The Power Of Bosque Redondo's Assassination

Following his arrival to the American Southwest in 1862, Brigadier General James Henry Carleton of the Union Army would oversee the process of destroying Native American powers throughout the Territory until his reassignment in 1867. The Navajo were one such power that Carleton set about destroying, and will be the tribe focused on within this paper. The process of destruction took many forms, and was itself simultaneously literal and figurative, as the tribes faced both a physical and cultural assault from the American military, New Mexican citizens, and rival tribes of Native Americans. In its final stage, this destruction took form as Bosque Redondo; a reservation planned as an experiment by Carleton to finalize the pacification of Native

American threats to American ambitions and interests in the Southwest.
Under Carleton, a series of wars and a harsh process of removal to Bosque Redondo would become known as the “Long Walk.” The Long Walk would reduce the tribe to such a state that in 1868, the government would allow the interned Navajos to return to their lands, no longer considering them a threat to American ambitions in the Southwest. The Navajos would be interned at Bosque Redondo under military guard until 1868, and would continue to be degraded as a result of the mismanagement of the reservation.
Carleton believed that the development of the Southwest into a peaceful and profitable territory hinged upon the success of Bosque Redondo. He firmly believed that a lasting peace in the Territory and the survival of the Navajo could only be achieved through the tribe’s removal to the reservation. It was only when the tribe no longer posed a threat to American ambitions that their preservation could be ensured. The process of fighting, removing, and interning Navajos led by Carleton was designed to permanently break the tribe as a power in the American Southwest and shape both the tribe and Territory to make way for American ambitions. * * *
Before being assigned to the Southwest in 1862, James H. Carleton had spent the greater part of his military career dealing with Native Americans across the United States. He began his career in the military in 1838, as a volunteer, and in the years to come would go on to serve in positions which required interaction with Native Americans. In 1839, Carleton was sent to patrol the borders of Indian Territory at Fort Gibson. He would later go on to serve in the Army in the Plains region, working to end hostilities among Plains tribes. Carleton’s last position in proximity to Native Americans before the Civil War was at Fort Tejon, which acted as a buffer between whites and Native Americans in Southern California. At the outbreak of the Civil War Carleton led the so-called ‘California Column’ into the American Southwest to push back the invasion of Confederate forces from Texas, culminating in the Battle of Glorieta Pass, 1862. Carleton remained stationed in New Mexico Territory, in part as a means of keeping guard in case further attempts by Confederates to reenter the Territory appeared. Following his arrival to New Mexico, Carleton became occupied with the question of how to deal with Native Americans in the area, including the Navajos who had been at open war with the United States since 1859. Carleton would come to power during the Civil War, where he would become departmental commander in New Mexico in 1862. As a Brigadier General, Carleton would command a vast amount of military power in the Southwest.
Over the course of his life, Carleton had developed a complex view of Native American policy. Carleton’s own writings detail at times a sympathetic view of Native Americans, blaming whites for the “wretchedness” of Native Americans who lived in proximity. He attributed part of the blame for this to the government for failing to provide adequate protection for Native Americans. His experimental Bosque Redondo reservation would play into the philosophy that the government should play a role in both the protection of Native Americans, and yet its creation was born following a seemingly opposing philosophy; total war.
Following his arrival into the Southwest, Carleton was simply the newest entry in a chronicle of violence in the Territory among Native Americans, Hispanic locals, and Anglo-American settlers. As a result of early European settlement in the American Southwest which began in the 1600’s, tensions among Native American and Spanish groups developed after the introduction of sheep into the area by the Spanish. Following the introduction of sheep, the Navajos became one of the major pastoral powers in the region. As a result of the expansionism required to sustain ever growing herds, friction between the Navajos and other pastoral powers developed over the years. This friction led to competition and violence, leading to the creation of long-feuds between the Navajo and the Hispanic descendants of the Spanish. Moreover, the historical enmity between Navajos and Hispanic populations in the Southwest was such that following his arrival, Carleton would make references to the two groups as being “hereditary enemies.” Additionally, the shift in ownership of the territories of Arizona and New Mexico, from Mexico to the United States as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in 1848, created more issues with the Native Americans. The United States was now obligated to see to the wellbeing of former Mexican citizens who inhabited the territories. Thus, this obligation pinpointed the focus of the United States onto the violence perpetrated by Native Americans against the former Mexican citizens.
