Henry Chee Dodge was an Indian leader, chairman of the Navajo Business Council and the then Navajo Tribal Council.
Background
Dodge was born in 1860, in Fort Defiance, Arizona. The identity of his father is uncertain, but he may have been a white Indian agent or Army officer. His mother was a Navajo-Jemez Indian who was killed during a campaign led by Kit Carson against the Navajos in 1864. The survivors, including Dodge, were forced to walk hundreds of miles from northeast Arizona to northwest New Mexico, where they were confined on the Bosque Redondo Reservation at Fort Sumner. In 1868 Dodge returned to Fort Defiance with his adopted Navajo family.
Education
Dodge attended the Fort Defiance Indian School.
Career
After attending the Fort Defiance Indian School, Dodge found work as an official interpreter for the Navajo Agency at Fort Defiance. Later he translated for the ethnographer Washington Matthews and helped write two of his classic works on the Navajos, Navajo Legends (1897) and The Night Chant (1901). In addition to his interpretive abilities, Dodge was also known for his skill in diplomacy, and he was often called in to mediate territorial disputes between Navajos and white settlers in the region. In 1884 Navajo agent Dennis Riordan named Dodge chief of the Navajo police force and, a short time later, head chief of the Navajo tribe.
Although the Navajo were at first reluctant to have Dodge as their chief - he was not a full-blooded Navajo and he had been chosen by a U. S. government representative - Dodge eventually won the confidence of his people, serving as a bridge between the white world and the traditional world of the Navajo. In 1890 Dodge opened a trading post on the Navajo Reservation with a white partner, Stephen E. Aldrich. He also built up a successful livestock business. In 1923 Dodge became the first chairman of the Navajo Tribal council, a position he held until 1929. He served as chairman a second time, from 1942 until his death in 1947.
He died in January 1947 at the age of 86 or 87 before the sixth Tribal Council
convened and he could take office. Zhealy Tso was appointed Vice-Chairman in his stead. He was buried near his home in Fort Defiance.
Achievements
Dodge became the first and only Navajo politician elected vice-president who died before being able to take office. Chee Dodge Elementary School in Yatahey, New Mexico and Chee Dodge Boulevard near Gallup are named in Dodge's honor.
Connections
Dodge married Asdzaan Trinnijinnie and then established a home at Crystal, New Mexico. He soon built up a prosperous farm, expanded his herds of sheep and cattle, acquired hundreds of acres of grazing land, and became a successful rancher as well as a businessman. Chee divorced his first wife because she habitually gambled away his wealth.
He next married Nanabah, who was a daughter of the girl who had found him when he was four. He also took Nanabah's younger sister as his wife. He built an enormous beautiful house at the foot of the Chuska Mountains and continued to expand his business enterprises and his ranch holdings. At the age of thirty-nine, Nanabah's younger sister gave birth to his first son, Tom. Two years later Nanabah gave birth to his second son, Ben. Later Nanabah gave birth to his daughter Mary. Nanabah proved to be Chee's equal in intelligence and business skill and soon acquired great wealth of her own in real estate and cattle. Their separate business interests often kept them apart for long periods of time.
During one separation Chee took another wife, K'eehabah, who bore him a second daughter, Annie. Chee was a concerned father and strong disciplinarian, determined to see his children become well educated and successful. He sent them to Salt Lake City to school during the winters. With the exception of Mary, all of Chee's children did well in school and became involved in Navajo politics. Tom became a lawyer and in 1932 was elected Chairman of the Navajo Tribe. Ben and Annie both became members of the Tribal Council. Annie became famous for her efforts to improve health conditions among American Indians. In 1963 Annie Dodge Wauneka was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
