The Navajo Wars were fought during the nineteenth century between the U.S. military and many western tribes. These wars depleted the Native Americans' numbers, divided their leadership, and drove them onto reservations, often located far from their homelands and in inhospitable climates.

As was often the case, the U.S. military fought the Navajos and Apaches largely for their lands. The Civil War brought many soldiers to the Southwest, including General James H. Carleton, who decided to remove the Navajos and Apaches to reservations so that the lands of the Rio Grande Valley could be used for settlement and mining. Carleton enlisted the one-time friend of the Navajos, Kit Carson, to force them from their homelands through starvation.

Carson burned the Navajos? farms, stole their livestock, and finally destroyed the villages in their last stronghold, Canyon de Chelly. Without food or shelter to sustain them through the winter, over 3,000 Navajos surrendered and made what is called "the long walk of the Navajos" to the reservation at Fort Sumner. Hundreds of Navajos died along the way and after arriving at the fort. A few bands of Navajos held out, living in the mountains. But one by one, these bands and their leaders?Barboncito, Armijo, and finally Manuelito?were captured or surrendered and taken to the reservation.