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Native Americans

The Navajo Wars

The Navajo Wars
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 6 to 9
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   7.62

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    determined, quarrelsome, trappings, ingenious, formally, burning, refused, retreat, southwestern, reservation, unforgiving, army, chief, immediately, loss, exposure
     content words:    United States, Santa Fe, Bear Springs Treaty, Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexican War, New Mexico, Fort Defiance, Kit Carson

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The Navajo Wars
By Mary Lynn Bushong 		  
1     In the beautiful but unforgiving land of the southwestern United States, the Navajo and Apache people made their homes. Villages were little more than widely spaced homes, and the independent spirit of the people was necessary.
 
2     Homes were eight-sided log hogans with ingenious rounded roofs. Their main foods were hunted meat like bison and the harvested corn and squash grown in their gardens.
 
3     After the Spanish had arrived in that part of the country in the 1600's, many Navajo women and children were enslaved. This continued for about two hundred years. In retaliation, the warriors joined with the Apache and raided the pueblo, Spanish, and Mexican settlements.
 
4     It was through these raids that these two tribes captured their first horses. The horses made a huge difference for the tribes. Now they could hunt bison from the relative safety of the horse's back. They could range farther away in less time than ever before.
 
5     In August 1846, the first American settlers arrived in Santa Fe. They were determined to have the land for themselves. A few months later, soldiers met with the Navajo to establish the Bear Springs Treaty. The soldiers proved quarrelsome, however, and hostilities broke out on both sides.

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