Navajo raids triggered action from the United States, who attempted to utilize the military to protect American interests. Complaints by American citizens about Navajo depredations drew attention from the government to the Territory. As a result, the military built forts throughout the territory, with Fort Defiance in particular being built in the middle of Navajo lands as a means of dissuading the Navajos from further raids. Much like Americans, Fort Defiance had a mixed effect upon the Navajos. While initially intended to be an imposing show of American military power, there was a time when supplies were distributed by Americans from the fort to aid the Navajos in farming. As a result, warm relations developed between Americans and the Navajos from this process, and by 1855, the relations between the United States and the Navajos were such that some Navajos considered themselves “the best friends [to Americans]…they ever had.” However, by 1860 Fort Defiance had become a point of contention between Americans and the Navajos. The Second Battle of Fort Defiance had broken out between the Navajos and Americans, following complaints by Chief Manuelito that Fort Defiance sat upon Navajo grazing grounds and that the Navajos should be able to graze their livestock on it too. The Navajos were angry when the new commander of Fort Defiance, Major Thomas Brooks, sent his soldiers into the field to slaughter the Navajo livestock at night. A Navajo man later shot and killed one of Brook’s servants at the Fort.
Failings within the government brought further problems into American management of the Southwest. Tension between the War Department and the Department of the Interior had developed out of the transfer of the Federal Indian Bureau, into the control of the Department of the Interior in 1849. In addition, treaties made to keep the peace had been consistently violated by local New Mexicans and Native Americans, and the failings of the government to bring New Mexico into statehood made matters all the more difficult. All of these factors had made whatever designs the United States had upon bringing stability to the Southwest all the more challenging to carry out.
Governmental failings and continued depredations by the Navajos caused officials in New Mexico to grow frustrated by the difficulties in the territory, who in response began to support violence as a means to deal with the Native Americans. Prior to Carleton’s arrival, officials had developed the opinion that use of “overwhelming military force” was not only justified, but necessary in dealing with local tribes. In 1860, the Navajo attack on Fort Defiance had prompted a military response, but on an ineffective scale. The notion that a reservation might better serve as a means to solve hostilities with the Navajos was considered by the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in New Mexico, James Collins, in 1860. The use of violence would however, draw the most appeal in coming years as officials weighed what options might be used to solve the threat of Navajo power. One such person who weighed the possibility of forcing the Navajos into submission through violence was David Meriwether, the governor of New Mexico, who had previously been an Indian trader. Meriwether noted two possibilities for dealing with the Native Americans in the area, “the government must either feed and clothe these Indians to a certain extent, or chastise them in a decisive manner. If the pacific policy be resorted to, it should be carried out upon a large and liberal scale…to an extent which would leave a lasting impression upon their minds. Neither policy will be found to be effectual if partially carried out.” It would happen in the future, following this statement, that under Carleton both of these policies were tried, not to the exclusion of one another, but simultaneously and in conjunction, with disastrous effect for the Navajos.
Events during the Civil War would lead to a policy of using military force against the Navajo. With the coming of the Civil War the attention of the military in the Southwest was drawn eastward, with Union forces focused on defending the territory from Confederate invasion. This redirection of military attention presented the Navajos with an opportunity to recommence their raids, resulting in calls for help from New Mexican citizens to the American government. Though under Carleton’s predecessor, General Canby, military force had been utilized against Native Americans in New Mexico, his efforts had not been substantial enough to effect a lasting change. The Union’s focus to secure the Southwest against Confederate threats led to a buildup of American military force in the territories. This presented a military force as a possible solution towards the threat of Native American raids. Carleton believed that this new military presence also could serve the purpose of ensuring the economic growth of the Territory by protecting the lands that he felt contained vast untapped natural wealth.
