirely realistic, is a good representation of the power the soldiers had over the defeated Navajo. (The Navajos of Utah, Maryboy and Begay) In the third illustration, the artist's most famous one, a group of Navajo on the walk itself is shown. An especially powerful vignette in this image is the soldier in warm gear on his horse watching and doing nothing as a Navajo wrapped in a blanket tries to help up another Navajo who has fallen in the snow. This vignette inspired one of the large murals painted at the Bosque Redondo Memorial. The last image farthest to the right shows a few Navajo at Bosque Redondo. The woman in front is painted to look like the well-known picture of a woman and her child at Bosque Redondo. In the background the shelters made by the Navajo are visible. These shelters are discussed further in the Bosque Redondo tab. (The Long Walk, Denetdale)
(Shilstone, Arthur. Series of images depicting different aspects of The Long Walk of the Navajo. Digital image. www.smithsonianmag.com. Smithsonian, 1997. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.)
(Shilstone, Arthur. Series of images depicting different aspects of The Long Walk of the Navajo. Digital image. www.smithsonianmag.com. Smithsonian, 1997. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.)
She saw her mom and her grandma get crushed, even little kids, they were just being crushed. And she knew she had lost her family, and she just kept walking, and walked all the way.
-Effie Yazzie, Matriarch of Monument Valley (about her grandmother who went on The Long Walk)