Fort Sumner and Bosque Redondo are taken together for a reason. In October, 1862 Congress authorized the construction of Ft. Sumner. The Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation was created there to reloate the Mescalero Apaches and Navajos who were raiding white settlements. General James Henry Carleton ordered Col. Christopher "Kit" Carson to do whatever necessary to bring first the Mescalero and then the Navajo there. All of the Mescalero Apaches had been relocated by the end of 1862, but the Navajo were not resettled in large numbers until early 1864. The Navajo refer to the journey from Navajo land to the Bosque Redondo as the Long Walk. More than 300 Navajos died making the journey. The 1865 and 1866 corn production was sufficient, but in 1867 it was a total failure.

In 1868 he Treaty of Bosque Redondo was negotiated with the Navajo and they were allowed to return to their homeland, to a "new reservation." Barboncito, a Navajo political and spiritual leader, helped to pursuade General William Tecumseh Sherman, who was there to make an agreement with them to move to Indian Terrritory. The decision was finallly made to allow them to return to their homelands. They were joined by thousands of Navajo who had been hiding out in the Arizona Territory. Some of the Navajos only went as far as Ramah, NM where they were given a reservation by the US Government.

The famous outlaw "Billy the Kid" was killed in the town of Ft. Sumner by Sheriff Pat Garrett. His grave marker is located in the town.

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