Carleton saw potential for mineral wealth in Arizona and New Mexico, which he saw as a means to develop the Territory. During one of his early excursions to the Southwest in 1853, he noted the prospective wealth in the territory, stating, “there is every reason to believe that the mountains east of the Rio Grande are at this day rich in gold and silver.” Following his return to the territory during the Civil War, Carleton would go on to describe a vast, untapped amount of mineral wealth all throughout the Southwest. He described a territory near the head of the Gila River as “one of the richest gold countries in the world” and noted that it was “a country teeming with millions on millions of wealth”. In another letter, Carleton would describe an inexhaustible supply of copper lying in the same region, and compared a region near the head of the Gila River to the Colorado River as being, “uncommonly rich, even compared with California in gold, silver cinnabar, and copper.” Carleton hoped that this vast mineral wealth would entice settlers to the region.
Carleton also saw mineral wealth as a means to counter doubts about the worth of the province, fearing that the Territory and his efforts in fighting the ‘Indian wars’ were perceived as a drain upon the government. Regarding this he writes, “Do not despise New Mexico as a drain upon the general government. The money will all come back again.” Carleton wrote numerous letters to military officials with the intent of garnering military aid for his efforts against Native Americans by making the area seem a potential prospect for mining, hoping to entice soldiers into the Territory. Advertising the mineral wealth of the territory could also grant political favor to Carleton’s ambitions regarding Native Americans in the territory. Political support was necessary for him to engage in warfare against and removal of Native Americans. Additionally, political support was required to finance the expenses necessary to run a reservation for those Native Americans who surrendered. All of this required Carleton to emphasize the value of the Territory to make Indian removal all the more attractive.
Native Americans that resided in the Southwestern territories presented a hurdle to the development of mining and extraction of mineral wealth as far as Carleton was concerned. Indian removal appeared to him to be necessary to extract that wealth. The protection of the miners whom he believed were inevitably to come to the land held by Native Americans, became another means by which to justify Indian removal, as Carleton states, “the miners will go to [Native American] country, and the question which comes up is, shall the miners be protected and the country be developed, or shall the Indians be suffered to kill them and the nation be deprived of its immense wealth.” As a means to garner support for Indian removal, Carleton wrote in a letter to Washington D.C. that he hoped the, “committee may see the national importance of settling Indians upon reservations, so that the country now inhabited by many bands of them may be left open to the enterprise and skill of the miner.” It is in this statement that Carleton’s designs on the territory are made evident; he would see the hurdle that Native Americans presented to the development of mining overcome through their internment in reservations.
The wealth in territories held by Native Americans took the form of grasslands for grazing as well as mineral wealth. By the time of the Civil War, the Navajos had developed into a pastoral people, who had utilized their land to graze sheep. To those who complained of designating Bosque Redondo as a reservation to the Navajos, he retorted that the Navajos in being removed, were being forced to give up land far more valuable. This same pastureland was noted for its richness by Carleton, who claimed that Navajo land was, “unsurpassed as a pastoral region, in the whole world” and noted that the size of the land being given up by the Navajo was the “size of Ohio” The richness of the Navajo homeland had allowed more than just grazing for their sheep, but also hosted the growth of other plants, such as peach orchards. Unfortunately for the Navajos, removal did not open up a host of rich new agricultural land to the tribe, and at Bosque Redondo they faced a far less fertile environment.
