URL: http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/guest_columns/93111opinion10-05-03.htm

Sunday, October 5, 2003
Memorializing 'The Long Walk'
By Stuart Ashman, secretary
N.M. Department of Cultural Affairs
    In a matter of weeks, work will begin on the long-awaited Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner State Monument, a tribute to the suffering endured by native peoples and their resilience in forming new and stronger nations.
    Beginning in 1863, thousands of Navajo men, women and children were forcefully relocated by the U.S. Army from their homeland in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico to the Bosque Redondo Reservation at Fort Sumner, a distance of several hundred miles. Hundreds died en-route, in particular the very old and the very young. Hundreds more died at the reservation.
    While much smaller in numbers, the Mescalero Apaches of the Sacramento Mountains in southeastern New Mexico did not escape the relocation. In early 1863 hundreds of Mescalero men, women, and children were also marched to the Bosque Redondo.
    Such was the strategy of the federal government in the years after the Civil War as the country's westward expansion continued in earnest. Native American hold and occupation of traditional homelands proved to be an obstacle to the "peaceful" settlement of the West.
    The relocation of the Navajo and Mescalero came to be known as the Long Walk. Intended to be a reservation "to tame the savages," the ill-planned site at Bosque Redondo, named for a grove of cottonwoods by the Pecos River, turned into a virtual prison camp.
    In all, more than 8,000 Navajo and several hundred Mescalero Apaches occupied the Bosque Redondo Reservation. By 1865 the relocation experiment began to unravel, along with a great deal of concern in Congress and at the highest levels of government.
    A Peace Commission was formed, and eventually the Treaty of 1868 established the Navajo Nation. The return home began quickly thereafter. At dawn on June 18, 1868, a column 10 miles long and composed of more than 7,000 Navajos, 1,500 horses and mules, 4,000 sheep and goats, 56 Army wagons and four companies of the 3rd Cavalry serving as escort, left Fort Sumner.
    By the end of August, all of the Navajos had been resettled, and the task of rebuilding a nation had begun. The Long Walk was over. The five-year ordeal of the Navajo and Mescalero was never forgotten and became part of their history.
    In 1967, as the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of 1868 approached, a small section of the Bosque Redondo Reservation was purchased by the Town of Fort Sumner and deeded to the state of New Mexico. The site was proclaimed a state monument, and a modest visitors' center was built to relate the events of the Bosque Redondo Reservation.
    Over the years, there have been several attempts to secure funding for a fitting memorial. In 1999, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, supported by Sen. Pete Domenici, introduced a federal bill to appropriate $2 million toward construction of the memorial. The state Legislature, led by Rep. Brian Moore, appropriated another $500,000 toward the project in 2002.
    Navajo architect David Sloan of Albuquerque has designed the memorial. When completed, the memorial will contain exhibition space, a lobby area that represents design elements from traditional Mescalero and Navajo dwellings, and areas that include a resource room, library and workrooms.
    In late October, Phase 1 of the Bosque Redondo Memorial will begin, providing most of the memorial building itself plus all of the landscaping, roads and parking. Phase 1 will also include a temporary exhibit that will permit the memorial to be opened to the public during summer 2004.
    With additional funding, Phase 2 will include a larger exhibition space and permanent displays. The project is expected to cost approximately $5.9 million.
    The Bosque Redondo Memorial will at long last commemorate the dramatic events that resulted in the Long Walk of the Navajo and Mescalero. It will celebrate the endurance and tenacity of a people. And it will honor the hundreds of Navajo and Mescalero who suffered and died as a result of the relocation and internment.
    Moreover, it will celebrate the official birth of a sovereign nation arising from the tragedy of the Bosque Redondo. As such, the memorial will take its place at the top of a long list of national and state historic sites that attempt to commemorate the long history of New Mexico.