← New Books Network
New Books Network
Dorothy Denetclaw and Matt Fitzsimons, "The Sons of Gunshooter: A Navajo Resistance Story" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
00:29:32
Loading summary
Transcript46 lines
- [00:01]
Matt Fitzsimons
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [00:05]
Mary Reynolds
Hello and welcome to another episode of the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Mary Reynolds, and I'm publicity manager for the University of Arizona Press. Today I'm thrilled to talk with Dorothy Danetclaw and Matt Fitzsimons, authors of the book the Sons of Gun a Navajo Resistance Story, published by the University of Arizona Press in March 2026. Part history, part true crime, the Sons of Gun Shooter re examines the killing of a famous Indian traitor and subsequent murder trial. The book places this story within the much larger saga of colonization and resistance. The result is a book that's sweeping in its scope and surgical in its approach. Rewinding the clock to 1868, the authors follow the intertwining paths of two families to offer a riveting and deeply personal account that has been hailed as a new way of doing historiography. Dorothy and Matt, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [01:07]
Matt Fitzsimons
Thank you, Mary.
- [01:08]
Dorothy Daneclaw
Hello. Hello.
- [01:09]
Mary Reynolds
Hello, Dorothy, will you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
- [01:13]
Dorothy Daneclaw
Yes. My name is Dorothy the Netla and my Navajo clan is Tuatsoni Big Water born for Lash Ch Red Cheek clan. My grandfather is Senji Kinne Cliffhausen, and my paternal grandfather is Twadichi In Bitter Water. My mother is a Kinaba Gay, a descendant of Ganado Much, who Tsuny Hasti as younger sister. My father is Adetoniya Biget, the grandson of Sabagali, who was the younger brother of Chief Manuelito. My parents had 10 children and I'm the youngest of the 10. The youngest second of the 10. We all reside in Indiana Wells, Arizona.
- [02:07]
Mary Reynolds
Matt, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
- [02:09]
Matt Fitzsimons
Sure. Thank you, Mary. My name is Matt Fitzsimons. I live in San Diego, California. I started my career as a newspaper reporter on the east coast and I've been writing in one form or another ever since. A previous book of mine, the Counterfeiters of Bosque Redondo, focused on Navajo efforts to avert and then survive the US invasion of the 1860s. And this book pretty much picks up where that one left off as far as timeline.
- [02:35]
Mary Reynolds
Thank you for introducing yourselves, Dorothy. Dorothy, how did you meet Matt and decide to tell your family's story in a book?
- [02:48]
Dorothy Daneclaw
Okay. Throughout my childhood, my father was always tell us stories about his family, his life. They were so real and we all listened. Was like watching a movie. I developed a passion to record his stories and collect more information. Beginning 1990s, I teamed up with Navajo Times reporter Cindy Yurth, who put my Father's stories in writing and published them in the Navajo times. Nine years ago, I began working with leading the way magazine editor Kathleen Manalisco and published stories of my family for the last nine years. Met, read stories in the Navajo Times, contacted Cindy Yurt, who called me and told me a person by the name of Matt, it's Simmons. Wants to talk to you on the phone. Is it okay to give him your telephone number? What? So I told her it was okay. And that is how Matt called me, and that is how I met Matt.
- [04:08]
Mary Reynolds
Matt, what intrigued you about the story of Dorothy's family?
- [04:13]
Matt Fitzsimons
Well, before I met Dorothy, I was researching the myths surrounding Hubble trading Post. And for people who don't know, Hubble trading post was established back in 1870s and is now a national historic site operated by the national park Service in Ganado, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation. And the Hubbles were this really well known, very powerful, politically connected family of traders. And in books and magazines, they're typically, over the years, over the past hundred years, really depicted as these super generous, benevolent kings of commerce who showed up and did nothing but help Navajos out. And when I was researching my first book on the war, I found all these references to the Hubbles participating in some of the worst atrocities of the long walk, which is when the Navajos were forcibly exiled from their country. And I thought, well, that's a really interesting disconnect. So I was researching that and following different threads, and that's when one of them led me to Dorothy. As she noted, she'd been in some of these other publications, and I think it took about just five or ten minutes of talking to Dorothy. And I completely saw the story in a different way because her family story is absolutely epic. They've overcome one challenge and monumental setback after another across generation and never given up their values the whole time. So I found that really inspiring. And in the end, yeah, I think we still have some revelations about the Hubbles that will upend a lot of the history that people think they know about it. But. But it's the story of Dorothy's family that's the heart and soul of the story, and I'm most proud of.
- [05:44]
Mary Reynolds
Thank you, Matt. Dorothy, the next question is for you. The book begins with a young romance that unfolds amid profound hardship. How do personal relationships, especially forbidden or unexpected ones, help set the stage for the rest of the book?
