page_title: Navajo Nation
section_title: Reservation and expansion
hierarchical_section_title: Navajo Nation / History / Reservation and expansion
caption_attribution_description: English: Content: Same image as "Son of the desert, Navaho" in Edward S. Curtis The North American Indian, vol. I&#160;: the Apache, the Jicarillas, the Navaho [portfolio]&#160;; plate no. 32. Content: No. 182. Content: Exh 1992: Four Hundred Years of Native-American Portraits #93 NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b14311856 Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 28def910-c6cf-012f-1971-58d385a7bc34
context_page_description: The Navajo Nation is an American Indian territory covering about 17,544,500 acres, occupying portions of northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico in the United States. This is the largest land area retained by an indigenous tribe in the United States, with a population of 173,667 as of 2010.
  By area, the Navajo Nation is larger than ten U.S. states – West Virginia, Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island – and is less than one percent shy of being equal to the combined area of the last five.
  The original territory has expanded several times since the 19th century.
context_section_description: In the mid-19th century, most Navajo were forced from their lands by the US government, and were marched on the Long Walk to imprisonment in Bosque Redondo. The Treaty of 1868 established the "Navajo Indian Reservation" and the Navajos left Bosque Redondo. The borders were defined as the 37th parallel in the north; the southern border as a line running through Fort Defiance; the eastern border as a line running through Fort Lyon; and in the west as longitude 109°30′.
  As drafted in 1868, the boundaries were defined as:
  the following district of country, to wit: bounded on the north by the 37th degree of north latitude, south by an east and west line passing through the site of old Fort Defiance, in Canon Bonito, east by the parallel of longitude which, if prolonged south, would pass through old Fort Lyon, or the Ojo-de-oso, Bear Spring, and west by a parallel of longitude about 109' 30" west of Greenwich, provided it embraces the outlet of the Canon-de-Chilly [Canyon de Chelly], which canyon is to be all included in this reservation, shall be, and the same hereby, set apart for the use and occupation of the Navajo tribe of Indians, and for such other friendly tribes or individual Indians as from time to time they may be willing, with the consent of the United States, to admit among them; and the United States agrees that no persons except those herein so authorized to do, and except such officers, soldiers agents, and employees of the Government, or of the Indians, as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties imposed by law, or the orders of the President, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in, the territory described in this article.
  Though the treaty had provided for one hundred miles by one hundred miles in the New Mexico Territory, the size of the territory was 3,328,302 acres (13,470 km²; 5,200 sq mi)—slightly more than half. This initial piece of land is represented in the design of the Navajo Nation's flag by a dark-brown rectangle.
  As no physical boundaries or signposts were set in place, many Navajo ignored these formal boundaries and returned to where they had been living prior to captivity. A significant number of Navajo had never lived in the Hwéeldi (near Fort Sumner). They remained or moved to near the Little Colorado and Colorado rivers, on Naatsisʼáán (Navajo Mountain) and some with Apache bands.
  The first expansion of the territory occurred on October 28, 1878, when President Rutherford Hayes signed an executive order pushing the reservation boundary 20 miles to the west. Further additions followed throughout the late 19th and early 20th century (see map). Most of these additions were achieved through executive orders, some of which were confirmed by acts of Congress; for example, President Theodore Roosevelt's executive order to add the region around Aneth, Utah in 1905 was confirmed by Congress in 1933.
  The eastern border was shaped primarily as a result of allotments of land to individual Navajo households under the Dawes Act of 1887. This experiment was designed to assimilate Native Americans to the majority culture. The federal government proposed to divide communal lands into plots assignable to heads of household – tribal members – for their subsistence farming, in the pattern of small family farms common among European Americans. The land allocated to Navajos was initially not considered as part of the reservation. Further, the government determined that land "left over" after all members had received allotments was to be considered "surplus" and available for sale to non-Native Americans. The allotment program continued until 1934.  Today, this patchwork of reservation and non-reservation land is called "the checkerboard" area.
  In the southeastern area of the reservation, the Navajo Nation has purchased some ranches, which it calls its Nahata Dzil or New Lands. They are leased to Navajo individuals, livestock and grazing associations, and livestock companies.
  In 1996, Elouise Cobell (Blackfeet) filed a class action suit against the federa
caption: 1904 photograph of a young Navajo man.
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