By the time the United States took possession of the Southwest in 1848, after the Mexican War, the Navajo had become the dominant military force in the area. ...The American soldiers who marched into Santa Fe had no trouble with the Mexicans, but the Navajo stole several head of cattle from the herd of the commanding general himself, not to mention thousands of sheep and horses from settlers in the vicinity.
Peter Farb
After the Spaniards settled the Southwest, the Navajo began another burst of cultural borrowing--or, more actually, stealing. Spanish ranches and villages were so depleted of horses--not to mention sheep--that by 1775 the Spaniards had to send to Europe for 1,500 additional horses. After the Pueblo Rebellion against the Spaniards was put down in 1692, many Pueblo took refuge with their Navajo neighbors--and taught them how to weave blankets, a skill for which the Navajo are still noted, and to make pottery. During this time the Navajo probably absorbed many Pueblo religious and social ideas and customs as well, such as ceremonial paraphernalia and possibly the Pueblo class system.
Peter Farb
...in 1863, Colonel Kit Carson was ordered to clear the country of Navajo Indians and to resettle any survivors at Fort Sumner in eastern New Mexico, where they could be "civilized." Carson's strategy was the same as that applied against the Plains Indians a little later: He destroyed the Navajo food base by systematically killing their livestock and by burning their fields. Carson's "Long Knives" (his soldiers so named because of their bayonets) also cut off the breast of Navajo girls and tossed them back and forth like baseballs. ...Ultimately, about 8,500 Navajos made what they still call the "Long Walk" to captivity at Fort Sumner, three hundred miles away. After they had been there for four years, the Navajo signed a peace treaty that entitled them to a reservation of about 3,500,000 acres, much less than they had held previously.
Peter Farb
About the first of May of the same year, a company of a hundred and seventy-five men, under one Col. Snively, was organized in the north of Texas, and set out... It was at first reported that they contemplated a descent upon Santa Fé; but their force was evidently too weak... Their prime object, therefore, seems to have been to attack and make reprisals upon the Mexicans engaged in the Santa Fé trade, who were expected to cross the Prairies during the months of May and June. After the arrival of the Texans upon the Arkansas, they were joined by Col. Warfield with a few followers. This officer, with about twenty men, had some time previously attacked the village of Mora (In the revolution of 1847, Mora was involved against the United States whose troops burned the town in reprisal.), on the Mexican frontier, killing five men (as was reported) and driving off a number of horses. They were afterwards followed by a party of Mexicans, however, who stampeded and carried away, not only their own horses, but those of the Texans. Being left afoot the latter burned their saddles, and walked to Bent's Fort, where they were disbanded; whence Warfield passed to Snively's camp, as before mentioned.
Josiah Gregg
The little book has become a classic in the literature of Western history. Simple, direct, and unpretentious in style, our author's narrative presents all that may reasonably be expected in relation to the status of the New Mexican provinces, and of the Santa Fé trade before the closing of the Mexican custom houses in 1841... The work... judiciously mingles history, description, and narrative in such proportions that the interest is retained throughout. As an historian Gregg is exceptionally accurate... He gave the first connected narrative in English, of the history of New Mexico from its first explorations in the sixteenth century to his own time. All later histories of that region must depend largely upon his researches. ...Gregg is pre-eminently the historian of the Santa Fé trade that...employed many of the most daring spirits of the frontier and paved the way for the possession of these regions by the United States. ...The incidents and excitements of this journey across the plains Gregg narrates with a fidelity and vividness that make the reader a participant. ...As a contribution to the history and development of the far Southwest, Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies stands without a rival and is indispensable to a full knowledge of the American past.
Josiah Gregg
This strategy aims directly at a reannexation of the Southwest, not militarily, but ethnically, linguistically and culturally through transfer of millions of Mexicans into the United States and a migration of "Anglos" out of the lands Mexico lost in 1848. In California, the project is well advanced.
Pat Buchanan
Farb, Peter
Farel, William
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