When was the Navajo colony founded?

Answer 1

The Navajo are not a colony. They are an indigenous people who have lived in the general Four Corners area for about 1100 years. At that date they had all the characteristics of the Navajo, corn planting hogans etc. They speak a language in the Southern Athabascan family related to other languages in northern Canada. It is thought they separated from them about 2000 - 3000 years ago. When exactly before 900 AD and by which route they arrived in the southwest in a matter of conjecture. That is the time which they differentiated from other Apachean people. Navajo and Hopi oral history and archeology all approximately agree on these dates. The earlier idea that Navajo arrived in the area around 1500 AD has been debunked. At that time they did get sheep and horses (around 1540) and that changed them to being centered on raising sheep as well as corn, beans and squash and added to their range of possible raiding.

In any case the Navajo have been there before the Spanish (1540s) before the Americans (1848) but not probably before the Hopi or the early Anasazi whom they got corn growing and weaving from.

There are over 300,000 enrolled members of the Navajo tribe today. The largest in the US and more Navajo than have ever been before.