About eighty-five hundred Navajo and five hundred…
April 1865 CE
About eighty-five hundred Navajo and five hundred Mescalero Apaches are interned at Bosque Redondo in April 1865.
The Army had only anticipated five thousand would be here, so food has been an issue from the start.
The Navajo and Mescalero Apache have long been enemies and now that they are in forced proximity to each other, fighting often breaks out.
The environmental situation gets worse.
The interned people have no clean water, it is alkaline, and there is no firewood to cook with.
The water from the nearby Pecos River causes severe intestinal problems and disease quickly spreads throughout the camp.
Food is in short supply also because of crop failures, Army and Indian Agent bungling, and criminal activities.
The Mescalero Apaches, or those strong enough to travel, manage to escape in 1865.
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