How did the Navajo Reservation come to exist?
After several year’s confinement at Fort Sumner,New Mexico with the Diné struggling to survive in the dire conditions of the Bosque Redondo along the Rio Grande River, the military met with Navajo leaders and offered a treaty. It was the ninth treaty the United States had made with the Dine’. Among the terms of this treaty, the United States agreed to set apart land for the Navajo people and allow the 7,00 surviving Navajos at Ft. Sumner to return home. Barboncito, also known as Hosteen Deegah, stated his thankfulness that the Dineh were allowed to return to the lands they had known and were not, like many other tribes, relocated to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. Since the original land allotment, additions have been made by congress resulting in the Navajo Nation we know today.
