Site Audio Tour
Original Cottonwood Tree
A corridor of cottonwood trees was planted by interned Diné (Navajo) and Ndé (Mescalero Apache) in 1863-64, during the construction of Fort Sumner. A few still thrive, though these massive trees normally live just 70 years. The trunk here is from one that lived 141 years. Bosque Redondo Lake, a few miles away, still has several of the original cottonwood trees that lined the roadway, that was historically referred to as "The Avenue", that led to Fort Union and Santa Fe.
During the 150th Commemoration of the Treaty of 1868 in June 2018, over 1500 people gathered from all parts of the world to bear witness to the history of the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation, Fort Sumner, the atrocities that the Diné and Ndé endured and survived, and acknowledgment of the return of the people to the Sovereign Navajo Nation and Mescalero Apache Tribal lands. David Henderson, Diné, who visited the Memorial during the commemoration, reflected deeply on his ancestral connections after coming face to face with this tree and others in this area during a seven mile commemorative walk. His experiences resulted in this poem:
A Question for the Cottonwood Tree
Read By David Henderson, Diné
-What do you know, tree, if you could speak?
-How many have passed by as you have grown? They say you were planted by the Navajo and Apache incarcerated here.
-How many have wandered under your brancheds to seek shelter from the heat of the day? I'm sure I'm not the only one.
-Did my great grandfather stop here?
-Was he a child? Were you a child?
-Did the child know of suffering or did he play without a care as a happy child?
-Did he fear the soldier on the horse or the infantryman walking with the weapon? Was the child warned to not accept the things the soldier offered and say away?
-Did my great grandmother survive the journey? I wonder what she was like?
-I was told he was very young and part of the Hona ghaanii clan.
-Tree, I came here a long time ago out of curiosity but there was not as much to know about this place. They had put a rock there by the fort with a plaque and I took a picture. I was much younger.
-I see some of your children along the river bank and acequia. The birds nest and sing in their branches. The animals rest in their shade. Tree you bore witness to all that has happened here and can help in the healing.
