The Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner State Monument solemnly remembers the dark days of suffering from 1863 to 1868 when the U.S. Military persecuted and imprisoned 9,500 Navajo (the Diné) and 500 Mescalero Apache (the N’de) on a reservation known as Bosque Redondo — an area that encompassed 1,600 square miles (over one million acres).

The Bosque Redondo Memorial celebrates these two cultures’ dignity, resilience, endurance, courage, and strength in the face of extreme hardship, isolation, sickness, and death to emerge from Bosque Redondo and become the admired and proud people they are today.