The Long Walk

El ejército forzó a los Navajo a caminar grandes distancias, incluyendo ancianos, mujeres y niños, sin prestarles ninguna asistencia, ni tener consideración ninguna. El hombre se convierte en lobo del hombre. The Long Walk trata de la deportación de los nativos Navajo de sus propias tierras.

The Long Walk of the Navajo refers to the 1864 deportation of the Navajo people by the government of the United States of America. Navajos were forced to walk from their reservation in what is now Arizona to eastern New Mexico. Some 53 different forced marches occurred between August 1864 and the end of 1866.

The "Long Walk" started in the beginning of spring in 1864. Bands of Navajo led by the Army were relocated from their traditional lands in eastern Arizona Territory and western New Mexico Territory to Fort Sumner in the Pecos River valley. The march was one that was very difficult and pushed many Navajos to their breaking point, including death. The distance itself was cruel, but the fact that they did not receive any aid from the soldiers were devastating. Not every single person was in prime condition to trek 300 miles, many began the walk exhausted and malnourished, Others were not properly clothed and were not in the least prepared for such a long journey. Neither sympathy nor remorse were given to the Navajos. They were never informed as to where they were going, why they were being relocated, and how long it would take to get there. One account that was passed through generations within the Navajos that show the attitude of the U.S. Army is as follows:

It was said that those ancestors were on the Long Walk with their daughter, who was pregnant and about to give birth [...] 

the daughter got tired and weak and couldn't keep up with the others or go further because of her condition. So my ancestors asked the Army to hold up for a while and to let the woman give birth, but the soldiers wouldn't do it. They forced my people to move on, saying that they were getting behind the others. The soldier told the parents that they had to leave their daughters behind.

"Your daughter is not going to survive, anyway; sooner or later she is going to die," they said in their own language. "Go ahead," the daughter said to her parents, "things might come out all right with me," But the poor thing was mistaken, my grandparents used to say. Not long after they had moved on, they heard a gunshot from where they had been a short time ago.

At least 200 died during the 18-day, 300-mile (500-km) trek. Between 8,000 and 9,000 people were settled on an area of 40 square miles (104 km²), with a peak population of  9,022 by the spring of 1865.

Vocabulary

Trek: In South Africa in the 1800s , a common way of talking about the length of an overland journey was not in miles but in treks. As British settlers arrived in the South African colonies in the 19^th century and British influence in the region grew, many Afrikaans words entered the English of South Africa. Eventually, in the 1900s, the word trek began to be used in other varieties of English with the meaning “a journey, especially when slow or difficult”.

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