The Battle of Canyon de Chelly was fought in 1864 as part of the Navajo Wars. It was a successful operation for the United States Army which precipitated the Long Walk and was the final major military engagement between the Navajo and the Americans. The battle ended with the fall of the main Navajo settlements of Canyon de Chelly in present-day northern Arizona.
By the time of the American Civil War the Navajo was the largest nation in the Southwest and one of the largest remaining Native American nations within the United States. Colonel Christopher H. "Kit" Carson had been waging a successful campaign against the Navajos employing a scorched earth policy, destroying homes, food and supplies. It was Carson's policy to capture the Navajo instead of killing them. However, by November 1863 Carson had only sent 200 people on to the reservation at Bosque Redondo. Brigadier General James H. Carleton ordered Carson into the Navajo stronghold in Canyon de Chelly. The canyon had been explored once before in 1858 by Colonel Dixon S. Miles. Miles had recommended no command should re-enter it.
The Navajo in Canyon de Chelly were members of the bands led by Manuelito, Barboncito and his brother Delgado. By the time Carson's men came into their lands, these Navajo groups had already suffered attacks from Ute warriors. The raids by the Utes and soldiers had taken its toll on some of the Navajos. Delgado's followers concluded they would not be able to survive the winter and surrendered at Fort Defiance. Barboncito vowed never to surrender and continued fighting the army.
When Carson was ready to move against Canyon de Chelly, Barboncito's men ran off all the army mules. Carson's men had to return to Fort Defiance and delay the attack. By 6 January, Carson was re-equipped and ready to move against Canyon de Chelly despite heavy snow.
Carson had with him 389 troopers from the 1st New Mexico Cavalry. He divided his command, sending Captain Albert H. Pfeiffer into the east end of the canyon with 100 men, while Carson led the remaining 289 to the west end of the canyon. Carson traversed the entire canyon, occasionally engaging in skirmishes and destroying every abandoned native camp he found until reaching the opposite end without encountering the main Navajo band or Captain Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer had missed the entrance to the canyon in a snowstorm and was instead traversing through a northern branch called Canyon del Muerto. Carson meanwhile retraced his route back to the west entrance and waited for Pfeiffer to arrive. Pfeiffer arrived having been harassed by natives along the cliffs but, like Carson, had only engaged in light skirmishing. The army set up camp near Chinle, Arizona.
The Indian Wars encompass more than three centuries of armed conflict between the United States government, American settlers, and Indigenous nations — from the Powhatan Wars of the 1620s through the final Plains campaigns of the late 19th century. The eastern conflicts — King Philip's War (1675–1676), the Tuscarora War (1711–1715), and the Creek and Seminole Wars — largely ended organized Indigenous resistance east of the Mississippi by the 1840s. On the Great Plains, the Sioux Wars (1854–1890), Red River War (1874–1875), and Nez Perce War (1877) followed the displacement wrought by the transcontinental railroad and the near-extinction of the American bison — an estimated 30 to 60 million animals reduced to fewer than 1,000 by 1890. The Ghost Dance religious movement and the massacre at Wounded Knee (December 29, 1890), in which US cavalry killed approximately 250 Lakota men, women, and children, marked the effective end of armed resistance. The Dawes Act (1887) allotted reservation land to individual families, opening millions of acres to white settlement and reducing Indigenous landholdings by about two-thirds over the following decades.
This page covers Canyon de Chelly — Kit Carson Campaign (January 1864). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
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