- [06:01]
Dorothy Daneclaw
Okay, my response. My father's story about romance was not in a shameful way, in the manner. Shameful manner, but provided a beautiful setting of love and told us how his grandparents met when they were young. My family story in this book is about the teachings about the spiritual love passed down through generations from my great, great grandfather, Walachija Hatake, that personal relationships is sacred, guided by and blessed by gigantene. Children are sacred, as we see in his sons, his daughter Adelchi, his grandson, a destiny gun shooter, his grandchildren, and they carry that on today. My father held me to his chest when I was born, while the medicine men sang and prayed all night. So everything was based on love and nothing was shameful, nothing more. It. It's echoes and our family.
- [07:32]
Mary Reynolds
Thank you, Dorothy. Matt, early in the book, you talk about how Navajo families maintain cultural and ceremonial life during their years of captivity. What does this reveal about the role of tradition in times of crisis?
- [07:46]
Matt Fitzsimons
Yeah, thanks, Mary. That's a great question. I think it shows the enormous reservoirs of strength that people draw upon from faith, from family, from culture and community. You know, that's. As Dorothy just noted, that's what the story is really about, is family and love and faith. And I think that's fairly universal. It's probably not a surprise to most people, if we think about our own experiences to adversity, to think about whether we call upon that. But what's really important here is for years, the National Park Service and others have claimed exactly the opposite happened. They've said that Navajo prisoners converted to Christianity and became dependent on Western goods. And then in Act 2 of this story, when they return to Navajo country after exile traders supposedly ride into the rescue and supply all these, you know, desperately needed Western goods. And that story gets passed around a lot, and there's no truth to it at all. Navajo oral history and the archival evidence are in perfect agreement about this. The Navajos relied on traditional ceremonies and medicine to see them through exile, and they resumed their traditional life ways immediately upon their return to Navajo country.
- [08:57]
Mary Reynolds
Yes, Dorothy, following up on what Matt was just talking about, songs, ceremonies, and stories sustain people through this internment and the long journey back. What role do you think storytelling plays in cultural survival, particularly across generations?
- [09:14]
Dorothy Daneclaw
Yes, our Navajo songs, ceremonies, culture, stories helped sustain our Navajo people during the Long walk and our internment in Fort Sumner. Today, we lost many of our Navajo traditions, culture, language, and a few young people speak Navajo language anymore. This is due to boarding school, where we were abused, forbidden to talk our Navajo language, forced to go to church and learn the Western ways for our cultural survival. Reviving our Navajo language is super important and critical in our family gatherings, where sacred winter stories and ceremonies are Told by medicine men and Navajo ceremonies to
- [10:09]
Mary Reynolds
name
- [10:11]
Dorothy Daneclaw
dances, fire dances, shoot games and more. We need to continue to use our Navajo language to continue our songs and our ceremonies. We cannot forget Navajo language.
- [10:32]
1-800-Contacts Advertiser
Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I. I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh. They're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste.
- [10:56]
Experian Advertiser
Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.
- [11:00]
Mary Reynolds
1-800-contacts.
- [11:01]
Experian Advertiser
My dad taught me a lot, including how easy it is to forget to cancel things. So I downloaded Experian, my bff. Big financial friend. Experian could help me cancel my unused subscriptions and lower my bills, saving me hundreds a year. Get started with the Experian app today. Your big financial friends here to help you save smarter. Results will vary. Not all bills or subscriptions eligible. Savings not guaranteed. $631 a year average savings with one plus negotiations and one plus cancellations paid. Membership with connected payment account required. See experian.com for details.
- [11:30]
1-800-Contacts Advertiser
Experian.
- [11:32]
Mary Reynolds
So following up on that, when you're thinking about the historical resilience shown by your family and the DNA of past generations, how do you think it is connected to the ways indigenous communities preserve culture?
- [11:45]
Dorothy Daneclaw
Today, our Navajo people still practice our sacred ceremonies. Babies first lap ceremony, Puberty ceremony, Sweat lodge protection ceremonies, Enemy way and many more ceremonies. These sacred ceremonies are conducted for everyone. So they used their elderlies who helped them. We are losing these Navajo elderlies and medicine men we look to for help. So I would call for Navajo more Navajo story teachings and more Navajo books. Today, our Navajo people do not talk Navajo anymore. My goal and my vision are to see Navajo schools on our Navajo nation or teaching. Talking and singing are done in Navajo. Only the loving staff can be mothers, grandmothers and medicine people who taught only Navajos. There should be no abuse, no judging and no no, no English. I have been looking for financial support to establish this Navajo's only school that we developed to teach our Navajo traditional life with endless lessons to you. Order Trump in that.
- [13:30]
Mary Reynolds
Thank you, Dorothy. Matt. The investigation into the fire reveals layers of mistrust, cultural misunderstanding and jurisdictional chaos. What challenges did you face in reconstructing this complex legal and political environment?
