Apaches; the Muache, Capote, and Weeminuche bands of Utes; and the Pueblos.
Navajoes.—The Navajoes now number 9114, an increase of 880 over last year’s enumeration, Superintendent Pope considers this increase to be mainly due to the return, during the year, of a number who had been held in captivity by the Mexicans. They have a reservation of 3,328,000 acres in the north-western part of New Mexico and north-eastern part of Arizona, set apart for them by treaty of 1868. These Indians are natives of the section of the country where they are now located. Prior to 1864 no less than seven treaties had been made with these tribes, which were successively broken on their part, and that, with but one exception, before the Senate could take action on the question of their ratification. In 1864 the Navajoes were made capiives by the military, and taken to the Bosque Redondo Rezeryation, which had been set apart for the Mesealero Apaches, where they were for a time held as prisoners of war, and then turned over to this Department. After the treaty of 1868 had been concluded, they were removed to their present location, where they have, as a tribe, remained quiet and peaceable, many of them being engaged in agriculture and in raising sheep and goats. Of these they have large flocks, numbering 130,000 head, which supply them not only with subsistence, but also with material from which they manufacture the celebrated, and for warmth and durability unequalled, Navajo blanket. They also have a stock of 10,000 horses. These Indians are industrious, attend faithfully to their crops, and even put in a second crop when the first, as frequently happens, is destroyed by drought or frost. One school is in operation on the reservation, with an attendance of forty scholars.
Mescalero Apaches.—These Indians, numbering about 830, are at present located—not, however, upon a defined reservation secured to them—near Fort Stanton, in the eastern part of the Territory, and range generally south of that point. Prior to 1864 they were located on the Bosque Redondo Reservation, where they were quiet and peaceable until the Navajoes were removed to that place. Being unable to live in harmony with the newcomers, they fled from the reservation, and until quite recently have been more or less hostile. They are now living at peace with the whites, and conducting themselves measurably well. They have no schools, care nothing apparently about the education of their children, and are not to any noticeable extent engaged in farming, or in any pursuit of an industrial character.
