General Carleton created the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation with the notion his tribal prisoners would become farmers, like the Pueblo Indians he had seen near Santa Fe.
But, the General's notion that the reservation would spawn a farming community of thriving, transplanted Native American prisoners in the "garden spot of new Mexico" proved disastrous. His own troops sarcastically dubbed the reservation "Carletonia." Mescalero Apache and Navajo who cooperated did so for the survival of their families.
General Carleton made a deliberate choice to place the Navajo and the Mescalero Apache on the same reservation-despite hostilities and language barrier. He intended to hold the tribes in a place from which they could not escape, to dismantle their cultures and assimilate the tribes into mainstream society.