Carleton attempted to accomplish his plans to develop the Southwest through the efforts of the military. He sought to entice members of the military to stay and settle the territories following the Civil War with news of the vast mineral wealth, which he believed to exist within the territories. Of New Mexico, Carleton noted his ambitions towards the military development of the territory, writing, “If only I had one good regiment of California infantry…it would exterminate the Indians, who are the scourge to New Mexico…and would virtually be a military colony when the war ended, whose interests would lead officers and soldiers to remain in the new El Dorado.” Here it can be seen that his desire to bring peace to the territories extended beyond ending bloodshed among local peoples in New Mexico, and delved into outright conquest. Carleton intended to use American military power for the express purpose to subjugate and remove a native people from their land; that said land might be exploited for the benefit of the very members of the military who took part in the conquest. However, Carleton’s desire to ‘exterminate’ Native Americans as noted in this letter stand in stark contrast to other letters in which Carleton sought later to preserve Native Americans who were interned by the military by garnering support from government officials.
Carleton went about the destruction of the Navajos as a power in the Southwest in various ways. To begin with, he would seize upon existing resources such as the long-standing frictions between the Navajos and rival tribes, as well as local New Mexicans, a tactic utilized to an extent by the United States in earlier Navajo Wars. Additionally, he would implement a new military philosophy in fighting the Navajos, that of spreading forces to maximize potential contact with Native Americans and “hounding” them into exhaustion. Carleton held that the only acceptable surrender was that of an unconditional surrender by the Navajos, and such a surrender could only be validated by those who had come to Bosque Redondo. In all, his campaign was an effective war, which harnessed a variety of factions working against the Navajos, with a focus on wearing them down through destruction of resources, as author Lynn R. Bailey writes, “For the first time in 150 years of conflict and effective plan of war had been carried out; the [Navajo’s] enemies had been let loose in a coordinated effort to destroy all Navajo’s resources. Never had the Diné felt such destruction.”
Carleton executed his war plans against the Navajos and the Mescalero Apache through orders to his officer, Christopher ‘Kit’ Carson. Kit Carson was a well-known Indian fighter, who was brought in along with Carleton to turn back the tide of the Confederate invasion of the Southwest. Carson became Carleton’s fist in the destruction of enemy Southwestern tribes. Under Carleton’s orders, Carson was to engage in a scorched earth campaign against the Mescalero Apache and the Navajos. Against the Mescalero Apache, Carson was ordered by Carleton to resort to a level of violence which “shocked and embarrassed” the veteran Indian fighter. Carson was given orders to brutalize the tribe and to make clear to those who sought a treaty that his purpose was not to make peace, and to tell them, “that you are there to kill them wherever you can find them…tell them fairly and frankly that you will keep after their people and slay them until you receive orders to desist from headquarters. I trust that this severity, in the long run, will be the most humane course that could be pursued towards these Indians.”
Under Carleton’s command, Carson, led a scorched-earth campaign intended to break the Navajo as a military power and drive survivors into unconditional surrender. While they were within their homeland, the Navajos were able to use the knowledge of their environment to avoid battle and survive off of the land through forage. Because the Navajos proved so elusive, the campaign against them was concerned not only with destroying the tribe in battle, but also with destroying the tribe’s means of survival outside of combat. As a way to drive the Navajos to Bosque Redondo, Carson ensured that the Navajos could not sustain themselves within their homeland through a war upon the tribe’s resources. As such, the war against the Navajo fought by Carleton had the express purpose of destroying the tribe’s way of life within their homeland. Moreover, Carleton required the campaign against the Navajo to traumatize the tribe. Carleton believed that only through a traumatic and overwhelming campaign of violence that the Navajo could be permanently conditioned to obey the authority of the United States. In Carleton’s view, the Navajo needed to be, “whipped and fear us before they will cease killing and robbing the people.” The result of the campaign against the Navajo was intended to have a transformative effect upon the tribe, not only forcing their surrender, but ensuring their perpetual obedience.
