Civic Academy
A Short History of Navajo Government
≈ 7 min read · or listen, or skim the bold lines
Why the Nation has the government it has — and why it has never had a constitution. Until, maybe, this November.
You can’t weigh the reform proposal — or half the promises in the 2026 interviews — without this story. It’s short, and every line of it is still shaping your ballot.
Before · Diné governance came firstLong before any council, the Diné governed through naat’áanii — leaders of clans and communities — through k’é and the teachings now called the Fundamental Law. Returning toward this governance is one position candidates were asked about in the 2026 interviews. Everything below is the story of systems layered on top of that foundation.
1868The Treaty — and the return homeAfter the Long Walk and imprisonment at Hwéeldi (Fort Sumner), Navajo leaders signed the Treaty of 1868 with the United States and led the people home. The Treaty remains the legal bedrock of the Nation’s relationship with the federal government — the proposed constitution itself is written around it.
1923A council created for oilThe first Navajo Tribal Council was organized under the federal government — largely so there would be a body that could approve oil and gas leases on Navajo land. The Nation’s legislature, in other words, did not begin as self-government; it began as a signature the government in Washington needed.
1934The people say no to Washington’s constitutionCongress’s Indian Reorganization Act offered tribes constitutions on a federal template. The Navajo people rejected it at the polls — a vote shadowed by fury over federal livestock reduction, which had destroyed herds and livelihoods. Saying no to that constitution was itself an act of sovereignty.
1937–53Constitutions drafted, never adoptedA constitution drafted in the late 1930s was set aside; the federal government installed the 1938 Rules instead, under which the Council operated for decades. Another constitution was drafted in the 1950s under federal authorization — approved by the Council, then stalled in Washington. The pattern repeats: documents written, and a people never given a real chance to ratify one of their own.
1969“The Navajo Nation”The Council formally adopted the name Navajo Nation — a declaration that this is a nation governing itself, not a “tribe” administered by someone else.1989Crisis — and the unfinished reform
On July 9, 1987, at 9:50 a.m., a title document was recorded in the Coconino County courthouse: the 491,000-acre Big Boquillas Ranch, sold to an oil company for $26.25 million.
Five minutes later, a second document recorded the sale of the same ranch to “The Navajo Tribe of Indians, c/o Peter MacDonald Sr.”
For $33.4 million.
The day before, the Navajo Nation attorney general had sent Chairman MacDonald a memo warning against buying through a middleman at an inflated price. A later memo recorded that the purchase went ahead “despite legal and financial advice to the contrary.” B · Washington Post, 1989
The Council suspended MacDonald in February 1989, suspecting kickbacks from contractors. Five months of standoff followed — at times three men claimed to be Chairman.
July 20, 1989
Supporters of the suspended chairman marched on tribal headquarters in Window Rock and stormed the administration and finance building. Tribal police opened fire.
Arnold Begay and Jimmy Dixon were killed. Eleven others were injured.
Five months later — December 15, 1989 — the Council passed CD-68-89, the Title 2 Amendments. It abolished the Chairmanship, created the President and the Speaker, and split power into three branches.
It did so, in the Council’s own words, temporarily — until the people established a government of their choice. Thirty-seven years later, the temporary government stands.
And in the same resolution, they wrote the guardrails
A · history notes read in the Navajo Nation Code Annotated
A middleman took $7.2 million in five minutes. A price was inflated after the fact. The warning memos surfaced only after the money was gone. So the Council wrote down exactly how a contract must be handled:
| Section | What it requires |
|---|---|
| 2 N.N.C. § 223(E) | All contracts awarded only after public advertisement and bidding |
| § 223(F) | Change orders may not exceed twenty percent of the accepted bid |
| § 224 | Every executed contract filed with Central Records |
| § 225 | “Access to contracts or papers shall be provided to the public” |
| § 221(A) | The Legislative Counsel shall immediately arrange for codification |
Section 223 is not boilerplate. It is a scar.
Somebody sat down in the winter of 1989, with two Diné men dead and a chairman bound for federal prison, and wrote down how this must never happen again — and, in the same breath, ordered that the law be published so the people could hold anyone to it.
And then the Nation forgave him
MacDonald was convicted in tribal court of defrauding the Navajo Nation, and later in federal court of fraud, bribery, extortion, and corruption connected to the ranch purchase and the riot. He was sentenced to fourteen years.
In 1995, the Navajo Nation Council pardoned his tribal convictions — invoking hózhóójí, the Beauty Way, and the need to forgive and to ask forgiveness. President Clinton commuted the federal sentence on his last day in office in 2001.
MacDonald was a Marine, a Code Talker, and the man who founded the Navajo Nation Shopping Centers Enterprise and the Navajo Engineering and Construction Authority. All of that is true at once.
The reform was explicitly meant to continue with the people’s input. By nearly everyone’s account — including many 2026 candidates — it was never finished. The government the Nation lives under today is, structurally, an emergency patch.
1998Local governance promisedThe Local Governance Act (Title 26) promised chapters real authority over local land, planning, and money — if they certify. Whether that promise has been kept is a live argument in this election.
2002The Fundamental Law written inThe Council formally recognized Diné bi beenahaz’áanii — the Fundamental Law — as the foundation of Navajo law, directing that written laws be developed and interpreted in harmony with Diné teachings.
2009–11The people cut their own CouncilBy initiative, Navajo voters reduced the Council from 88 delegates to 24 and gave the President line-item veto power — a rare moment of the people directly reshaping their government, and proof that they can.
2025–26A Navajo-written constitution — on the ballotIn July 2025 the Office of Navajo Government Development unveiled the first Navajo-written government-reform proposal, after decades of drafts written by or for Washington. It is expected on the November 3, 2026 ballot as a referendum. Whatever you conclude about it, this is the question a century of this timeline has been building toward: who writes the supreme law — and who ratifies it? See the proposal vs. current law, side by side.
Why this history matters in 2026
Three threads run through the whole timeline. First: the current government was never designed whole — it accumulated, from an oil-lease committee to an emergency patch. Second: every previous constitution was drafted by or under Washington, and the people either rejected it or never got to ratify it. Third: when the people have acted directly — 1934, 2009 — they changed the course of the government. The 2026 referendum asks whether they will again, and in which direction. That answer belongs to no candidate, no office, and no website. It belongs to you.
Go deeper: the ONGD’s history of constitution attempts · the Navajo Nation Code · our Title 2 & Title 26 lesson and Proposed Constitution lesson.
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Why does the government's origin story still matter in 2026?
Right — the past is load-bearing.
Goes with: Government 101 · Constitution 101
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