An Old Hopi at Oraibi.
And here we have, I believe, one of the additional sources of enmity between the Navaho and the Spaniard. As their wards, the Spanish were in duty bound to care for and protect the Pueblos. Thus Navaho and Spaniard were ever at war, and when the Mexican came in the Spaniard's stead the battle still continued on the same lines and with the same ferocity.
It was on the 22d of January in 1849 that Lieut. J. H. Simpson, afterwards General, started on that interesting trip of his through the Navaho country, which has forever connected his name with these nomads. He was not in command of the expedition, its head being Col. John M. Washington, who was military and civil governor of New Mexico at the time. The object of the expedition was to coerce the Navahoes into a compliance with a treaty which they had made with the United States, two years previously, and to extend the provisions of the treaty.
When they reached the Chaco Canyon trouble ripened between the soldiers and the Navahoes, and the latter were fired upon, with the result that seven were killed, including Narbona, their great warrior and chief.
This was but one of many such attacks upon the whites. Then as now, only far more so, the Navahoes resented the intrusion of white people in their territory; and having gained fire-arms, they used them to deadly purpose upon those who slighted their will.
There is no doubt that the Navahoes were a source of great terror to the Mexicans who first settled in and near their territory. Even after the United States became their guardians at the acquisition of New Mexico in 1847, they were very hostile, murders, robberies, and depredations of every kind being quite common. In 1855, Dr. Letherman reported that "the nation, as a nation, is fully imbued with the idea that it is all powerful, which, no doubt, has arisen from the fact of its having been for years a terror and a dread to the inhabitants of New Mexico." But that these depredations were not perpetrated upon the whites alone is evident from the fact that one of the richest men of the Navahoes himself applied to Major Kendrick, then the commanding officer of Fort Defiance, N. Mex., to protect his cattle, as he could not otherwise prevent his own people from stealing them.
The insolence from years of this kind of free life needed forceful check, but it was not until 1862 that the unbearable conduct of the Navahoes brought upon themselves this long-needed chastisement.
According to governmental reports, the Indians of New Mexico (among whom were the Navahoes and Mescalero Apaches) caused losses between 1860 and 1863 to the people of that territory of "not less than 500,000 sheep, and 5,000 horses, mules, and cattle. Over 200 lives have been also sacrificed of citizens, soldiers, and shepherds." It was also stated in 1863 "that the military establishment of this territory [New Mexico, which then included Arizona], since its acquisition, has cost not less than $3,000,000 annually, independent of land-warrant bounties." And while this was for a conquered country, the whole expenditure was for the chastisement of hostile Indians, every tribe of which in turn came in for its share of the fighting.
It was openly advocated about this time that the policy of extermination was the only one that could be followed, and this must be brought about either by actual warfare, or by driving the hostiles into the mountains and there starving them to death.
Brig.-Gen. J. H. Carleton, who was in control of the department of New Mexico, determined upon a thorough and complete change in our treatment of this haughty and proud people. They had made six treaties at different times with officers of our Government and had violated them before they could be ratified at Washington. He strongly counselled drastic measures in a letter which is historically of sufficient interest to justify a large quotation from it:—