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Also spelled Navaho, the Navajo are American Indian people of the Southwestern United States. In their own language, they are known as the Diné or Naabeehó.

The Navajo are the second most populous American Indian tribes in the United States today. However, there is only one tribe, the Navajo Nation. With nearly 400,000 enrolled members, the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United States, and the tribe has the largest reservation in the country. The Navajo Nation's reservation consists of 27,325 square miles of land in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.

The Navajo language is spoken throughout the Navajo Nation, although most Navajos also speak English. They refer to their language as Diné bizaad, which means "people's language, and they refer to themselves as the Diné, which means "the people." The Navajo language resembles that of the Apache, as both tribes migrated from northwestern Canada and eastern Alaska. Some Navajos speak Navajo Sign Language, which is a dialect of Plains Sign Talk, while others speak Plains Sign Talk itself.

The Navajo are believed to have arrived in the Southwest around 1400 AD. Like most early peoples groups on the continent, the Navajos were initially hunters and gatherers. They probably learned farming from the Pueblo peoples, growing the traditional American Indian "Three Sisters" of corn, beans, and squash. Later, they began herding sheep and goats, a practice they likely picked up from the Spaniards.

Prior to the 17th century, the Spanish referred to the Navajos as Apaches or Quechos, but at some point they separated, or became distinct from the Apaches. By the 1640s, the Spanish were referring to the Diné as Navajos, while the Apaches became frequent enemies of the Navajo, while the Spanish, the Navajos, and the Hopis (a Pueblo people) formed a loose alliance based on trade and protection against Apache and Comanche bands.

When the Navajos encountered the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War, a treaty was signed allowing the United States to build forts and trading posts on Navajo land. However, this treaty was frequently broken on both sides. In 1863, U.S. troops invaded far into Navajo land, killing Navajos, destroying crops and homes, poisoning wells, and confiscating livestock. In the face of starvation, many Navajo groups surrendered at Fort Defiance, while others left to join the Mescalero at Bosque Redondo, and others lived near the San Juan River, in Hopi villages, or with Apache bands.

In the spring of 1864, U.S. troops force the Navajo to walk more than 300 miles to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where they were interred at Bosque Redondo. There, they were met with starvation, disease, exposure to cold temperatures, and raids by other tribes and white settlers.

The 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo allowed the surviving Navajos to return to a reservation on a portion of their former homeland, although the U.S. Army continued to maintain forts on reservation land, employing Navajos as "Indian Scouts."

Gradually, conditions improved. The Navajo were allowed to leave the reservation for trade, allowing them to increase their livestock holdings. Reserve land was also increased, although the government often leased Navajo land to ranchers for cattle grazing, took land for railroad development, and allowed mining on Navajo land without either consultation or profit to the tribe.

Like many other American Indian tribes, the Navajo also faced forced assimilation into white society. Navajo children were forcibly sent to boarding schools, both on or off of the reservation, where they were taught under an English-only curriculum, and Navajo children were often punished for speaking Navajo. This continued until the 1930s and later, the result being a significant loss of the Navajo language.

During World War II, many Navajo left the reservation for work in urban factories, while others volunteered for military service, and many of them never returned to the reservation. Four hundred "Navajo Code Talkers" played a prominent role in World War II by relaying radio messages using their own language, which the Japanese were unable to understand.

The Navajo resemble other Apachean people in their preference for limiting centralized tribal or political organization, although they adopted pan-tribal governmental and legal systems in order to maintain tribal sovereignty.

Traditional Navajo society was organized into small, independent bands of related kin who made decisions on a consensus basis. Today, many of the Navajo people live a largely traditional lifestyle, speaking the Navajo language, practicing traditional religions, and organizing through traditional forms.

Online resources related to the Navajo are the focus of this portion of our web guide.

 

 

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