Sherman House Museum
On April 14 the "Dineh Tah Navajo Dancers" came to Lancaster and the Sherman House Museum to bless the house in which Sherman spent the first nine years of his life. Why?
Most know of Sherman the warrior. Not as many know of Sherman the peace maker. But, the Navajo do. Shawn Price, is a Navajo who has studied the treaty of 1868 between two nations, the Navajo and the United States of America. General William Tecumseh Sherman, then the General of the Missouri Division of the U.S. Army and a representative of the "Indian Peace Commission" and the Navajo Chief Barboncito signed a treaty (nation to nation, later consented to by Congress and signed by President Andrew Johnson) that restored as an independent reservation a portion of the traditional Navajo homelands to the Navajos. That treaty is still honored to this day.
After the house blessing, which I was privileged to participate in, Shawn who is somewhat of a scholar on Sherman's relationship with the Navajo and other Plains Indian Nations and appreciative of the work that Sherman and Barboncito put into reaching an agreement, gave a lecture on the treaty in the Garret of the Lancaster library.
Later in the evening four young Navajo who are traveling the country with him performed some traditional tribal dances at the Crossroads. It was a good day, nation to nation, and people to people.
