Sam Greene, age 11, of Prescott, Ariz., for his question:
WHAT IS THE LARGEST AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBE?
The largest tribe of Indians in the United States is made up of Navajo Indians. The Navajo reservation, which covers about 14 million acres of land, ranks as the nation's biggest reservation. Here's how you pronounce the name: Nav ah hoe.
The Navajo reservation spreads out over parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. The growth of industry on the reservation promises to make the Navajo one of the country's wealthiest tribes. Navajo, by the way, is sometimes spelled Navaho.
At the present time, about 100,000 of the 150,000 Navajo in the U.S. live on the reservation. Some of the people live in traditional tribal houses called hogans, which are made of earth and logs. Others have chosen to live in modern houses.
Large numbers of the tribe are farmers or sheep ranchers, but others are engineers, miners, teachers or technicians. Skilled Navajo craftsmen weave wool blankets and make turquoise jewelry.
Businesses owned by members of the Navajo community include coal mines, electronics firms and lumber mills. These companies earn millions of dollars every year.
Navajo Community College, the first college owned and operated by Indians, is in Tsaile, Ariz., near Lukachukai, on the reservation.
The ancestors of the Navajo migrated to the southwestern part of the U.S. from what is now Alaska and Canada in about the A.D. 1000s. Their Pueblo neighbors taught them to raise crops.
Many Navajo practice the tribal religion today.
During some of their religious rituals, medicine men create symbolic sand paintings to help heal the sick.
During the 1600s, the Navajo started to raise sheep.
During the 1700s, the white settlers started increasing in numbers and they established ranches on Navajo lands. The Indians fought to drive the ranchers away. There was a bitter struggle for the land for a number of years.
In 1864, the U.S. Army troops led by Kit Carson destroyed the farms and homes of the Navajo. The soldiers then forced about 8,000 Indians to march more than 100 miles to Fort Sumpter, N.M. The Navajo call this march the "Long Walk."
Thousands of Indians died during the march and their imprisonment at Fort Sumpter.
In 1868, the Navajo agreed to settle on the reservation. Manuelito was the name of an Indian leader at this time. He played an important part in the Navajos' struggle with the white men. He was born in a town called Bear's Ears, near what is now Moab, Utah.
Manuelito led an attack on Fort Defiance in what is now Arizona.
When Kit Carson captured many Navajos, he did not capture Manuelito. The Indian leader, however, surrendered in 1866.
In 1868, the government established the Navajo reservation and Manuelito headed the first police force there.