Navajo Nation facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Navajo Nation
Naabeehó Bináhásdzo (Navajo)
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| Anthem: ("Dah Naatʼaʼí Sǫʼ bił Sinil" and "Shí naashá" used for some occasions) |
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Location of the Navajo Nation.
Checkerboard-area in lighter shade (see text) |
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| Established | June 1, 1868 (Treaty) | ||
| Expansions | 1878–2016 | ||
| Chapter system | 1922 | ||
| Tribal Council | 1923 | ||
| Capital | Window Rock (Tségháhoodzání) |
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| Subdivisions |
5 Agencies
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| Government | |||
| • Body | Navajo Nation Council | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 27,413 sq mi (71,000 km2) | ||
| Population
(2020)
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| • Total | 165,158 | ||
| • Density | 6.02481/sq mi (2.326/km2) | ||
| 160,552 Native American 4,606 White |
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| Time zone | MST/MDT | ||
| Website | www.navajo-nsn.gov | ||
The Navajo Nation (Navajo: Naabeehó Bináhásdzo), also known as Navajoland, is an Indian reservation of Navajo people in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. The seat of government is located in Window Rock, Arizona.
At roughly 17,544,500 acres (71,000 km2; 27,413 sq mi), the Navajo Nation is the largest Indian reservation in the United States, exceeding that of ten U.S. states. It is one of the few reservations whose lands overlap the nation's traditional homelands.
In 2010, the reservation was home to 173,667 out of 332,129 Navajo tribal members; the remaining 158,462 tribal members lived outside the reservation, in urban areas (26 percent), border towns (10 percent), and elsewhere in the U.S. (17 percent). In 2020, the number of tribal members increased to 399,494, surpassing the Cherokee Nation as the largest tribal group by enrollment.
The U.S. gained ownership of what is today Navajoland in 1848 following the Mexican-American War. The reservation was first established in 1868 within New Mexico Territory, initially spanning roughly 3,300,000 acres (13,000 km2); it subsequently straddled what became the Arizona–New Mexico border in 1912, when the states were admitted to the union. Unlike many reservations in the U.S., it has since expanded several times since its formation, therefore reaching its current boundaries in 1934.
Contents
Terminology
In English, the official name for the area was "Navajo Indian Reservation", as outlined in Article II of the 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo. On April 15, 1969, the tribe changed its official name to the "Navajo Nation", which is displayed on its seal. In 1994, the Tribal Council rejected a proposal to change the official designation from "Navajo" to "Diné", a traditional name for the people. Some people said that Diné represented the people in their time of suffering before the Long Walk, and that Navajo is the appropriate designation for the future. In the Navajo language, Diné means "the People", a term used in many languages as an endonym. Among the Navajo populace, both terms are employed. In 2017, the Navajo Nation Council rejected legislation to change the name to "Diné Nation", citing potential "confusion and frustration among Navajo citizens and non-Navajos".
In Navajo, the geographic entity with its legally defined borders is known as Naabeehó Bináhásdzo. This contrasts with Diné Bikéyah and Naabeehó Bikéyah for the general idea of "Navajoland". Neither of these terms should be confused with Dinétah, the term used for the traditional homeland of the Navajo. This is located in the area among the four sacred Navajo mountains of Dookʼoʼoosłííd (San Francisco Peaks), Dibé Ntsaa (Hesperus Mountain), Sisnaajiní (Blanca Peak), and Tsoodził (Mount Taylor).
History
The Navajo people's tradition of governance is rooted in their clans and oral history. The clan system of the Diné is integral to their society. The system has rules of behavior that extend to the manner of refined culture that the Navajo people call "walking in beauty". The philosophy and clan system were established long before the Spanish colonial occupation of Dinétah, through to July 25, 1868, when Congress ratified the Navajo Treaty with President Andrew Johnson, signed by Barboncito, Armijo, and other chiefs and headmen present at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico.
The Navajo people have continued to transform their conceptual understandings of government since signing the Treaty of 1868. Social, cultural, and political academics continue to debate the nature of modern Navajo governance and how it has evolved to include the systems and economies of the "western world".
Reservation and expansion
In the mid-19th century, primarily in the 1860s, most of the Navajo were forced to abandon their homes due to a series of military campaigns by the U.S. Army conducted with a scorched-earth policy and sanctioned by the U.S. government. The Army burned their homes and agricultural fields, and stole or killed livestock, to weaken and starve the Navajo into submission. In 1864, the main body of Navajo, numbering 8,000 adults and children, were marched 300 miles (500 km) on the Long Walk to imprisonment in Bosque Redondo. The Treaty of 1868 established the "Navajo Indian Reservation" and the Navajo people left Bosque Redondo for this territory.
The borders were defined as the 37th parallel in the north; the southern border as a line running through Fort Defiance; the eastern border as a line running through Fort Lyon; and in the west as longitude 109°30′.
