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Show NAVAJO COUNTRY REBORN 157 Haashkeneinii, a leader of the Utah Navajos, was involved in severalfamous incidents. This photograph of the leader and his wife was taken five weeks before his death in 1909. Photograph courtesy of the Arizona Pioneer's Historical Society Library. with rumors of war and other absurd reports," the agent wrote. "The Indians are badly stirred up," he noted. The agent and the troops surrounded the Ute camp before dawn, but Haashkeneinii Biye' and his men had fled the night before. The agent found only the remains of Samuel Walcott. Though old Haashkeneinii spent seven months in jail, his son was never caught. When a grand jury at last heard the case in November, no one was indicted. It seems strange that, in the San Juan conflicts, miners, rather than settlers, were killed. During this period, at least, the miners almost never found anything of value. Unlike the farmers, they seldom posed any threat to the Navajos' way of life. The farmers, though, took advantage of the disturbances. Again and again, the farmers pressed the Navajos to the point of anger, called for their removal to the reserve, and then took what they could of the land. In the 1880s and 1890s, shootings threatened to provoke open war several times. In 1887 a Navajo killed a Mormon trader and looted his post at Rincon, eight miles below Bluff. Sixty angry Navajos then came to Bluff ready for a fight. In May 1893, a man at Jewett, near the modern town of Kirtland, New Mexico, was killed. A Navajo, Fatty, confessed to the killing and was arrested. He got away, however. When the Indian agent asked local Navajos to help him catch the man, they refused. With the help of troops, |