With more than 399,494[1] enrolled tribal members as of 2021[update],[1][5] the Navajo Nation is the second largest federally recognized tribe in the United States.

[10] It has been suggested that the Navajo and Apaches may have migrated due to the effects of a volcanic explosion in the Saint Elias Mountains of Alaska around 803 AD.

Later, they adopted farming from Pueblo people, growing mainly the traditional Native American "Three Sisters" of corn, beans, and squash.

[13] Women began to spin and weave wool into blankets and clothing; they created items of highly valued artistic expression, which were also traded and sold.

Oral history indicates a long relationship with Pueblo people[14][full citation needed] and a willingness to incorporate Puebloan ideas and linguistic variance.

[15]: 43–50  The Spanish, Navajo and Hopi continued to trade with each other and formed a loose alliance to fight Apache and Comanche bands for the next 20 years.

Similar patterns of peace-making, raiding, and trading among the Navajo, Spaniards, Apache, Comanche, and Hopi continued until the arrival of Americans in 1846.

[15] The Navajos encountered the United States Army in 1846 when General Stephen W. Kearny invaded Santa Fe with 1,600 men during the Mexican–American War.

On November 21, 1846, following an invitation from a small party of American soldiers under the command of Captain John Reid, who journeyed deep into Navajo country and contacted him, Narbona and other Navajos negotiated a treaty of peace with Colonel Alexander Doniphan at Bear Springs, Ojo del Oso (later the site of Fort Wingate).

In 1861, Brigadier-General James H. Carleton, Commander of the Federal District of New Mexico, initiated a series of military actions against the Navajos and Apaches.

[20] Beginning in the spring of 1864, the Army forced around 9,000 Navajo men, women, and children to walk over 300 miles (480 km) to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, for internment at Bosque Redondo.

The first Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) school opened at Fort Defiance in 1870[26] and led the way for eight others to be established.

Other conditions included inadequate food, overcrowding, required manual labor in kitchens, fields, and boiler rooms; and military-style uniforms and haircuts.

But Rough Rock Day School was run in the same militaristic style as Fort Defiance and did not implement educational reforms.

Navajo accounts of the Evangelical Missionary School portray it as having a family-like atmosphere with home-cooked meals, new or gently used clothing, humane treatment, and a Navajo-based curriculum.

[30] In 1937, Boston heiress Mary Cabot Wheelright and Navajo singer and medicine man Hastiin Klah founded the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe.

Worried about large herds in the arid climate, at a time when the Dust Bowl was endangering the Great Plains, the government decided that the land of the Navajo Nation could support only a fixed number of sheep, goats, cattle, and horses.

In many ways, he worked to reform government relations with the Native American tribes, but the reduction program was devastating for the Navajo, for whom their livestock was so important.

In the matrilineal and matrilocal world of the Navajo, women were especially hurt, as many lost their only source of income with the reduction of livestock herds.

[36] Historian Brian Dippie notes that the Indian Rights Association denounced Collier as a 'dictator' and accused him of a "near reign of terror" on the Navajo reservation.

[39] Four hundred Navajo code talkers played a famous role during World War II by relaying radio messages using their own language.

The Navajos have claimed high rates of death and illness from lung disease and cancer resulting from environmental contamination.

As part of their traditional economy, Navajo groups may have formed trading or raiding parties, traveling relatively long distances.

Although women may carry a bigger burden, fertility is so highly valued that males are expected to provide economic resources (known as bridewealth).

[citation needed] Navajo spiritual practice is about restoring balance and harmony to a person's life to produce health and is based on the ideas of Hózhóójí.

The four sacred mountains were found here, but due to a great flood, First Woman, First Man, and the Holy People were forced to find another world to live in.

Later, they added silver earrings, buckles, bolos, hair ornaments, pins, and squash blossom necklaces for tribal use, and to sell to tourists as a way to supplement their income.

The term "squash blossom" was apparently attached to the name of the Navajo necklace at an early date, although its bud-shaped beads are thought to derive from Spanish-Mexican pomegranate designs.

Some early European-American settlers moved in and set up trading posts, often buying Navajo rugs by the pound and selling them back east by the bale.

But the Navajos were a nomadic tribe, roaming over a very large area, so that an absolutely accurate enumeration even in year 1910 would have been an extremely difficult if not impossible task.