Navajo Nation

The Navajo people had a long standing relationship with the Spanish before America claimed the New Mexico territory for itself. When that happened the Navajo relationship with the settlers turned sour, as they did not seem to respect them as the Spanish had, instead it resulted in much bloodshed and the Long Walk which was similar to the Trail of Tears suffered by the Five Civilized Tribes. Afterwards they were used many times by the American militia as scouts, soldiers, and code talkers throughout various wars and conflicts.
==Beginnings==
The Navajo people are said to have migrated from Canada to the southwestern United States. There they met the Spanish who influenced them to raise goats and sheep. Sheep became so important to the people that they often symbolized currency and the more sheep a person had, the higher their social status. In the 17th century the Navajo people joined with many other tribes to drive the Spanish out of their land after they became too familiar. This created a 21 year truce between the Indian Nations in the area and sparked a series of raids and attacks on the Spanish with the horses that they introduced.
Afterwards, the Navajo made peace with the Spanish that lasted for 50 years and King George III of Spain even made a decleration that any attack on the indians would only be to make peace with them, and any man caught killing an indian prisoner would receive the death penalty. The peace ended after the area was sold to America and settlers moved into the New Mexico territory.
==Dealing with Americans==
After the settlers came into the New Mexico territory, the Navajo started focusing on them with raids and attacks as it had beomce a pretty important part of their economy. The settlers, however, didn't lay down and take it like the Spanish though. They fought back and a war between the two almost errupted until a peace treaty was signed that almost stopped all attacks. The younger Navajo ignored the treaty and continued attacking. The settlers responded by kidnapping their women and children and using them as slaves. This stopped when America started building forts in their territory to "protect" the Navajo people. After the forts were build an expedition started to get teh Navajo's surrender to the American government. The Navajo were forced to near starvation and finally surrendered in 1863. This started the Long Walk which is similar to the Trail of tears. The walk consisted of an expedition of over 400 miles to Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
Over 9,000 Navajo were forced to Fort Sumner, but the fort was only designed to provide for 5,000 people. This made the Navajo very weak and susceptable to raids from various other tribes in the area. In 1868 they were finally allowed to move back to a reservation near their original land.
After moving to the reservation, the Navajo people were used as a scapegoat by politicians to increase their political standing. It was reported that they were always in conflict with something or another and that they were going to invade and kill everyone. Blah blah blah.
==Navajo in WW2==
During WW2 and the American conflict with the Japanese, the Navajo people were employed to create a code that would be unbreakable by the Japanese. The code started in Fort Pendelton and moved on when the Navajo soldiers were sent into the marines. The code was so successful that the Japanese were unable to break it, adn the code saved thousands of lives and helped many missions end in success.
Category:Indian Nations