- [13:46]
Matt Fitzsimons
Yeah, thank you, Mary. Boy, it really was pretty complicated There and the fire. So there was a fire at the Trading Post. And the investigation quickly turned into a homicide investigation. And I spent years covering crime as a newspaper reporter. So I know my way around homicide cases and court records. I think in this case, the primary challenge was time. A lot of the records have been lost or destroyed over the years. There's not even a trial transcript. We had some pre trial transcripts, but not a trial transcript. So there's no single source of truth in the case. So we had to reach far and wide and reach out and include personal correspondence to the Hubbles and private communiques between federal officials and other folks involved in the case. And that's where we really struck gold, honestly. Because in those documents, folks didn't realize they would be read. And so they reveal a lot more about their actions and their motivations. And so you mentioned there's a lot of people with competing agendas that were involved in the case. And that was actually helpful because it gave us all these different perspectives of the same events. So in a sense, the complexity of the case actually made it easier to reconstruct in the end, once we were able to find all those documents that were scattered all over the country.
- [15:04]
Mary Reynolds
So following up on that question, Matt, you introduced Navajo witnesses who discover the fire and describe the footprints and tracks they followed. How did you balance historical documentation with narrative storytelling when presenting their accounts?
- [15:19]
Matt Fitzsimons
Yeah, so, you know, as Dorothy mentioned, you know, when her father told these stories, they felt like a movie. And, you know, we really wanted to keep that narrative experience going. In this particular case, it wasn't too difficult because that story was shared at the time by newspapers, including the description of the lawman going into this Hogan to hear the witnesses account. So it really lent itself to a narrative approach. I think what's really striking about that moment in the book, though, is it demonstrates the accuracy of oral history. Dorothy had told me that the trackers hired by the Hubbles were able to pick up and follow her uncle's trail because one of the horses is missing a horseshoe. And some months after that, as we were digging through the archives, we found a letter that Lorenzo Hubble wrote at the time. And sure enough, it said one of the horses was missing a shoe on its right front hoof. So here again, we have archival history and Navajo oral history in complete alignment. And what's not in alignment is the books we've all been reading for the last hundred years. So. So I think that was really amazing. And you know, we live in this era too, right? Where news will happen. We all see it, and within minutes, it's all around the world and all different takes on it, and we're all left going, well, what really happened? You know, even like a day later? And here we have an oral account that's faithful to the smallest details more than a century after the fact. And I think that's just incredible and a real testament to the care that oral historians like Dorothy take with this history.
- [16:55]
Mary Reynolds
Yes, Dorothy. The story touches on long standing relationships between traders, Navajo families, and law enforcement. How did you approach writing about these relationships without simplifying them into pure conflict or pure cooperation?
- [17:14]
Dorothy Daneclaw
Trading Post has been here long, long for a long time. My grandfather, Gun Shooter, worked at Cedar Springs trading post in 1918 with store trader Mr. Bailey. They helped, understood and respected each other and worked together. Okay. Many traders set up stores, trading posts anywhere on the Navajo Nation. No one controlled them until the Navajo Nation set rules, regulations, and many trading posts were shut down. Today, only a few trading posts, like Indie Royal Trading Posts, where I get my mail, are still operating today on the Navajo Nation.
- [18:06]
Mary Reynolds
Thank you, Matt. What do you hope readers will understand about broader historical forces like colonialism, racism, law and land disputes that shaped this burning death of a traitor and the aftermath?
- [18:22]
Matt Fitzsimons
I hope that readers understand that these same forces are still at work. Even now, the arts market is still largely controlled by settlers. Navajos are still fighting against encroachments, still fighting to protect natural and cultural resources. Uranium is back in the news. It looks like the nuclear arms race might pick up again. You can look on Apple music and look up the song by Ed Caboti, a Hopi artist and musician called Brown in this Town that describes his experience with the Flagstaff justice system. So it's important to understand that this history is not just history. It's still happening. And yet, just last month, the Washington Post reported that the current administration wants to revise some of the signage at Hubble Trading Post, presumably to further romanticize the history. So that's the real story here, is that it hasn't ended. It's still going on.
- [19:18]
Mary Reynolds
Yes, it seems like it is still definitely going on, Matt. The community. The commutation of George Nell's sentence hinges on a web of influence involving a sheriff, a governor, and even a woman in Chicago. What does this episode reveal about power, persuasion, and an uneven justice system facing the Navajo people at this time?
