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The Blacksmith’s Shop

 

 

 

It’s not clear when the forgeries began, but in early 1865, soldiers working in Fort Sumner’s commissary discovered that their ration tickets had been altered, allowing for more food than originally authorized. Other tickets simply disappeared from circulation.

“These tickets,” army surgeon George Gwyther recalled a few years later, “at first made of stout card-board, were so often willfully lost, or the writing on them so skillfully forged, that stamped metal slips were substituted.”
Of course, the same Diné headman who knew how to write like a Bilagáana also knew how to work metal. And now he had access to a complete set of blacksmith tools courtesy of the U.S. Army. Gwyther reported that “in short time it was found that their ingenuity had enabled them to make dies and forge the impressions successfully.”

So successfully, in fact, that no one could tell the difference. The soldiers didn’t know they’d been conned until they counted the tin tickets they’d collected and discovered they’d taken in more than they’d handed out. After one such tally in May 1865, Captain Henry Bristol reported to the post adjutant:

 

 

All told, the prisoners counterfeited more than three thousand ration tickets that year. They also successfully duplicated three hundred of Carleton’s military passports, which granted anyone who slipped out of Bosque Redondo safe passage through New Mexico.

The fraudulent passports may explain how Barboncito, after he was captured in Canyon de Chelly, managed to escape from Bosque Redondo in July 1865 and elude Union soldiers for more than a year. He finally returned of his own accord in November 1866, bringing with him a few families on the edge of starvation.

Similarly, Manuelito not only managed to evade capture for three years but also surreptitiously visited Bosque Redondo at least once. The most wanted man in the territory proved impossible to catch. He finally gave himself up in September 1866, after he was shot in the forearm in a skirmish with Hopi warriors and his followers lost the will to fight.

The army eventually put an end to ration ticket counterfeiting by ordering brass tokens shipped in from a federal mint, each about the size of a half dollar—impossible to duplicate under the conditions of the camp. A photograph taken at Bosque Redondo shows more than a dozen Diné men, seated on the ground, apparently under guard. It’s captioned, “Navajo chiefs accused of counterfeiting ration tickets at Bosque Redondo, Fort Sumner, New Mexico.” Yet there’s no record of charges being filed.

Delgadito was the obvious suspect. Punishing him, however, was another matter. The general had turned Delgadito into the symbol of the supposed subjugation of the Navajo; how could Carleton admit that he’d been duped by his prisoner?

By the time the counterfeiting operation was uncovered, Carleton could not afford another scandal. His critics were growing by the month. The previous December, the Santa Fe Weekly New Mexican accused him of participating in the slave trade he’d forbidden. Under a headline declaring, “Carleton Gives Away One of His ‘Pets,’” the paper reported:

 

 

In Washington, there were complaints about how much Bosque Redondo cost and questions about the treatment of prisoners. Carleton’s superiors received reports of one deprivation after another: not enough food, not enough water, not enough firewood, children dying from dysentery and smallpox…and where was all that fabled gold?

Patience, Carleton urged. The Navajo could still thrive at Bosque Redondo. “Through all the clouds that now seem to surround this important, and, to them, vital matter, I hope soon to see some encouraging light,” he wrote.

Time was running out. Outcry was growing over the treatment of America’s first nations, not just in New Mexico Territory but throughout the West. Newspaper reports of the Sand Creek Massacre, in which U.S. troops attacked Arapaho and Cheyenne families in their sleep, jolted readers across the country.

In March 1865, the Senate and House passed a joint resolution “directing an inquiry into the condition of the Indian tribes and their treatment by the civil and military authorities of the United States.” Within weeks, army commanders in New Mexico learned that the inquiry was coming to them. Representative Lewis Ross, an Illinois Democrat, was traveling to Bosque Redondo to hold Congressional field hearings. And Herrero Delgadito, the blacksmith turned counterfeiter, would be among those called to testify.

 

The Condition of the Indian Tribes

 

Captain Henry Bristol didn’t mention the counterfeiting operation. One month after finding another three hundred duplicates of the tin ration tickets, he appeared before a team of Congressional investigators at Fort Sumner and swore that the blacksmith’s shop was an example of how well things were going at Bosque Redondo.

“The young men and boys seem very anxious to learn, and show much aptitude for the work,” Bristol testified at the June 1865 field hearing. “They have some blacksmiths among them who make good bits; one presented, made by a Navajo, is in the Spanish style.”

Bristol did his best to counter the camp’s growing chorus of critics. He allowed that there had been some deaths—exactly how many, he couldn’t say—but he described the prisoners as a largely contented and industrious lot. “If nothing interferes to prevent the present crops from maturing, as they now promise well, I think we shall raise nearly enough to feed the Indians until next season,” Bristol said.

Congressman Lewis Ross invited the prisoners to furnish witnesses of their own. The Mescalero Apache leader Cadette spoke first, telling Ross that the prisoners wanted just one thing: to go home. They had tried to make a life for themselves at the Bosque, but the people were always hungry. Dysentery, smallpox and measles claimed new victims every week. “About six days ago, four died: an old man, middle-aged man, a boy, and a girl,” Cadette told Ross.

The Diné chose Delgadito to speak on their behalf. He confirmed everything Cadette had said—the deprivation, the disease. By then, Delgadito had lost five of his own children.172 A clerk wrote down Ross’s questions, followed by Delgadito’s answers, as translated by an interpreter:

 

Question: Is there plenty of wood on the reservation for fuel?

 

Question: Do the young men like to work and want to work?

 

Question: Are your women and children all pretty well now?

 

Question: If your people had plenty of wool could they make all the clothes?

 

Ordered to compile a list of slaves in his jurisdiction, U.S. Indian Agent Lafayette Head omitted those he personally held in captivity.   Fort Garland Museum.

 

 

By Mr. Ross to Herrero, Question: Were you made a chief by your own people or by the whites?

 

 

To the chiefs, Question: Would you all like to go back to your old country or remain here?

 

Question: If you are sent back could you make your own living?

 

Finally, Ross got to the big question, the only one the Diné really cared about:

Question. Do you want us, when we go back, to tell the Great Father and the great council that you would like to be sent back to your old country?

 

Question: Are the soldiers treating you badly? And if so, let us know.

 

Question: Do you get enough to eat here?

 

Question: How much do you get as a ration?

 

Question. Is there any game in your own country?

 

Ross explained that he and his colleagues didn’t have the authority to release anyone—they could only relay the wish to the president and Congress. Delgadito conferred with other Diné headmen and then turned to the interpreter. “They say they will try and work to do all they can to support themselves until they learn what disposition is to be made
of them.”

Delgadito had one other request that day. He told Ross that his name— Herrero—meant “blacksmith.” He explained that he’d been training some of the other men, teaching them how to fashion bridle bits, hatchets and such. Was it possible, the counterfeiter asked the congressman, to send more tools for the blacksmith’s shop?

 

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Honoring Tradition With Joann and Bob Balzer

 

As Indian Market celebrates its centennial anniversary, this video captures so much of the wonderful aspects of the Indian Market throughout the years, as seen through the eyes of JoAnn and Bob Balzer. It captures not just JoAnn and Bob’s experiences of 50 STRAIGHT Indian Markets, but the wonderfulness and importance of Indian Market, its artists and events.

Credit goes to Cathy Notarnicola, Curator of Southwest History at the New Mexico History Museum, and her team, who have worked tirelessly since last year to produce not just this video, but the not-to-be-missed exhibition: