The Ganado area remained relatively independent from rebellions of European ethnicity at Santa Fe until AD 1849. Ganado's first event under the American government came when a Hopi delegation was sent to Santa Fe in AD 1850. In AD 1858, Joseph Christmas Ives led an expedition through the area near Ganado. From AD 1821, the Navajo people had been engaged in the Navajo Wars against the Spanish, Mexican, and American invaders until the 1864 forced removal from their homelands. This exodus known as the Long Walk, would not see legal Navajo return until June 18, 1868.