Manuelito, ca. 1882. Photographer unknown. Probably New Mexico. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Santa Fe, N.M. NMHM /DCA 134484


Juanita, or Asdzáá Tł’ógi (Diné [Navajo]), the wife of the Navajo leader Manuelito, 1874. Washington, D.C. Photo by Charles M. Bell. National Museum of the American Indian P02723


“ LAYING CLAIMS TO TERRITORY LONG BEFORE ANY SPANIARD EVER SET FOOT IN THE SOUTHWEST, THE PEOPLES WHO WOULD BECOME THE DINÉ EMERGED FROM THE LOWER WORLDS IN A REGION STILL KNOWN AS DINÉTAH, OR “AMONG THE PEOPLE.” DINÉTAH IS THE PLACE WHERE EARTH PEOPLE AND HOLY PEOPLE INTERACTED; THEIR RELATIONSHIPS FORM THE FOUNDATION OF PRACTICES AND TEACHINGS THAT UNDERLIE NAVAJO LIFE TODAY.”


O 26 AMERICAN INDIAN SUMMER 2018


n June 1, 1868 Navajo (Diné) leaders signed a final treaty with the United States.5


At


the Bosque Redondo res- ervation to which they had been exiled four years ear-


lier, Diné leaders successfully persuaded Gen- eral William Tecumseh Sherman to allow their people to return to their homeland. Of their return the Diné leader Manuelito said, “The days and nights were long before it came time for us to go to our homes…. When we saw the top of the mountain from Albuquerque we wondered if it was our mountain, and we felt like talking to the ground, we loved it so, and some of the old men and women cried with joy when they reached their homes.”6


Naal


Tsoos Saní, or the Old Paper, as the Navajo have named the 1868 treaty, marks a shift in Navajo history, the point at which the Navajo people lost their freedom and autonomy and came under American colonial rule. Since the treaty, Navajo history has been one of ongoing efforts to reclaim their former independence, sovereignty and self- determination. The treaty evokes memories of Navajo resistance to colonial powers and a strong


sense of ongoing injustices wrought by the United States. On the one hand, the People (an English translation of Diné) retain a deep sense of the deprivation that their ancestors suffered; on the other, they remember their ancestors’ successful struggle to regain a land base, sustain cultural traditions and keep alive the Diné language. Naal Tsoos Saní also repre- sents the birth of the modern Navajo Nation, for in coming to an agreement with Navajo leaders, the United States acknowledged the Diné as sovereign. Finally, as the Navajo people face the challenges of life in the 21st century, they often have conversations about what it means to move beyond a relationship with the United States in which their nation is cast as a “domestic dependent.”7


In these vi-


sions of a Navajo Nation, the Diné emphasize the importance of their way of life, founded in the concept of sa’ah nagháí bik’eh hózhóón, which can be translated as “the path to beauty and old age.” Sovereignty and self-determination for


the Diné mean their concrete rights to self- government, territorial integrity and cultural autonomy under international law.8


Between 1706 and 1819, Spain and Mexico signed trea-


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