Tribal
employees mark Treaty Day
By Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau
WINDOW ROCK — While most Americans enjoyed a three-day
Memorial Day holiday, because of the way the calendar falls this year
the 6,000-8,000
non-emergency Navajo Nation employees got four consecutive days off,
including Treaty Day on Tuesday.
Tribal employees also receive a four-day holiday at Thanksgiving because
the day after is designated Family Day, which the tribe takes off instead
of Columbus
Day in October.
It was on June 1, 1868, that Navajo leaders and the U.S. government signed
a treaty to return the Dine' to their homeland from the alkaline desert of
Fort
Sumner in southeastern New Mexico, about 60 miles west of Clovis.
The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, one of the last by the U.S. government
with First American nations, on July 25, 1868, and President Andrew Johnson
issued
the proclamation putting it into effect on Aug. 12, 1868.
Most Navajos some hid from the scorched earth policy used by the U.S. Army
under Col. Christopher "Kit" Carson during the U.S. Civil War to subdue the
Din were rounded up and marched the several hundred miles from the Four Corners
in the winter of 1863-64.
As it is now called, "The Long Walk," extended from present-day Fort
Defiance (then Fort Canby) to Fort Wingate and Grants to Los Pinos on the Rio
Grande, north to Albuquerque, then by three different trails to the Pecos River
to Fort Sumner, or Hwe'eldi, as it is known in Navajoland.
Four-year failure
After only four years, the U.S. government admitted to the 9,000 or so Navajos
(and a much smaller group of Apaches) that trying to farm alkaline soil wouldn't
work on the "Bosque Redondo." The federal government also couldn't
stand the high cost of maintaining the tribe.
In late May 1868 U.S. Commissioners Lieutenant General William T. Sherman
and Samuel F. Tappen met with Delgadito, Barboncito, Manuelito, Largo, Herrero,
Armijo and Torivio. The Navajos rejected being sent back east for assimilation
in Oklahoma,
Mississippi and Florida.
After three days of drafting the treaty, the formal ceremony was held on
June 1, 1868, with Barboncito, Delgado, Armijo, Manuelito, Largo, Herrero,
Chiqueto,
Muerto De Hombre, Hombro, Narbono, Narbono Segundo and Ganado Mucho signing,
along with a council of 17 other men including Torivio.
The 13 articles of the treaty, recognized by the U.S. Constitution as a supreme
law of the land, described the desire for peace, outlined the boundaries
of the original rectangle bisected by the border (and from the mouth of Canyon
De Chelly
on the west to Fort Lyon Ojo De Oso or Bear Spring on the east), and provided
for initial homestead-style farming by heads of families, along with supplies,
food and implements to be provided for a decade.
Only two articles describe services to be provided law enforcement and education.
Law enforcement
In brief, the law enforcement article requires people subject to U.S. authority
and Indians to be tried by U.S. courts once the tribe turns the Indian over
to the U.S.
The education article states the purpose as insuring "the civilization of
the Indians... the necessity of education is admitted."
It adds, "They therefore pledge themselves to compel their children, male
and female, between the ages of six and sixteen years, to attend school; and
... it is the duty of the agent for said Indians to see that this stipulation
is strictly complied with; and the United States agrees that, for every thirty
children between said ages... a house shall be provided and a teacher competent
to teach the elementary branches of an English education shall be furnished,
who will reside among said Indians and faithfully discharge his or her duties
as a teacher."
A third article notes the Indians will not oppose construction of trans-continental
railroads, other railroads, wagon roads, mail stations "or other works of
utility or necessity which may be ordered or permitted by the laws of the United
States," providing the government pays whatever damages are assessed by
three disinterested commissioners, including a chief or head man, appointed by
the president.
Another section of the same article requires a three-fourths vote of adult
men of the tribe for any part of the reservation to be given back to the
government; nor can the homestead-style land be taken from an individual
Indian without
that
individual's consent.
There are several other earlier treaties between the tribe, the U.S. and
Mexico, but none receives the attention of the dominant and last in 1868.
An exhibit about the 1868 people-to-people agreement is open at the Navajo
Nation Museum in Window Rock. |
Wednesday
June 2, 2004
Selected
Stories:
Election
= name game - Only well-known hit with voters
City man arrested in road rage incident
Tribal employees mark Treaty Day
Burn victim proves that the impossible
only takes longer
'They also serve - who only sit and wait'
- Low turnout, few surprises depict election
Deaths |
