s - Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu

The Japanese encounter with Navajo (Diné) “code talkers” in World War II 145
Navajo is usually listed as 1626–1848 [the first Spanish document to describe
the Navajo culture was written in 1626], the reality is that Don Juan de Oñate
encountered the Navajo in 1597 and officially declared the whole region to be
a province of Spain on 30 April 1598 under the name Santa Fé de Nuevo Mexico.
Figure 1. Map of the Navajo and Hopi nations (USA)
Oñate is a name remembered to this day because he presided over the first
genocide of a Native American people. The Navajo at Acoma Pueblo (Figure 1,
map site near Farmington) refused to give their winter food to Oñate’s soldiers
and 13 Spaniards were killed. Oñate retaliated killing 800 Navajo in one day
and taking the remaining 500 women and children into slavery. The “American
Period” is dated from 1846 to the present day. This history is no better. As
a side event to the American Civil War and the Mexican-American War (1846–
1848), the “Indian War” against the mainly Navajo and Chirichaua Apaches
was lead by Colonel Kit Carson who in June 1863 was ordered to systematically
attack and destroy the “Indian settlements” in retaliation for their raids on white
settlers. On 6 March 1864, the surviving 8000 Native Americans began the