It is unfortunate that when the Apaches were taken East, not only the hostiles but also a few friendlies and some who had helped the troops, were also deported. They were imprisoned in Florida, and Geronimo made to labor sawing large logs. One or two of the warriors committed suicide. After some years the prisoners were removed to Fort Sill. Geronimo often complained that the Government did not keep the terms of the Miles surrender. I have never heard that General Miles tried to right this wrong. If he did, I stand corrected.
Geronimo did not see his family for two years—contrary to the terms of the surrender.
The foregoing sums up in a brief way the career of Geronimo. Under similar circumstances any white man of spirit and independence, and who was not a coward, would become “a bad Indian.” After many appeals by the Board of Indian Commissioners, the Indian Rights Association and others, these Apache prisoners were removed to their ancient homes. About seventy elected to remain near Fort Sill, Okla., and have been given farms.
Practically all of them are doing well—industrious and capable.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE NAVAHO
The great Shoshonean and Athapascan stocks extended from the Northwest down into the Southwest. The States of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, western Texas and southern California prior to 1860 were known as the “Great American Desert.” The Yuman, Piman and Athapascan, together with a few lesser stocks, inhabited this great region. Chief of the desert tribes is the Navaho. Doctor Washington Matthews has presented considerable literature in the American Anthropologist and elsewhere on this interesting folk; Oscar H. Lipps published a history of the Navaho in 1909; George Wharton James, Esq., refers to them at considerable length in his publications. The Franciscan Fathers, having a mission at St. Michaels, Arizona, published in 1910 a complete ethnologic dictionary of the Navaho customs, legends, and gave large numbers of sentences. This also contained a bibliography of some length. Doctor George W. Pepper of the University of Pennsylvania Museum published a very interesting article on “The Making of a Navaho Blanket” in Everybody’s Magazine, January, 1902. A volume giving details of blanket and wool industry among the Navaho has just been written by George Wharton James, Esq., entitled “Indian Blankets and Their Makers”. This volume of 213 large pages contains many colored plates and is the most comprehensive treatment of the Navaho blanket-weaving industry ever published.
The Navaho are the only really unspoiled Indians left in America, and I trust that readers will pardon repetition, when I again urge that they be let alone to work out their own salvation. That is, while certain safeguards are necessary, we should realize our incompetency and ignorance—not to use a stronger term—in handling the natives of Oklahoma, Minnesota and California, and not repeat our blunders in the “benevolent assimilation” of these intelligent, industrious, and moral people. Here is one splendid racial stock that has thus far escaped the blight of our bureaucracy. The Navaho still stands, frightened, gazing in at the threshold of our civilization. He sees the greed of the white settler for his possessions.
There have been a number of reports on the Navaho, in addition to the ethnological and popular works cited. Any one of these will give readers a fair conception of conditions among these Indians.
Rev. Anselm Weber of the Franciscan Mission published a pamphlet on July 25, 1914. The Indian Rights Association has also taken up officially these Indians in its annual reports, the past two or three years. Honorable F. H. Abbott, Secretary of the Board of Indian Commissioners, visited the Navaho and made specific recommendations as to allotment and irrigation plans. In December-January, 1913–14, Rev. Samuel A. Eliot and Rev. William H. Ketcham, members of the Board of Indian Commissioners, officially visited the Navaho and made a report to the Secretary of the Interior. Rev. W. R. Johnson, missionary located at Indian Wells, Arizona, has repeatedly urged in public addresses at Lake Mohonk and elsewhere the need of proper protection of this, the finest body of aboriginal men and women remaining in North America.
It is not necessary to go back to 1850, to state that these Indians were in a satisfactory condition. They are in a satisfactory condition today, and are the only band of Indians so situated in this country. The number of them is said by Father Weber to be about 25,000. Rev. Johnson, who traveled extensively over the reservation, claims there are 28,000. Taking into consideration several thousand that live off the reservation on the public domain, there are at least 30,000 Navaho today. The number of sheep they possess has been variously estimated from one million to two million head. The number of blankets the women wove last year, no man may know, but the value of the blanket industry is upwards of a million dollars per annum. A few years ago, Commissioner Valentine stated that the Navaho sold $800,000 worth of blankets. It must be remembered that many of their blankets are sold north of the San Juan river and elsewhere off the reservation, and that traveling traders and buyers continually penetrate beyond the borders of the reserve. The totals obtained by superintendents, teachers and white employees, is doubtless far below the actual volume of business.