By Keli Holt,
In April 1860, during one of the worst droughts in Southwestern history, a group of Navajo warriors led by Manuelito, the son-in-law of the famous Narbona, who had earlier led his own band of powerful Diné (as the Navajo call themselves) successfully against Mexican forces, launched an attack on the American military outpost of Fort Defiance. Fort Defiance had been built in the heart of Navajo territory (Dinétah) in what is today northeastern Arizona to defy the Navajo desire to keep the encroaching Americans at bay. The fort’s mere presence in the Dinétah was an insult that warriors like Manuelito were determined to be rid of.
The lead-up to this conflict began when President James K. Polk sent the Army of the West to Santa Fe during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). This act was part of the process of seizing from Mexico the modern states of California, New Mexico and Arizona. In taking control of New Mexico, D.C. inherited the centuries-long conflicts between the descendents of the Spanish conquistadors. They had settled in communities along the Rio Grande alongside many Pueblo Nations and powerful semi-nomadic nations like the Navajo. The Americans had little appreciation of what they were taking on.
The Spanish, under conquistador Francisco Coronado in the 1540s, had marched north from Mexico into New Mexico in search of gold. Instead of precious metals, the Spanish found a variety of Native Nations. They referred to all settled, agricultural peoples as Pueblos, from the Spanish word for village, despite the fact that many “Pueblos” were different peoples. Nevertheless, the Pueblos were sedentary farmers, a lifestyle recognizable to the Spanish. By the late 16th century, they set out to turn all Pueblos into Christian, tax-paying citizens of their vast empire.
What was unrecognizable to the Spanish was the lifestyle of nations like the Navajo, who roamed over large territories hunting, farming and raiding other nations. The Diné proved much less amenable to adapting Spanish ways than the Pueblos. So, rather than try to conquer them and exploit their labor, Spain tried for 250 years to contain the Navajo by preventing horses and modern weaponry from falling into their hands.
However, it was only a matter of time before the horse and weapons made their way into not just Navajo hands but also Native Nations throughout the American Plains and Southwest. The additions revolutionized their lifestyles. The horse and weapons greatly expanded the speed, range and efficiency with which Native Nations could hunt, wage war and raid settlements. In New Mexico, the Navajo perfected the ability to raid Spanish and Pueblo settlements up and down the Rio Grande. The Spanish (and after 1821, the Mexicans) would launch retaliatory military forays into Navajo territory as punishment for these raids. Both sides would capture slaves, usually women and children, and carry them back to their homes. For several hundred years this series repeated itself.
When America seized New Mexico, it was thrust into the middle of these cycles and found itself, like the Spanish and Mexican governments before it, launching retaliatory attacks into the Dinétah whenever raiding increased. While the rest of America careened toward the Civil War in the 1850s, largely due to arguments over whether all the territory seized from Mexico would be slave or free, the U.S. federal government built military outposts in the Southwest to demonstrate its ultimate commitment to ending these cycles of violence.
Before the Civil War, the entire U.S. military consisted of only 16,000 officers and men. Most were stationed at remote outposts like Fort Defiance. With so few troops available, these forts were lightly manned and had limited resources. The posts were more symbolic of America’s potential power and a warning to all that more American settlers, soldiers and weapons could arrive at any moment.
By 1860, New Mexico was experiencing an historic drought, and the Diné were suffering. American forts like Defiance handed out food, but there were simply not enough resources to make much of a difference. Washington also conditioned much of the aid on the promise that the Diné give up their nomadic lifestyle and become sedentary farmers. Americans saw the entire Native lifestyle as inevitably fading away, to be replaced with Christian, tax-paying, agricultural settlements, similar to what Spain had tried to do to the Pueblos.
The drought made an already tense situation more fraught as the grasslands used to feed Diné herds dried up. Warriors like Manuelito believed it was the time to push back against American pressure. Manuelito led his herd onto the grasslands surrounding Fort Defiance, and as punishment, the fort commander slaughtered the entire pack. Despite the raging Civil War in the East, the tensions between the powerful Diné and the federal government were about to explode with catastrophic results.
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