Placing more pressure on the Navajos, Carleton would utilize the animosities between the local, often Hispanic populations in New Mexico and the Navajos, as a means of furthering his efforts in the destruction of the Navajos as a power. He noted that his plans were carried out “mainly” through the efforts of men recruited within the territory. In an address to the people of New Mexico over controversy regarding the Navajos in 1864, Carleton notes that the Navajos had:
“Since time immemorial…subsisted upon the flocks and herds of your fathers… [reducing] whole families from relative wealth to poverty…These barbarians had murdered your people; had slain your fathers - your brothers - your children; or had carried many of them into a hopeless and miserable captivity. Until there was hardly a home in the land which was not filled with mourning and with hearts made desolate.”

He exploited the animosity which had developed over the course of generations, and the memory of these hereditary rivalries, to rally the support for his plans, as well dissuade the locals from concerning themselves with the wellbeing of the Navajos.
Carleton sought aid for his plans on fighting the Navajos through the assistance of Native Americans tribes who were rivals to the Navajos. This tactic had been utilized by the government prior even to Carleton’s stationing in the Southwest, where tribes of Native Americans had been encouraged to commit raids upon the Navajos. This process continued following Carleton’s fighting against the tribe, and would play a part in forcing the Navajos towards surrender. Carleton explicitly sought to stoke the fears of the Navajos by noting that rival tribes too were playing a part in their destruction. He at one point told chiefs from the Navajo to tell their people of the plurality of threats posed to them should they refuse to comply with his demands, stating that they should tell their people “[the army] will fight them, the people will fight them, the Utes will fight them, and [the Navajo] will be destroyed.” The enemies of the Navajos, the Utes and Comanche in particular, would proceed to make slave raids upon the Navajo for the duration of the Long Walk, and persist with their raids upon even those Navajos interned at Bosque Redondo reservation. Seeking to escape from an environment plagued by hostile tribes, many Navajos increasingly sought safe harbor under American protection, surrendering themselves to internment at Bosque Redondo.
Bosque Redondo reservation became a focal point for Navajos seeking to avoid violence from multiple threats. Bosque Redondo was a grove of cottonwood trees that sat along the Pecos River, which simultaneity acted as a post and a reservation, the post named Fort Sumner. Carleton had supported the reservation as the last step to Indian removal in the area, seeking to drive the Navajos from their homeland to the reservation by way of violence. Furthermore, he made various attempts to have it explained to the Navajos that Bosque Redondo was their only means of salvation. To Navajo Chiefs Barboncito and Delgadito, Carlton wished it explained that those Navajos who claimed not to be guilty of murder and robbery, that for their own preservation and as a means of validating their innocence, must come to Bosque Redondo as a means of separating themselves from the guilty parties. Carleton explained to his subordinates that they had no power to negotiate surrender with the Navajos, and that they must explain the conditions by which surrender could be accepted, stating that if approached by Navajos seeking peace it should be explained to them that they must, “Go to the Bosque Redondo, or we will pursue and destroy you. We will not make peace with you on any other terms” It was by this process the Navajo as a power were intended to be destroyed, with even innocent parties forced to subject themselves to the will of the United States through internment at Bosque Redondo.
The plan that Carleton executed to force the Navajos to go to Bosque Redondo led to an event known as the Long Walk, a process of gradual migration from the Navajo homeland to the reservation which served to further brutalize the Navajos. Carson’s scorched-earth campaign had led Navajos to believe that the war against them was that of extermination, and had largely refused surrender as a result. After being convinced that peace was an option, many Navajos surrendered and began their trek to Bosque Redondo, often under lethal conditions. Between 1863 and 1866, 11,469 Navajos were sent to Bosque Redondo, though at its highest the population at the reservation only ever reached 8,570 in 1864, pointing to high rates of death or desertion during the Long Walk.
Carleton was of the opinion that relocation of the Navajos could act as a solution to the threat of their power.

