One factor that led to the U.S. deciding to force the Navajo to relocate on the Long Walk of the Navajo was American westward expansion. Most Americans in the 1800s believed in Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was the philosophy that United States expansion throughout North and South America was inevitable and just. The Navajo people got in the way of that expansion, so the U.S. thought that Navajo deportation would have been favorable to the United States in that regard. (The Long Walk Denetdale)
The U.S. government believed that subduing the native population and settling these lands was their duty, their mission, and their destiny.
-The Bosque Redondo Memorial, The Military Mission
This map shows the original homeland of the Navajo people. In accordance with their religion and culture, they lived between their four sacred mountains. The Navajo did not care about state lines or any U.S. borders at all. They lived in that area before the U.S. tried to claim it, and since homeland is such an important part of their culture, they only wanted to remain there. (Broken Rainbow)
(PBS. Navajo Ancestral Lands. Digital image. Circle of Stories. Public Broadcasting Service, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.) |
The U.S. thought that the Navajo land had other benefits to Americans than purely for spatial expansion. During the 1800s many Americans were looking for gold anywhere they could, including on Navajo land. Since Earth and nature are an incredibly important part of Navajo culture, the Navajo would have left the ground virtually untouched by mining, meaning any gold in their land would be easy for the U.S. to take once the Navajo were gone. (Legacy of Forced March… 02:53 - 03:11) This assumption of gold was one of the first mistakes of the U.S., because, in fact, there was very little gold in Navajo land. The land was rich with resources; under where the Navajo lived were “100 million barrels of oil, 25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 80 billion pounds of uranium, and 50 billion tons of coal by conservative estimates,” but no gold. (Broken Rainbow 00:07:15 - 00:07:28) The large economic benefit that the U.S. thought it would gain when it displaced the Navajo was really nonexistent.
Expansion for the U.S. meant contraction for the Navajo. The following is a chart showing how much land the Navajo occupied at different points in history.
Column 1: (Author calculations using Google Maps data)
Column 2 and 3: (Burnett, John. "The Navajo Nation's Own 'Trail Of Tears'." NPR. NPR, 15 June 2005. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.)
Column 4: ("History." Navajo Nation Government. Navajo Nation Department of Information Technology, 2011. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.)
Column 2 and 3: (Burnett, John. "The Navajo Nation's Own 'Trail Of Tears'." NPR. NPR, 15 June 2005. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.)
Column 4: ("History." Navajo Nation Government. Navajo Nation Department of Information Technology, 2011. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.)