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Ethnohistory 49.2 (2002) 442-444



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Book Review

A History of the Navajos:
The Reservation Years


A History of the Navajos: The Reservation Years. By Garrick Bailey and Roberta Glenn Bailey. (Santa Fe, nm: sar Press, 1999. 384 pp., photos, maps, tables, bibliography, index. $24.95 paper.)

In his new preface to this second paperback printing of A History of the Navajos, Garrick Bailey argues that initial reviewers misunderstood its purpose, unfairly criticizing it for its limitations as a work of either history or anthropology. The Baileys' intent was, in a time when most historians and anthropologists focused on American Indian cultures as "basically inert, [End Page 442] reactive only to Euro-American contact" (xvii), to tell the story of Navajo cultural change from a Navajo perspective. They hoped to demonstrate that the Navajo were able to maintain their culture's continuity in a "logically consistent manner" (8) from the creation of the reservation onward.

While other American Indian groups lost much of their culture, autonomy, and economic self-sufficiency because of their confinement to reservations, the Navajo were able to prosper in the first thirty years after their return from Fort Sumner. They were able to do so in part because they were geographically dispersed and relatively isolated, making it more difficult for the U.S. government to control them or alter their culture. The Navajo also demonstrated a strong ability to adapt to new circumstances and were able to turn their loose relationship with the federal government to their advantage. In short, the Navajo directed their own affairs, with at first minimal interference by non-Indians. For example, when agents tried to end raiding and influence the Navajo people through Navajo naat'anii, or chiefs, men like Manuelito and Ganado Mucho were able to take advantage of their sole access to annuity goods to increase their powers. When those chiefs became too influential, other Navajos rejected their control.

Although the government preferred an economic course for the Navajo based on farming, the Navajo succeeded in establishing a largely subsistence economy based on herding. When agents introduced new crops and new agricultural tools, the Navajo continued to plant traditional crops and sold many of the tools to increase their livestock holdings. They also took advantage of traders to market their wool in exchange for the food and finished products they desired, rather than relying on annuity goods selected for them by the government. Seminomadic herding, in turn, helped the Navajo maintain their autonomy and culture because they were able to move far away from the agents, missionaries, and schools.

Droughts in the 1890s and encroachment by Spanish Americans and Anglo Americans altered the Navajo situation, striking a blow to their herding economy and increasing tension with outsiders. But the Navajo adapted again. While the government worked to add more land to the reservation, the Navajo became more reliant on wage work and commercialized herding to survive. After 1900, the government and missionaries also placed a heavier emphasis on "civilizing" the Navajo. Subdividing one agency into six and establishing more schools, roads, and missions meant more government control over Navajo affairs and more contact between Navajos and Anglo Americans.

The Great Depression and World War II eras did even more to undermine Navajo autonomy and cultural perseverance. Overgrazing, more contact with the U.S. national economy, and a growing population during [End Page 443] those years strained the herding economy and way of life. Bureau of Indian Affairs commissioner John Collier's intrusions into Navajo life, best exemplified by the painful livestock reduction effort, posed significant threats to Navajo autonomy and culture. All of these trends led the reservation population toward bureaucratic domination and economic dependence.

The postwar era brought new challenges and witnessed the revival of Navajo economic growth and successful efforts toward self-determination. Increased revenues from mineral development and access to wage work finally ended Navajo dependence on the herding economy but also meant rising per-capita incomes and more revenues for tribal government, which grew more assertive. Their cultural and economic isolation continued to erode, but the Navajo...

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