While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
A very numerous band of the Apache Nation inhabiting the mountains and plateaus
of Arizona and New Mexico, between the San Juan and Little Colorado Rivers, ever
since our first knowledge of them. The Spaniards early recognized their relation
to the Apaches, although they differ totally from them in their industrious
habits, being by far the most civilized of any tribe of Athabascan descent. They
have evidently been quick to take advantage of their contact with the
semi-civilized Pueblos and Moquis, and from them have acquired many useful arts
chiefly in learning to spin and weave. Their blankets, woven in looms, are of
great excellence, and frequently bring from $25 to $100. They cultivate the soil
extensively, raising large quantities of corn, squashes, melons, &c. Colonel
Baker, in 1859, estimated their farms at 20,000 acres, evidently too large an
estimate, as their agent's report for 1875 places the cultivated lands at only
6,000 acres. Their principal wealth, however, is in horses, sheep, and goats,
having acquired them at an early day and fostered their growth, so that they now
count their horses by the thousand, and their sheep by hundreds of thousands.
Notwithstanding the excellence of their manufactures, their houses are rude
affairs, called by the Spaniards jackals, and by themselves hogans
small conical huts of poles, covered with branches, and in winter with earth.
Like the Apaches, they have made incessant war on the Mexicans, who have made
many unsuccessful attempts to subjugate them. The expeditious against them on
the part of the United States by Doniphan in 1846, Wilkes in 1847, Newby in
1843, and Washington in 1849, were practically failures. Colonel Sumner
established Fort Defiance in 1851, but was forced to retreat, and all other
attempts to sub due them were defeated until the winter campaign in 1863, when
Colonel Carson compelled them to remove to the Bosque Redondo, on the Pecos
River, where 7,000 were held prisoners by the Government for several years. In
1868 a treaty was made with them under which they were removed to Fort Wingate,
and the following year back to their old home around Fort Defiance and the canon
De Chelly, where a reservation of 5,200 square miles was assigned them. The
latest count puts their number at 11,768 3,000 of whom are said to come directly
under the civilizing influences of the agency. Schools are not well established
yet, but few of their children attending, and then very irregularly. Although
they produce largely, yet they are dependent upon the Government for two-thirds
of their subsistence. They dress well, chiefly in materials of their own make,
and covering the whole body.
List of illustrations.
1027. Manulito.
Photo
(off site)
The great war-chief of the Navajos. Has been engaged in many combats, and his
breast shows the scars of a number of wounds received in battle; was in command
of the Indians during their siege of Fort Defiance.
1028. Juanita.
The favorite one of live wives of Manulito. the chief.
1029. Manulito Segundo
Son of Manulito and Juanita.
1030. Cay At Anita.
A brother of Manulito's, and captain of a band of warriors.
1031. Barb As Huero. Light Beard.
Chief councilor of the tribe, and an earnest advocate of a settled peace policy.
1032. Carbra Negra
A captain, and a sub chief.
1033. Narbona Primero.
A sub-chief, noted as being a consistent total abstinence advocate, and. who
exerts himself to save his tribe from the curse of intemperance.
1034. Carnero Mucho. A captain of a band.
1035. Granada Mucho. A captain of a band.
1035. Tiene-Su-Se. Third war-chief.
1035. Mariana. Second war chief.
1038. Juanita and Gov. Arny. Showing Navajo blanket and weaving implements.
1036 Group of the preceding, members of a delegation to Washington in 1874.
Descriptive Catalogue, Photographs Of North American Indians. United States Geological Survey
of the Territories, 1877 by W. H. Jackson, Photographer of the Survey,
F. V. Hayden, U. S. Geologist.
