Navajo Scouts During the Apache Wars

by John Lewis Taylor

Overview

In January 1873, Secretary of War William W. Belknap authorized the Military District of New Mexico to enlist fifty Indian scouts for campaigns against the Apaches and other tribes. In an overwhelming response, many more Navajos came to Fort Wingate to enlist than the ten requested. Why, so soon after the Navajo War, the Long Walk and imprisonment at Fort Sumner, would young Navajos volunteer to join the United States military? Author John Lewis Taylor explores this question and the relationship between the Navajo Nation and the United States military in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781540239693
Publisher:	History Press Library Editions
Publication date:	07/29/2019
Series:	No Series Linked
Pages:	146
Sales rank:	316,097
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

John Lewis Taylor is a former teacher and principal for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and instructor at the University of New Mexico-Gallup. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in history from Western Kentucky University and a Master of Arts in education from the University of New Mexico. He currently lives with his wife, Betty, in Gallup, New Mexico. He is the author of Looking for Dan: The Puzzling Life of a Frontier Character Daniel, Dubois--the biography of a fellow Navajo in-law.

Table of Contents

Foreword Martin Link 5

Acknowledgements 7

Chapter 1 Settler Nations' Militaries and the Indian Nations 9

Chapter 2 The Navajo Cavalry 17

Chapter 3 Navajo Scouts 24

Chapter 4 Navajo-Apache Relations 26

Chapter 5 Apache Tactics 30

Chapter 6 Navajo Scouts Take the Field 32

Chapter 7 The Victorio War 43

Chapter 8 Nana's Raid 53

Chapter 9 The Geronimo War 59

Chapter 10 Various Roles of Navajo Scouts 80

Chapter 11 Old Scouts 90

Chapter 12 Economic Factors 96

Chapter 13 Social and Cultural Factors 98

Chapter 14 The Legacy of the Navajo Scouts 101

Appendix. Famous Scouts 109

Notes 121

Bibliography 131

About the Author 143