The Lands of Navajo Nation

The Navajo tribe of Native Americans lives in the southwestern lands of the modern-day United States, in the Four Corners region of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Believed to have initially settled there around the year 1400, the Navajo were primarily hunters and gatherers and transitioned to become farmers and herders as they were influenced by Spanish Colonists in the 1600s.

As the United States assumed control of the New Mexico Territory in 1849 following the Mexican-American War, settlers and troops began to establish a presence in the Navajo's native homeland. Over the next 10 years, tensions between the two groups escalated, as both the Navajo and New Mexican settlers engaged in raids and skirmishes with each other, and attempts at treaties between both parties were widely disregarded. In 1861, the U.S. Army began a series of military actions designed to bring local Navajo and Apache tribes under control. U.S. tactics centered around the destruction of Navajo crops and property, forcing large groups of Navajo to head to Fort Defiance, Arizona, in search of relief through 1864.

In 1864, the U.S. Army forced about 9,000 Navajo to walk over 300 miles from Fort Defiance to Fort Sumner, New Mexico for internment at Bosque Redondo. The walk was arduous, and the Navajo were provided with inadequate resources once they arrived, leading to a dark period in their history known as "The Fearing Time." Four years later, the U.S. established the Navajo Indian Reservation, allowing the tribe to return to their homeland.