Places: Fort Sumner, New Mexico and Bosque Redondo
This military post in what is now Fort Sumner, De Baca County, New Mexico is famous or infamous for many things, including the Lincoln County War and the exploits of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, but the most terrible thing that happened there was the internment of thousands of Navajo and Mescalero men, women and children between 1864-1866. Known in Navajo history as the Long Walk, the 300 mile trek from their homeland in Arizona to New Mexico is still seared into Navajo memory. In 1862, Congress authorized the creation of a military fort on the banks of the Pecos River to deal with the Confederate threat from Texas as well as raids by various tribes. Soon after construction of the Fort, Gen. James H. Carleton authorized the creation of an Indian Reservation at Bosque Redondo or Round Wood. Bosque is the Spanish word for a wooded river-bottom. Carleton conceived the idea of housing both Navajo and Mescalero Apaches on the same reservation, oblivious to the fact that the two tri