The post is still in use today, selling jewelry, blankets and other handcrafted goods. Navajo Nation spans a large part of northeast Arizona, and its border extends into Utah and New Mexico. Note well that they follow daylight savings time (unlike the rest of Arizona).

In the 1860’s, US troops under Kit Carson “burned villages, slaughtered livestock, destroyed water sources” and force marched thousands of Navajo to internment camps in New Mexico. The Long Walk and subsequent re-education programs damaged Navajo culture, breaking ancient familial bonds of language and traditions.

America has not dealt with this tragic history nor its consequences. And I’m not talking about Kit Carson’s legacy or that his name is ubiquitous in the west. I mean the US government’s responsibility for ordering people like Carson to execute this atrocity, against his personal views. We need to understand the mistakes of the past, atone and choose more wisely in the future.