He feared that so long as the Navajos remained within their homeland, they maintained the potential to act as a threat. Regarding what would occur should the Navajos be allowed to remain upon their land, Carleton stated, “more murders, more robberies; then another war and - then what? Why, of course, another treaty; and so on forever, in that inevitable circle, which had become as fatal to the prosperity of New Mexico, as the shirt of Nessus to Hercules.” He addressed the similar concern of allowing the Navajos to leave Bosque Redondo, stating in a letter that allowing the Navajos to return to their lands, following their internment Bosque Redondo, that should this occur, “There would come a new war, and so on, ad infinitum.” Bosque Redondo was intended as a permanent solution to the Navajos which had been ‘poisoning’ the prosperity of New

Mexico.
The choice that Carleton made to remove the Navajos from their lands and place them into the care of the government mirrors his early philosophy towards Native Americans. That the Navajos would be safer under the care of the government, especially given their situation throughout the 1860s. This choice calls to his early philosophy that it was the job of the government to guard the wellbeing of the Native Americans in their care. The Navajos were intended to be cared for by the government until made self-sufficient, and then would become successful farmers in their own right. More than through violence, Carleton believed that a reservation could break the Navajos power, should reservation life prove more appealing than war, and should such a plan succeed the Navajos would be pacified peacefully. While the underlying sentiments of Bosque Redondo may appear to be benevolent in nature, he addressed them more pragmatically, stating that, “you can feed them cheaper than you can fight them.”
Bosque Redondo was selected as a location by Carleton as a new home for the Navajos for a variety of reasons, most all of which related to pacifying the tribe in some way. Carleton had come across the territory which would become Bosque Redondo in 1852, and was able to revisit it in 1854 during his prior excursions to the Southwest. He saw what he believed to be a land that was rich enough for the Navajos to live, citing its proximity to the Pecos River, which he believed would allow the Navajos to properly irrigate land for farming. The transition of the Navajos from pastoralism to agriculture would mean that the tribe would utilize less land, allowing for a greater share of land to be utilized by white settlers. Furthermore, the land was deemed by him to have strategic value, as it was believed by Carleton that the openness of the Bosque would work against the will of any Navajos who sought to resist, as the terrain would disallow Navajos to “elude pursuit and recapture.” Another notable benefit of Bosque Redondo in his mind was that the land allowed for a cheap maintenance of the Navajos, whose care under the government was of considerable cost.
Bosque Redondo was intended by Carleton to be revolutionary in reservation policy.

He referred to the reservation as an experiment, noting in a letter that it was a “very important and interesting experiment in colonizing the wild Indians of New Mexico.” Under Carleton, the ‘colonization’ of Native Americans was intended as a process of transformation, rather than exploitation of the tribes as a resource. So concerned about the exploitation of the reservation’s residents, Carleton even forbid the sale of produce grown on the reservation to outsiders, preferring that the food be used to sustain the Native Americans. Despite his refusal to see the interned tribes exploited in the development of the territory, this process of ‘civilizing’ Native Americans was, in his mind, tied directly to the wealth of the territories which he oversaw. Carleton noted in another letter his hopes that the government would likewise see the benefit in Bosque Redondo stating, “The government seems to have taken great interest in this experiment of placing nomadic Indians on reservations, and this exodus of Navajo people from their country, to become a domesticated race, is an interesting subject to us all, and one fraught with great questions so far as the prospective wealth and advancement of New Mexico may

go.”
It was at Bosque Redondo that Carleton sought to transform Native Americans into a passive community. He saw the pacification of Native Americans in the Southwest as insufficient to benefit the prosperity of the territories, and noted the importance of a ‘civilizing’ process, writing that a system shall be, “carried out, which will gradually change them from lawless savages to a people who are to obey necessary rules for their good behavior and general tranquility, and show them as well the necessity of earning bread by the labor of their own hands.” . ‘Civilizing’ efforts through Bosque Redondo would not only break a power which was de