Fort Defiance marks the starting point of Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale’s 1857–1858 wagon road survey across the 35th parallel to the Colorado River, the very first deployment of the US Camel Corps. The government was eager to boost the efficiency of transport and trade between the East and California and furthermore wanted to survey the land acquired from the Mexican government after the Mexican–American War. Recommendations by military officials such as Major Henry C. Wayne eventually resulted in two shipments of camels, as well as camel handlers such as the Arizona-famous Hi Jolly, docking at Indianola, Texas, on May 14, 1856. From there they were moved to a fort near San Antonio. Lieutenant Beale, appointed by Major Wayne to use this Camel Corps for the wagon road survey, set out from San Antonio with twenty-eight camels on June 25, 1857. Along the way to Fort Defiance, Lieutenant Beale was to meet up with a Colonel Loring, a general who had lost one arm in the Mexican War and would later go on to help train troops in Egypt. At this early date, however, he was unacquainted with camels, and Beale rather literally left him in the dust, as the camel Beale was riding easily outpaced Loring’s horse. They met back together some two days later and reached Fort Defiance together on August 25, 1857. Colonel Edwin Vose Sumner established Fort Defiance to assert dominance over the Navajo population with a military presence. Lacking defensive fortifications, however, it took the form of a “military village,” with barracks, stables, storehouses, a civilian trading store, a hospital, and a structure for Navajos staying overnight, all arrayed around a parade ground. At this time, the fort held a tentative peace with the Native Americans of the region. They traded with the Zuni and the Navajo for food, but the fort occupied what had been grazing land, and occasional raids continued. While 1856–1857 was relatively quiet around the vicinity of the fort, Beale’s careful notes of any Native American sightings or interactions on his journey demonstrate the government’s uneasy relationship with the native inhabitants of the territory. When he reached Fort Defiance, Beale wrote in his journal that “No one who has not commanded an expedition of this kind, where everything ahead is dim, uncertain, and unknown, except the dangers, can imagine the anxiety with which I start upon this journey.” Beale himself had already led an expedition such as this, charting a “Central Route” to California in 1853 from Missouri. Seeing the camels’ performance on this expedition from Fort Defiance left Beale with great admiration for their ability to carry enormous loads, travel great distances, and go long periods of time without water. He even developed a particular affinity for one camel named Seid.  Even after the Camel Corps was officially disbanded, Beale kept a collection of camels at his ranch near Fort Tejon, California.

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The Long Walk is to the Navajo what the Trail of Tears is to the Cherokee. Troubled relations between the U.S. and the Navajos brought on a wicked removal in December of 1863. Earlier in the year, the United States government had sent in Christopher “Kit” Carson to remove the Navajos from their homeland of Fort Sumner, New Mexico. He burned their villages, starved them, and took them as slaves until they surrendered in the middle of winter, the worst time to begin a 400+ mile journey from points in Navajo country to Fort Defiance, Arizona and from there to Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

Cold made the difficult journey worse, but the Navajos suffered the most spiritually and mentally because they were uprooted from their homeland. They called their home The Four Sacred Mountains due to the spiritual qualities it possessed for them. Their hardships resulted in the death of around 200 Navajos on the journey. Some died from their conditions. Others were shot for being pregnant, old, or slow. The Navajos were not allowed to bury their dead.

More than 8,000 Navajos made it to Fort Sumner where they experienced continued starvation, slavery, prostitution, and disease at the hands of their enemy. It is estimated that more than 3,000 Navajos died at Fort Sumner by 1868. That spring, General Sherman of the United States of America sent a survey report back to the government and reported only 7,111 Navajo survived at Fort Defiance, and that he was convinced, “that the Navajos [would] never be contented to remain” at any place other than their homeland. On August 28, President Andrew Johnson signed a treaty that allowed the Navajo to return to their home at Fort Defiance.

One Navajo woman said, “When I tell my grandchildren about the Long Walk, they don’t believe me. I tell them that they wouldn’t be as they are today if their ancestors hadn’t gone through the confinement and even died of hunger.” The Navajos are proud of their ancestors for being strong and surviving against the odds. They recognize that this type of horrible event should never happen again.

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