- [19:41]
Matt Fitzsimons
Yeah. Thanks, Mary. That's kind of an amazing part of this book is there's so many twists and turns and you think it's kind of going in one direction. And then it. The history changed course again. And that's what happened. And I think what it shows is the capriciousness of the justice system. And the extent of the Hubble family's power at that time. Because in the book we discuss several other instances and cases Where Navajos stood up for themselves. And sometimes even killed settlers in self defense. And they were either acquitted outright or received pretty lenient sentences from the courts. Dorothy's uncles, by contrast, barely escaped the gallows. And even that was despite the fact they had federal officials and Navajo police Supporting their claims of self defense. So they were railroaded. There's no other way to put it. And yet, once inside the prison system and forgotten by the Hubbles, Something incredible happens. They actually find a kind of justice for the first time. And I think that's an amazing story. How those people you mentioned took an interest in their case.
- [20:43]
Mary Reynolds
Thank you, Matt. Dorothy, the next question is for you. George Nell's eventual release feels like a turning point in this long and painful story. When writing this section, how did you balance the hopefulness of his return. With the broader injustices still surrounding him?
- [21:03]
Dorothy Daneclaw
My uncle George Nells was a medicine man before he left for prison. He knew spiritual songs and prayers. And he was raised with lots of love and teaching of ethics by his father, Gun shooter at the Stoney. He helped others and was viewed as a model prisoner in Florence prison. And his life sentence was commuted upon his release from prison after 12 years. He continued to help people As a medicine man. He built his own stone house. He became the Navajo tribal council member representing his chapter, which is Teastall Chapter. He set up a blacksmith shop. At the old Cedar Springs trading post and help people. And he continued to be raised livestock. He was a rancher. As a medicine man, he knew and lived the Blessing Way ceremony. The prayers and beauty. I walk with beauty before me. I walk with beauty behind me. I walk with beauty above me. I walk with beauty around me. I walk. It has become beauty again. My uncle was renowned for his knowledge of Navajo history, His listening skills when people talk. So his Navajo name became Adizah Asan O Listener. As a traditional Navajo, I never called my uncle George Nels or his Navajo name at the. But with respect, as a Navajo, I call him my old father. I call him my father, but my old father, that was. That's how we greet our people here. We don't never, never use their names.
- [23:19]
Mary Reynolds
Thank you, Dorothy, for that insight. I really appreciate it. I actually thought of an extra question for you, Dorothy. The book includes many powerful photographs, and I was wondering if you could tell us where they came from.
- [23:36]
Dorothy Daneclaw
Powerful photographs of my family. My father's story comes from his family is. He talks about his family, is his brother. So the. The story about. Doesn't stop his. More His. His big story was about Chief Manuel. His supper gunny. That was his grandfather. My father's grandfather, his mother's father was the brother of Chief Manilito. So his story goes back. I know the stories about how his mother was born after Fort Sumner. So the people. The important people in there. Yes, they live. They were very, very. They. They. They had to live by that means, they have to have respect for Mother Earth who brought us life. We belong to Mother Earth. And with the father son, they give us food. We get food from Mother Earth. And that's how. That's how what I know. And when we die, we go back to Mother Earth. She loves us and father, son. So we believe in nature. We believe in all this. And that's how we were brought up. And all these people, important people are. Are there. They share. They. We were there. My father has pictures everywhere and calendars and books and everywhere. And then my. My. My grandfather was probably. They just pick his picture somewhere. So all these pictures. Chief Manilito was my family. Ganada mucho was my family. It's in my blood, so it's. It's there. My father. Yes.
- [26:02]
Mary Reynolds
Matt, do you have anything to add about where some of the pictures came from?
- [26:07]
Matt Fitzsimons
Yeah, well, we found. Well, as Dorothy mentioned, some of the photos. She has a lot of people in her family who are quite well known and prominent throughout the Navajo history. And so we have some of those photos that have come to us through the archives. And then as we draw closer to her family, to her more immediate family, her grandfather and her uncles, we were able to find a lot of photos in the archives, and they were from all over. We found some at the Old Trails Museum in Winslow, Arizona. And those had been donated by the family of a trader. Dorothy had mentioned the Bailey brothers that were traders there. And a descendant of theirs had donated some photos. And you can see the friendly relationship that her family had because the kids are smiling in the photos. And it really comes through with. We also found some photos in the Smithsonian scattered all around. One of the tricks was we guessed all the different ways that white people would misspell her grandfather's name. And that was one of the secrets to our success, was searching under all those possible misspellings.
- [27:10]
Mary Reynolds
Yeah, that sounds pretty tricky. Well, Dorothy And Matt, thank you so much for being with me today. On the podcast. You've been listening to authors Dorothy Daneclaw and Matt Fitzsimons. Their new book is titled the Sons of Gun A Navajo Resistance Story, published by the University of Arizona Press in 2026. Thank you so much for being with us today.
- [27:34]
Matt Fitzsimons
Thank you, Mary.
- [27:35]
Dorothy Daneclaw
Thank you.