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The Navajo eventually developed reputations with their neighbors as thieves and raiding marauders. This was only an annoyance and a minor problem as long as there were few Navajo around the region. As the Navajo population increased, however, this was to become a grounds for continuing disputes with some of their neighbors, like the Ute. Farming provided a larger, more stable source of food for the Navajo, and the nation began to grow. As the tribe grew, and their range spread, the Navajo came into repeated conflicts with the Ute tribes.The traditional Ute lands ranged through New Mexico, parts of Colorado, and into Utah. The Ute nation was also mobile, and took pride in its own hunting traditions. The Ute didn't care for the attitude of the Navajo. Once the European invaders arrived, and when they attempted to actually settle the West over the next couple of centuries, the Ute occasionally worked with Whites in attempts to tame the Navajo. The Ute and Navajo peoples often came into open conflict.
Although Navajo-Ute relations were generally bad, the Hopi usually managed to ignore the minor raids on their territory by these neighbors, as long as the Navajo were not too numerous. The peaceful Hopi seldom took any action against enemies. Eventually, through the centuries, as the Navajo population increased, and competition and conflict worsened, the Hopi would appeal to their supposed protectors in Mexico or Washington for surcease, usually with little result.
With a balance of potential food sources, the Navajo nation was, generally able to prosper and grow. The populace was expanding steadily well into the 17th-Century, when a disaster struck. At the same time that the Spaniards were moving into New Mexico, and temporarily occupying Hopiland, successive waves of drought would hit the region. Navajo crops failed, and even the wild plants of the prairie did not grow. With little vegetation, the game animals disappeared. The Navajo became much more blatant in their raids on their neighbors at this time.
The Hopi in their own minds associated the near-simultaneous arrival of the Spaniards and the start of the raids. Thus, the Hopi came to blame the Whites for the start of the Navajo Troubles. The Navajo raids on the Utes also worsened at this same time. The Navajo population had grown to the size, by this time, where they would now permanently have to rely on raiding to help supplement their larder. The Southwest was undergoing fundamental changes at this time. The arrival of the Spaniards, their depredations on the indigenous peoples, and disruption of their traditional economies, and the introduction of large new stocks of domestic animals, with their food requirements, would all combine to change lifestyles.
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Follow scholar Kokopelli to the Suggested
Reading List
Go back to The Saga of the Navajo
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Contents, including illustrations, copyright T. K. Reeves, 1997.
on 5 April, 1997.
