Editing Fort Defiance, Arizona (section)

== History ==
[[File:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V - Fig. 3. Jake the Silversmith.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|left|Navajo silversmith Náltsos Nigéhani, or Paper-carrier, also known as Jake, employed as a mail-carrier between [[Fort Wingate]] and Fort Defiance.<ref>{{cite web | title=Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V | website=Wikisource | date=April 7, 2022 | url=https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=File:Memoirs_of_the_American_Folk-Lore_Society_V.djvu&page=23 | access-date=April 8, 2022}}</ref>]]
The land on which Fort Defiance was eventually established was first noted by the U.S. military when Colonel John Washington stopped there on his return journey from an expedition to [[Canyon de Chelly]].<ref name="Granger1960">{{cite book| author=Byrd H. Granger| title=Arizona Place Names| url=https://archive.org/details/arizonaplacename00barn| url-access=registration|access-date=November 20, 2011| year=1960| publisher=University of Arizona Press| page=[https://archive.org/details/arizonaplacename00barn/page/10 10]}}</ref> Fort Defiance was established on September 18, 1851, by Col. [[Edwin V. Sumner]] to create a military presence in [[Navajo Nation|Diné bikéyah]] (Navajo territory). Sumner broke up the fort at [[Santa Fe, New Mexico|Santa Fe]] for this purpose, creating the first military post in what is now [[Arizona]].<ref name="Granger1960"/> He left Major Electus Backus in charge.<ref name="Granger1960"/>

Fort Defiance was built on valuable grazing land that the federal government then prohibited the [[Navajo people|Navajo]] from using. As a result, the appropriately named fort experienced intense fighting, culminating in two attacks: in 1856 and [[Second Battle of Fort Defiance|1860]]. The next year, at the onset of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], the army abandoned Fort Defiance. Continued Navajo raids in the area led [[Brigadier General]] [[James H. Carleton]] to send [[Kit Carson]] to impose order.  The fort was reestablished as '''Fort Canby''' in 1863 as a base for Carson's operations against the Navajo.  General Carleton's "solution" was brutal: thousands of starving Navajo were forced on a [[Long Walk of the Navajo|Long Walk]] of {{convert|450|mi}} and interned near [[Fort Sumner]], [[New Mexico]], and much of their livestock was destroyed.  Following completion of this campaign in 1864 the fort was again abandoned and was burned by remaining Navajo, with only its walls remaining.  The [[Navajo Treaty of 1868]] allowed those interned to return to a portion of their land, and Fort Defiance was reestablished as an Indian agency that year.  In 1870, the first government school for the Navajo was established there.
[[File:Navajofamilya.jpg|upright|thumb|Navajo family with loom. Near Old Fort Defiance, [[New Mexico]]. [[Albumen print]] photograph, 1873.]]
Today, the site of Fort Defiance is populated by buildings dating from the 1930s to the present day used by various governmental agencies including the [[Bureau of Indian Affairs]], [[Indian Health Service]], and the Navajo Nation. The largest of these buildings was the Fort Defiance Indian Hospital until 2002.