Features of the Long Walk to the Bosque Redondo

 

On Sunday, January 19, 2025 at 2 pm, History Lover Roger Zimmerman speaks on the forced removal of the Navajo people and the Navajo Long Walks of 1863-1866. The program will be held in the Albuquerque Museum at 2000 Mountain Rd. NW in Old Town. Parking is free in the lot south of the Museum. Admission to the Museum and the AHS program is also free.

The U.S. Government tried to pacify the Navajo Tribe after the Mexican-American War by entering into treaties with representatives of the tribe. The Navajos were an expansive collection of small bands that had a common religion and culture without a central governmental structure. The U.S. Government entered into 7 unsuccessful treaties with various headmen of the tribe between 1846-61. Finally, in desperation, the U.S. Army person responsible for pacifying the Navajos decided to resettle them in a “Navajo Pueblo” on the Rio Pecos some 400 miles away. In the words of. Historian L. R. Bailey, Navajo Indians of New Mexico were hopelessly and relentlessly pursued, rounded up and driven to a wretched disease-ridden reservation on the banks of the Rio Pecos, in east-central New Mexico, the infamous “Bosque Redondo.“ This presentation is modular in form and sub-topics include: Conditions leading to the Bosque Redondo, Decision Making, Decisions Made, Long Walk to Ft. Sumner, Functioning in Resettlement, Rejecting the Bosque Redondo, U.S. Government Investigations on Resettlement, and the Long Walk home. Some aftermath stories are provided.

Roger Max Zimmerman was born at Rehoboth Mission east of Gallup, New Mexico. His early years were spent at Mariano Lake Trading Post. He graduated from high school at New Mexico Military Institute and enrolled at the University of Colorado where he received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees. He taught Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado from 1959 to 1964 and at New Mexico State University from 1964 to 1979. He was Assistant, Associate, and Acting Dean of Engineering at NMSU from 1967-1975. He was hired by Sandia National Laboratories in 1980 where he worked on projects associated with the storage of nuclear waste, weapons components testing programs, and rocket systems target deployments. He retired in 2000 as a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff. Roger served as President of the Albuquerque Historical Society from 2013-2019. He has written seven books: Kitchen’s Opera House, Gallup, New Mexico (2012) and A History Lover’s Guide to Albuquerque (2019) and his memoirs in 5 volumes (2021), which are available as Memoirs of Roger Max Zimmerman on Amazon.