Bosque Redondo
Bosque Redondo (Spanish: Round Grove) was the name of a camp in southeast New Mexico , where the US government interned more than 8,500 Diné and 500 Mescalero Apache between 1863 and 1868 .
On October 31, 1862, the United States Congress decided to build Fort Sumner. General James Henry Carleton had advocated the construction of the fort in order to ensure the protection of the settlers in the valley of the Pecos River from the Indian tribes living there. Nearby was the area of Bosque Redondo, an area of around 100 km² along the Pecos River. The camp was set up to show the Indians how to feed on farm work. But it soon turned out that there was neither enough water nor firewood in Bosque Redondo. Even so, Colonel Kit Carson was instructed to bring the Mescalero to Bosque Redondo in 1862 and the Diné by the end of 1864. This 450 km long march from the homeland of the Diné in northern Arizona and New Mexico to Bosque Redondo went down in the history of the American Southwest as the Long Walk.
The government had expected about 5,000 residents in the camp, but now more than 9,000 Indians had arrived and there were soon problems with supplies. Those who had survived the Long March were now on a barren strip of alkaline sandy land along the Pecos River. Most of the trees in the circular grove had been felled to build the neighboring Fort Sumner. The Diné dug trenches and holes in the ground to protect themselves against sun, wind and cold. The little wood was burned up quickly and the Indians had to walk for miles to dig up mesquite roots that they used as firewood. In addition, the alkaline water of the Pecos River was almost inedible.
Soon bloody conflicts broke out between Diné and Mescalero Apaches, who had been enemies since ancient times. Under the supervision of the white guards, the Indians dug around 50 km of irrigation ditches, plowed 800 hectares of land and mainly planted corn on them. But pests and drought led to crop failures for the next two years, and in the third year the Pecos River overflowed and destroyed the irrigation ditches. In the meantime the Mescalero had left the camp in 1865 without a permit. In 1873, after long negotiations with the government, they were given a reservation further south in New Mexico.
Hundreds of Indians died of malnutrition and disease, and after three years of crop failure and the flight of many desperate residents, it became apparent that Carleton's plan had failed and the Diné were demanding a return to their traditional tribal lands. The American government commissioned General William Tecumseh Sherman to investigate the situation in Bosque Redondo, and he was shocked by the conditions there. On June 1, 1868, Diné chiefs signed a treaty in Fort Sumner in which the government granted them a reservation in their old homeland and allowed the tribe to return. Thousands of fled Diné also joined the returnees.
In 1968, a hundred years after the treaty was signed, Fort Sumner was declared a New Mexico State Monument . In 2005, a new museum was opened on the site, designed by Navajo architect David Sloan. It is named Bosque Redondo Memorial (Memorial to Bosque Redondo).
literature
- Gerald Thompson: The Army and the Navajo: The Bosque Redondo Reservation Experiment 1863-1868 . Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press, 1876. ISBN 0-8165-0495-4
- Benjamin Capps: The Indians. Series: The Wild West. Time-Life Books (Netherland) BV, 1980.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b English Wikipedia
- ↑ Benjamin Capps: The Indians. Series: The Wild West. Time-Life Books (Netherland) BV, 1980. page 165; 168