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Show 170 XI. DINE DOO WAASHINDOON Education and the Utah Navajos: Ba'ililii The Navajos' desire to have a say in the education of their children was made clear in 1907. By that time, Ba'ililii and his San Juan followers felt the government had gone too far in forcing children to go to school. Superintendent William H. Shelton, who was behind the forced attendance, was just as strong-willed as Ba'ililii. Plans had been made as early as 1894 to open a Navajo school in Bluff. Agent Plummer had gone so far as to bring Miss Anna C. Egan to Bluff and place her in charge of a day school. She was to camp out on the site and prepare the children. As supplies arrived, she was to take charge of building the school. At first, classes were held in a brush shelter or a tent. There were no funds for a real school building. The Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs later noted that the Navajos were "interested and pleased" with the idea of a school. In 1906 the town of Bluff sent a delegation to Superintendent Shelton. They offered to sell him the entire town for use as a school. If the Bluff school had been built, Navajo children could have gone to school near their homes and parents. Perhaps then there would have been no trouble with Ba'ililii. But the agency could not afford to build the Bluff school. So, in 1907, Shelton decided to send the San Juan school children all the way to Ship-rock. The San Juan parents, for their part, wanted their children to stay at home. Ba'ililii's resistance was not quiet. Once, after a council near Aneth, he and his friends shot at the stumps around their camp. They pretended their targets were the men who came to take the children away to school. When one of Shelton's Indian policemen, Sandoval, warned Ba'ililii not to disobey the official's orders, he was chased away. Ba'ililii used every chance to show his distaste for the agency's orders. He even stopped his followers from having their sheep dipped. In response to all this, Shelton took forceful action. He wrote the commissioner of Indian affairs in March that "they [Ba'ililii's group] have purchased arms and ammunition and are threatening to kill the farmer, myself, the policemen, or anyone else that interferes with them in any way." Shelton claimed that Ba'ililii was gaining support by threatening "to kill those who oppose him and his followers." Against the advice of others, Shelton chose to visit the area and look at the problem himself. |