Johnston] NAVAHO POPULATION 25 



wherever they coukl find ground enough to plant corn or graze the 

 few slieep they retained. Late snows and drouglit again destroyed 

 tlieir initial crops, so that the Army was forced to continue the dis- 

 tribution of "emergency" rations at regular intervals. Finally, in 

 the fall of 1869, a new beginning for the Navaho was signalized by 

 the first general distribution of sheep at Fort Defiance.^^ With 

 characteristic initiative, the Navaho accepted their allotments of sheep 

 and goats and resumed their herding activities in earnest. 



During the following 30 years, three major outside influences 

 affected the development of Navaho society: The traders, the rail- 

 road, and the Government agents. The traders appear to have been 

 the only effective means of communication between Navahos and the 

 outside world at this time. Their business success depended upon 

 their ability to learn the language and customs of the Navaho. As a 

 result, the trading posts tended to become centers of Navaho economic 

 and social life, with the better traders serving as bankers, advisers, 

 interpreters, and teachers in addition to their primary economic activi- 

 ties. By the end of the 19th century, weaving and silverwork had 

 become important supplements to the livestock industry of the Navaho, 

 owing in large part to the enterprise of a few traders who sought to 

 exploit and further develop these skills among the Navaho. By im- 

 porting prespun, predyed wool, the traders made it possible for the 

 Navaho women to triple their output of rugs and blankets. Similar 

 importations of silver and turquoise established the art of silverwork 

 (which the Navaho had originally acquired from the Mexicans) as a 

 profitable enterprise. 



The arrival of the railroad in 1882 had the same general effect among 

 the Navaho as it has had wherever it has made its appearance. Trade 

 and commerce were greatly facilitated, the Navaho became less com- 

 pletely isolated from contacts with the outside world, and significant 

 numbers of tourists began to assert their usual stimulus to the domestic 

 crafts of the people. Whereas the traders provided the first impetus 

 toward the development of an exchange economy among the Navaho, 

 the railroad made such an economy technically feasible. 



The influence of the Government agents during this period was 

 somewhat less clear cut. Most of the agents were political appointees, 

 so that they were typically unable to establish any program extending 

 beyond the period of their own anticipated tenure.*^ A few of these 

 appointees were seemingly very unsuited to be Indian agents, but the 



^2 This distribution was also the occasion for the first, and possibly the only, relatively 

 successful census of the Navaho after their release from Fort Sumner. Captain Ben- 

 nett (1870, p. 237), commanding at Fort Sumner, counted some 8,181 Navaho men, 

 women, and children as they passed through th? entrance to the corral to receive their 

 allotments of the 15,000 sheep and goats that were issued to them at this time. 



■"^ Between the return of the Navaho to their former lands in 1868 and the end of the 

 18th century, 18 agents served their terms at the Navajo Agency, for an average tenure 

 of less than 2 years (Underhill, 1953, p. 275). 



