Long Walk of the Navajo
| Long Walk of the Navajo | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Navajo Wars | |
Navajo people photographed during the Long Walk | |
| Location | Southwestern United States |
Attack type | Forced displacement, death march |
| Deaths | 2,500–3,500 deaths during march and internment (1864–1868) |
| Victims | Navajo people |
| Perpetrators | United States Federal Government
|
| Motive | Settlers acquisition of Navajo lands and forced cultural assimilation of Navajo people |
The Long Walk of the Navajo, also called the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo (Spanish: larga caminata del navajo), was the deportation and ethnic cleansing of the Navajo people by the United States federal government and the United States army. Navajos were forced to walk from their land in western New Mexico Territory (modern-day Arizona and New Mexico) to Bosque Redondo in eastern New Mexico. Some 53 different forced marches occurred between August 1864 and the end of 1866. In total, 10,000 Navajos and 500 Mescalero Apache were forced to the internment camp in Bosque Redondo. During the forced march and internment, up to 3,500 people died from starvation and disease over a four-year period. In 1868, the Navajo were allowed to return to their ancestral homeland following the Treaty of Bosque Redondo. Some anthropologists state that the "collective trauma of the Long Walk ... is critical to contemporary Navajos' sense of identity as a people".