The Long Walk

by Jennifer Denetdale

In 1863, the Dine (Navajo) faced transformations to their way of life with the Americans' determination to first subjugate and then remove them to a reservation in order to begin their assimilation to American culture. This book exposes the series of events that facilitated the Navajo's removal from their homeland.

Genres: History, Native American History, Indigenous

143 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 2007

Reviews

[Sparrow Knight · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF Life is too short to read bad writing, even in a ?middle grade? book.

I’ll try her adult book in hopes it is better written and constructed. This one is just a hot mess. Really disappointed.

[Miz Lizzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This history of the forced Navajo relocation to reservation lands at Bosque Redondo (Hweeldi) in New Mexico in the mid-1800s is unapologetically told exclusively from the Navajo point of view. As such, readers wedded to the settler view of American history and especially the settlement of the west will find it difficult reading. Though clearly a biased account, I found it largely provided a welcome balance to redressing that settler view of history. The author does use the exile and the 1868 treaty that allowed the Navajos to return home again as a testament of Navajo survival and a polemic for Navajo sovereignty. I did find it curious that as a historian and Navajo herself, the author only used the phrase "oral history" once, preferring instead to refer to the oral testimony referenced throughout the book as stories. She clearly values those stories, however, and gives several detailed descriptions of poems, plays, and stories of these historical events by modern Navajo artists. The book could have used some editing as some facts and incidents were unnecessarily repeated several times. There were also a few times where the author seemed to glaze over incidents that did not show the Navajos in the best light. I was sorry, for instance, that the author did not address US government enforced reduction of their sheep and goat herds due to overgrazing of the land in the 1930s other than as an oppressive act by a foreign government (what would the environmental impact have been without that interference? were the Navajos aware of the environmental impact? would they have acted on their own?). In all a good introduction to the Navajo view of an event in American history, but it might have some difficulty in being accepted by readers who do not already support indigenous rights.