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Chapter 238: The Navajo People (2)
🕑 Added 2025-02-21 14:52:27 +0000 UTCAfter another ten minutes of driving, they finally arrived at the village.
Such a large convoy immediately attracted attention.
When the villagers saw that many of the people in the jeeps were their own kin—men who had left years ago to fight in the war—the entire settlement erupted into excitement.
Aldo's grandfather ruled over a large group of Navajo people, numbering over 8,000. This was already considered a large tribe—after all, the total Navajo population was only about a hundred thousand across all their tribes.
Even by 2005, the Navajo population had only reached around 300,000.
Among all the ethnic minorities in the U.S., their numbers were among the lowest.
They were the original inhabitants of this land, yet they had been pushed into the most remote corners of the country, barely surviving.
What a tragedy.
The commotion outside quickly caught the attention of the tribe's leaders.
Soon, a group of people was escorting an elderly man to the entrance of the village.
"Aldo? Is that really you?"
A middle-aged man stared at Aldo from a distance, his voice filled with disbelief.
It was Aldo's uncle. Because of Aldo’s military service, they hadn’t seen each other for many years. Standing so far away, he couldn't be sure if it was really his nephew.
"It's me, uncle. I'm back!"
Aldo stepped forward and gave his uncle a big hug.
"Aldo? It's really Aldo?"
The elderly man beside his uncle became visibly emotional upon hearing his name. He was none other than the chief of the Quechan tribe, Aldo's grandfather.
The old chief was already in his seventies—a remarkable feat among Native Americans, whose average lifespan was barely forty to fifty years.
Unlike Aldo’s uncle, who occasionally visited him, Quechan had not seen his grandson for over a decade—not since Aldo’s mother had passed away.
Looking at the strong young man before him, Quechan seemed to see his own younger self. Then memories of his lost daughter flooded his mind and tears streamed down his weathered face.
Seeing his grandfather like this, Aldo was overwhelmed with emotions.
Although he had left the tribe at a young age, it had been more his mother's decision than his own. He had few memories of the reservation, having visited only a handful of times. But each time he had been there, the people had treated him kindly. His grandfather always had food ready for him, and his uncle made sure to visit every year.
So he did feel a bond with this place.
That was why he wanted to push for the tribe's migration.
As a half-blood, no one understood the plight of Native Americans in this country better than he did.
Leaving their ancestral land and crossing the ocean was a difficult decision, but he believed that with Josh's help, the Native Americans could have a better future in Java.
Before coming here, Josh had personally assured him.
As long as the Native Americans moved to Java, they would be granted full citizenship, allocated land, and provided the best education to lift them out of poverty.
They would even be given powerful weapons to protect their interests.
All they had to offer in return was their loyalty.
Besides, what did the Indian reservations have?
Barren deserts, endless wastelands—natural prisons.
But in Java, in Sulawesi, there were lush tropical rain forests, fertile soil, abundant game, and rich marine resources.
By any measure, Sulawesi's environment far surpassed the nearly desolate reservations.
And for Josh, that was a small price to pay compared to what he would gain from Sulawesi.
At the time, almost no one knew that Sulawesi contained nearly a quarter of the world's nickel reserves.
By comparison, even a big country like China had only about one-seventh of Java's nickel deposits.
As one of the most important metals for industrialization, nickel alone was enough to make Sulawesi's rulers immensely wealthy.
It would be one of the main pillars of Java's future economy.
But now it would all belong to Josh.
And the number of Native Americans was too small to be a problem. The total population of Native Americans in the United States was less than a million.
Even if every one of them agreed to migrate, which was unlikely, they would still be an insignificant fraction of Sulawesi's population.
Josh wasn't worried that the Native Americans would be at a disadvantage once they arrived in Java.
Though both were considered "natives," Native Americans were far bolder and more warlike than the Javanese, and they were also more industrious.
Josh's investment in them would pay off many times over.
In contrast, the natives of Java were astonishingly lazy when it came to labor.
It couldn't be helped—natural resources were too abundant, and the land was too fertile.
Burn down a patch of forest, scatter some seeds, and a bountiful harvest would follow. So why bother getting up early and working hard?
"I see...migration, huh?"
Inside the chief's big tent, Quechan fell into deep thought after hearing his grandson's suggestion.
The word "migration" immediately brought back memories of the late 19th century, when the U.S. government forcibly relocated Native Americans to create the reservation system.
They had been driven from their once fertile lands to these barren wastelands.
Famine, disease, massacres—countless Native Americans perished in that dark era.
Even their primary source of survival—the great buffalo herds—had been slaughtered to near extinction by the U.S. government (A/N: regionally extinct, later reintroduced from Canada).
So when Quechan heard the word "migration," his heart was clenched with fear.
He was afraid.
But he also understood that the current situation for Native Americans couldn't possibly get any worse.
That vision Aldo described—of fertile islands in Java—was deeply tempting.
"Aldo, it's not that I don't believe you. But this is the future of thousands in our tribe, and potentially tens of thousands of Navajo people. I can't make this decision lightly. Besides, the other tribes may not listen to me… I need to hold a council meeting and discuss this with them. If possible, I would also like to meet with your employer in person.
After who knows how long—after smoking several pouches of tobacco—Quechan finally spoke to his grandson.
Aldo frowned.
Meeting Josh?
Their statuses weren’t equal at all.
Aldo was well aware that Josh was offering the Indians a new life in Java largely as a favor to him. Otherwise, Austria and Germany, with their tiny populations, could easily recruit many times as many settlers.
Still, after thinking it over, Aldo made the call.
What Aldo didn’t expect, however, was that after hearing the situation, Josh agreed to the meeting without hesitation.
