FARMINGTON, N.M. — Members of about 40 New Mexico churches embarked on a 400-mile pilgrimage March 31 to the center of the Navajo homeland in Arizona to ask Navajos to forgive wrongs committed against Native Americans during the 1800s.
“We want to dispel our pride and arrogance by embracing some painful truths about ourselves,” said Jim Baker, president of Navajo Missions Inc., a nonprofit organization that assists Native Americans in New Mexico, Utah, Arizona and Colorado. “We have been wrong in using the name of Jesus Christ to impose American values on your way of life and in trying to destroy the Navajo culture.”
The two-day event commemorates the Long Walk of 1863, when Native Americans were forced to walk more than 300 miles from the Canyon de Chelly, Ariz., to New Mexico. Hundreds died during the journey, and survivors were imprisoned just south of Fort Sumner at the Bosque Redondo.
Members of the 40 churches — which include nondenominational, Baptist and Assemblies of God organizations — were joined in the pilgrimage by Navajos and Mescalero Apaches.
Church members and Native Americans planted peach trees in the canyon to symbolize reconciliation between the two groups.
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