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6 to drift away from the encampment. Id., at 260. And the Navajo flatly refused to move to some other unfamiliar place. Ibid.

Arriving at that conclusion proved simple enough; arriving upon a treaty proved more challenging. There was, of course, no small power asymmetry. As one Senator noted at the time, it was a curious feature that the Commissioners set out to “ ‘conclude a treaty with Indians’ ” who were at that very moment being “ ‘held on a reservation against their will.’ ” Id., at 259. Language barriers presented complications too. Messages had to be translated twice—first from English to Spanish, and then from Spanish to Navajo. Id., at 261. Aggravating matters, the parties saw the world very differently. The United States’ representatives “spoke of artificial lines on maps, of parallels and meridians”; the Navajo spoke “of geographical features, of canyons, mountains, and mesas.” ''Ibid. The United States’ representatives “talked about ownership and a claim to the land”; the Navajo talked about “using the land.” Ibid. As a result, the parties often “misunderstood each other.” Ibid.'' And whether intentionally or inadvertently, Sherman “misled” the Navajo about, among other things, the size of their reservation. Id., at 263. He promised twice the land that they received in the final accounting. Ibid.

In the end, the Treaty of 1868 provided the Navajo less land per capita—two-thirds less—than the other Tribes the Indian Peace Commission would go on to negotiate with. Id., at 268. It seems that owed, in no small part, to the negotiators’ understanding that the Navajo had “already experienced irrigation agriculture” and could plausibly get by with less. Ibid. Indeed, when providing instructions to the Indian Peace Commission about how they should negotiate with the Navajo, the Secretary of the Interior discussed the possibility of agriculture as bearing on the appropriate size of the Tribe’s reservation. Unlike the Navajo, he thought, “ ‘[w]ild Indians cannot at once be transformed