As drafted in 1868, the boundaries were defined as:
the following district of country, to wit: bounded on the north by the 37th degree of north latitude, south by an east and west line passing through the site of old Fort Defiance, in Canon Bonito, east by the parallel of longitude which, if prolonged south, would pass through old Fort Lyon, or the Ojo-de-oso, Bear Spring, and west by a parallel of longitude about 109º 30' west of Greenwich, provided it embraces the outlet of the Canon-de-Chilly [Canyon de Chelly], which canyon is to be all included in this reservation, shall be, and the same hereby, set apart for the use and occupation of the Navajo tribe of Indians, and for such other friendly tribes or individual Indians as from time to time they may be willing, with the consent of the United States, to admit among them; and the United States agrees that no persons except those herein so authorized to do, and except such officers, soldiers agents, and employees of the Government, or of the Indians, as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties imposed by law, or the orders of the President, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in, the territory described in this article.
Though the treaty had provided for one hundred miles by one hundred miles in the New Mexico Territory, the size of the territory was 3,328,302 acres (13,470 km2; 5,200 sq mi)—slightly more than half. This initial piece of land is represented in the design of the Navajo Nation's flag by a dark-brown rectangle.
As no physical boundaries or signposts were set in place, many Navajo ignored these formal boundaries and returned to where they had been living prior to the U.S. occupation. A significant number of Navajo had never lived in the Hwéeldi (near Fort Sumner). They remained or moved near the Little Colorado and Colorado rivers, on Naatsisʼáán (Navajo Mountain), and some lived with Apache bands.
The first expansion of the territory occurred on October 28, 1878, when President Rutherford Hayes signed an executive order pushing the reservation boundary 20 miles (32 km) to the west. Further additions followed throughout the late 19th and early 20th century (see map). Most of these additions were achieved through executive orders, some of which were confirmed by acts of Congress. For example, President Theodore Roosevelt's executive order to add the region around Aneth, Utah in 1905 was confirmed by Congress in 1933.
The eastern border was shaped primarily as a result of allotments of land to individual Navajo households under the Dawes Act of 1887. This experiment was designed to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream American culture. The federal government proposed to divide communal lands into plots assignable to heads of household – tribal members – for their subsistence farming, in the pattern of small family farms common among Americans. This was intended to extinguish tribal land claims for such territory. The land allocated to these Navajo heads of household was initially not considered part of the reservation. Further, the federal government determined that land "left over" after all members had received allotments was to be considered "surplus" and available for sale to non-Native Americans. The allotment program continued until 1934. Today, this patchwork of reservation and non-reservation land is called the "checkerboard area". It resulted in the loss of much Navajo land.
In the southeastern area of the reservation, the Navajo Nation has purchased some ranches, which it refers to as its Nahata Dził, or New Lands. These lands are leased to Navajo individuals, livestock companies, and grazing associations.
In 1996, Elouise Cobell (Blackfeet) filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of an estimated 250,000–500,000 plaintiffs, Native Americans whose trust accounts did not reflect an accurate accounting of money owed them under leases or fees on trust lands. The settlement of Cobell v. Salazar in 2009 included a provision for a nearly $2 billion fund for the government to buy fractionated interests and restore land to tribal reservations. Individuals could sell their fractionated land interests on a voluntary basis, at market rates, through this program if their tribe participated.
Through March 2017, under the Tribal Nations Buy-Back Program, individual Navajo members received $104 million for purchase of their interests in land; 155,503 acres were returned to the Navajo Nation for its territory by the Department of Interior under this program.
Clan governance
In the traditional Navajo culture, local leadership was organized around clans, which are matrilineal kinship groups. Children are considered born into the mother's family and gain their social status from her and her clan. Her eldest brother traditionally has a strong influence on rearing the children.
The clan leadership have served as a de facto government on the local level of the Navajo Nation.
Rejection of Indian Reorganization Act
In 1933, during the Great Depression, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) attempted to mitigate environmental damage due to over-grazing on reservations. Significant pushback was given by the Navajo, who did not feel that they had been sufficiently consulted before the measures were implemented. BIA Superintendent John Collier's attempt to reduce livestock herd size affected responses to his other efforts to improve conditions for Native Americans. The herds had been central to Navajo culture, and were a source of prestige.
Also during this period, under the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934, the federal government was encouraging tribes to revive their governments according to constitutional models shaped after that of the United States. Because of the outrage and discontent about the herd issues, the Navajo voters did not trust the language of the proposed initial constitution outlined in the legislation. This contributed to their rejection of the first version of a proposed tribal constitution.
In the various attempts since, members found the process to be too cumbersome and a potential threat to tribal self-determination. The constitution was supposed to be reviewed and approved by BIA. The earliest efforts were rejected primarily because segments of the tribe did not find enough freedom in the proposed forms of government. In 1935 they feared that the proposed government would hinder development and recovery of their livestock industries; in 1953 they worried about restrictions on development of mineral resources.
They continued a government based on traditional models, with headmen chosen by clan groups.
See also
In Spanish: Nación Navajo para niños
