Bosque Redondo to memorialize `Long Walk' Story-Date: 04:04 p.m. PST Wednesday, March 4, 1998 ------------------------------------------------------------ Bosque Redondo to memorialize `Long Walk' By Anthony Dellaflora Albuquerque Journal FORT SUMNER, N.M. (AP) -- For some Navajos, the "Long Walk" is a forbidden subject, a part of the past best left undisturbed. But for Ailema Benally, the story of one of the more tragic events in Navajo history is also a tribute to the strength of the human spirit. That is what she wants to pass on to the next generation. "I tell them that four generations ago, these people suffered for us, to keep the land and our culture. They had no idea what would happen to them. All they knew is they lost their way of life," Benally said. Just south of Fort Sumner in eastern New Mexico, the U.S. Army held thousands of Navajos and Mescalero Apaches as prisoners of war in the 1860s. The Navajos had been rounded up from Canyon de Chelly, Ariz., and marched 300 miles to the site, Bosque Redondo. Hundreds died during the march; hundreds more died while living there. Now, more than 100 years later, the state is proposing a $3.5 million visitors center and exhibit it hopes will capture the emotions, memories and history of that Long Walk. The tribe has endorsed the plan. The architect is Navajo and an advisory committee made up of Mescalero Apaches and Navajos has participated. David Sloan, the Albuquerque architect hired to design the center, understands the reluctance of fellow Navajos to recall the event. "It's not like denial, but it's like understanding there is a certain order and certain balance about the Earth, psychically," he said. "People have carried on ceremonies in the past and put it to rest. Now, you're coming back and stirring up the action, so to speak. This commotion we are re-creating may be beneficial, but it also could be negative." But he and others like Benally believe a new monument is for the best. Benally, a park ranger at Canyon de Chelly, views the Long Walk as a pivotal moment in Navajo history. "I tell people, the schoolchildren, visitors here and my family, all the Navajo people that are here today are survivors of the Long Walk, because all of our families went through it, whether they were on the Long Walk itself, or they're descendants of the families who wandered between Canyon de Chelly and the Grand Canyon for four years. ... "In that sense, it's culturally significant, and in the sense of what the human spirit can endure, it has national significance," she said. The Long Walk has its roots in the westward expansion and the clash of cultures. As settlers moved west into Indian-occupied land, the Southwest became home to an uneasy mix of Indian tribes and Hispanic and Anglo settlers. As exhibit designers Tom Chilton and Christie Myrabo learned while researching the Long Walk, tensions were escalating by the mid-1800s. Indian women and children were being stolen and sold as slaves. Navajo warriors were raiding settlements. In 1862, Gen. James Carleton ordered Col. Kit Carson and troops to begin exterminating the Mescalero Apaches. The Apaches appealed for leniency and were spared. By the middle of 1863, about 400 had been relocated to Bosque Redondo. Carleton then ordered Carson to punish the Navajos and bring them under control. With the aid of Ute Indians, fierce enemies of the Navajos, soldiers descended on Canyon de Chelly, the center of the Navajo homeland, killing or capturing Navajos, burning crops and orchards and destroying livestock, according to Southwest histories. A few families hid out at Fortress Rock and were never captured. But facing starvation, thousands of Navajos surrendered during the winter of 1864. Well over half the estimated 12,000 Navajos eventually were rounded up. They first went to Fort Canby, near present-day Window Rock, Ariz., where many died of exposure and dysentery. Survivors were sent off in groups to march 300 miles to Bosque Redondo. Scant details of the forced marches are recorded in government records. But Navajo oral tradition -- some now collected in books -- is replete with accounts of horrors and heroism. For example, some who could not keep up the pace, including the elderly, children and pregnant women, were shot by soldiers. Lacking blankets, hundreds died slowly from exposure. Life at Bosque Redondo offered little respite. The scarcity of trees precluded building traditional hogans, so most simply dug holes in the ground and covered them the best they could, according to Chilton and Myrabo's research. Insects, bad soil, bad water and hail ruined crops. Government rations were often insufficient. Fights broke out between the Mescaleros and the Navajos -- one reason 350 Mescaleros walked off one night in 1865 to return home. In all, nearly 3,000 Navajos died at Bosque Redondo. Even the government finally had to admit the experiment in "civilizing" the Navajos was an abject failure. By 1868, a treaty was signed and the Navajos were allowed to return home. Between the returnees and those who remained behind, an estimated 9,000 were still alive. Today the Navajo population is more than 200,000. Bosque Redondo -- named for a circle of cottonwood trees that once stood there -- is home to Fort Sumner State Monument, a small museum and office. While there is plenty of information about the military aspect of the fort, there is little about the internment of Navajos and Mescaleros. Robert Baca, director of the State Monuments Division, wants a broader view. "What happened in New Mexico is very symbolic of what happened in the rest of the United States to many of the Native American tribes. This was basically our attempt at trying to bring a clearer vision, a clearer light to what happened back then," he said. The Legislature appropriated money for the project in 1992, with the backing of the Mescalero and Navajo governments. Exhibit design and preliminary architectural drawings have been completed. Baca hopes to get funding in the 1999 session and have the monument built by 2000. Sloan said an advisory committee mostly of Navajos and Mescaleros "charged us with the responsibility of telling the truth. Don't be swayed by other people's politics, about whether or not it's appropriate." Some Navajos visit the current monument each June 1 to celebrate the treaty's anniversary. Navajo visitors have created a shrine of their own -- a pile of stones -- near the visitors center. They have been bringing stones since 1971 from their homes on the reservation. Chilton and Myrabo said they've had to walk a fine line in telling history without judging it. "We're not trying to make the military look bad or the Indians look bad. Everybody was doing atrocities back then, so nobody had this pure white hat," Chilton said. Above all, the exhibit will be fair, he said. "You don't leave stuff out just because it's not pretty, because that's false history. That's error by omission, and that's just as bad as any other error." Benally said: "It isn't so much the way the people lived, or the struggle, the suffering, all that happened, but actually the perseverance and endurance of the human spirit. In that sense, we could represent other cultures who have suffered losses and have gone through hardships. In this sense, many people can share that experience." ------------------------------------------------------------