Bosque Redondo: The US Government's Deliberate Public Health Disaster Against the Diné People
By
Cody Micah Carmichael MPH, CPH
Summary
This article examines the Bosque Redondo internment (1864-1868), where the US government forcibly relocated approximately 10,000 Diné (Navajo) people to a barren reservation in eastern New Mexico. The piece frames this historical event as a deliberate public health disaster, detailing how the government chose land with alkaline soil that couldn't support agriculture, leading to starvation, disease, and death. It also covers the 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo that ended the internment and allowed the Diné to return to their homeland, while analyzing what the treaty did and didn't accomplish in terms of justice and reparations.
Source
bskyBosque Redondo: The US Government's Deliberate Public Health Disaster Against the Diné Peoplebroadlyepi.comKey quotes
· 3 pulledWhen soil gets too alkaline, the chemistry locks nutrients away from the roots. Iron, zinc, manganese, all present in the ground, all out of reach. Seeds germinate and stall. Leaves go pale. Plants that should grow just don't.
The Diné (Navajo) people knew how to farm. They had tended corn, wheat, and beans for generations in the canyon landscapes of Dinétah.
Bosque Redondo, the US government's forced relocation of Diné people, became a textbook public health disaster.
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