other · North America and Oceania

Navajo Nation

1868 CE – present · capital Window Rock

The largest Native American reservation and self-governing nation in the United States, founded on the treaty of 1868 that ended the Navajo exile.

Origins

In 1863 and 1864 the US Army under Kit Carson waged a scorched-earth campaign against the Diné, then forced about 9,000 of them on the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo in New Mexico, where many died. The Treaty of 1868, signed on 1 June, allowed the Navajo to return to a reservation within their homeland between four sacred mountains.

Rule and society

The reservation was repeatedly enlarged and now covers about 70,000 square kilometres in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. A tribal council was created in 1923, chiefly to approve oil leases, with Henry Chee Dodge as chairman, and Window Rock became the capital in the 1930s. The federal livestock reduction of the 1930s devastated herding families. Navajo Code Talkers served the Marines in the Second World War.

To the present

The tribe adopted the name Navajo Nation in 1969 and reorganised its government into three branches from 1989. It continues as a sovereign nation within the United States, contending with poverty and the legacy of uranium mining while maintaining one of the most widely spoken Native languages.

Connections (1)

More states of North America and Oceania →

Cite this page
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Navajo Nation. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/navajo-nation
MLA
“Navajo Nation.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/navajo-nation. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Navajo Nation.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/navajo-nation.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Navajo Nation’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/navajo-nation (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