Navajo. The Navajo are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. At more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members as of 2021, the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the U.S.; the Navajo Nation has the largest reservation in the country. The reservation straddles the Four Corners region and covers more than 27,000 square miles of land in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. The Navajo language is spoken throughout the region, and most Navajos also speak English. The states with the largest Navajo populations are Arizona and New Mexico. More than three-quarters of the enrolled Navajo population resides in these two states. Besides the Navajo Nation proper, a small group of ethnic Navajos are members of the federally recognized Colorado River Indian Tribes. The Navajos are speakers of a Na-Dené Southern Athabaskan language which they call Diné bizaad. The term Navajo comes from Spanish missionaries and historians who referred to the Pueblo Indians through this term, although they referred to themselves as the Diné, meaning 'the people'. The language comprises two geographic, mutually intelligible dialects. The Apache language is closely related to the Navajo Language; the Navajos and Apaches are believed to have migrated from northwestern Canada and eastern Alaska, where the majority of Athabaskan speakers reside. Speakers of various other Athabaskan languages located in Canada may still comprehend the Navajo language despite the geographic and linguistic deviation of the languages. Additionally, some Navajos speak Navajo Sign Language, which is either a dialect or daughter of Plains Sign Talk. Some also speak Plains Sign Talk itself. Archaeological and historical evidence suggests the Athabaskan ancestors of the Navajos and Apaches entered the Southwest around 1400 AD. The Navajo oral tradition is transcribed to retain references to this migration. Initially, the Navajos were largely hunters and gatherers. Later, they adopted farming from Pueblo peoples, growing mainly the traditional Three Sisters of corn, beans, and squash. They adopted herding sheep and goats from the Spanish as a main source of trade and food. Meat became essential in the Navajo diet. Sheep became a form of currency and family status. Women began to spin and weave wool into blankets and clothing; they created items of highly valued artistic expression, which were also traded and sold. Oral history indicates a long relationship with Pueblo people and a willingness to incorporate Puebloan ideas and linguistic variance. There were long-established trading practices between the groups. Mid-16th century Spanish records recount that the Pueblo exchanged maize and woven cotton goods for bison meat, hides, and stone from Athabaskans traveling to the pueblos or living nearby. In the 18th century, the Spanish reported that the Navajos' maintained large herds of livestock and cultivated large crop areas. Western historians believe that the Spanish before 1600 referred to the Navajos as Apaches or Quechos. Fray Geronimo de Zarate-Salmeron, who was in Jemez in 1622, used Apachu de Nabajo in the 1620s to refer to the people in the Chama Valley region, east of the San Juan River and northwest of present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico. Navahu comes from the Tewa language, meaning a large area of cultivated lands. By the 1640s, the Spanish began using the term Navajo to refer to the Diné. During the 1670s, the Spanish wrote that the Diné lived in a region known as, about 60 miles west of the Rio Chama valley region. In the 1770s, the Spanish sent military expeditions against the Navajos in the Mount Taylor and Chuska Mountain regions of New Mexico. The Spanish, Navajos and Hopis continued to trade with each other and formed a loose alliance to fight Apache and Comanche bands for the next 20 years. During this time there were relatively minor raids by Navajo bands and Spanish citizens against each other. In 1800 Governor Chacon led 500 men to the Tunicha Mountains against the Navajo. Twenty Navajo chiefs asked for peace. In 1804 and 1805 the Navajos and Spanish mounted major expeditions against each other's settlements. In May 1805 another peace was established. Similar patterns of peace-making, raiding, and trading among the Navajo, Spanish, Apache, Comanche, and Hopi continued until the arrival of Americans in 1846. The Navajos encountered the United States Army in 1846, when General Stephen W. Kearny invaded Santa Fe with 1,600 men during the Mexican-American War.