Character Analysis
Manuelito isn't in this book until the very final pages, but he plays a major role as the leader of the Navajo resistance to American colonizers. His resistance is a lost cause for the most part, but he vows never to stop fighting until the white colonizers lay off and stop pushing his people off their traditional lands.
At one point, he even risks death to talk to Father Latour about what can be done to stop the whites:
Though the Government was offering a heavy reward for his person, living or dead, Manuelito rode off his own reservation down into Zuñi in broad daylight. (9.7.4)
The reason Manuelito wants to see Latour is because he knows he is sympathetic to the struggles of the Navajo people. In short:
It was Manuelito's hope that the Bishop would go to Washington and plead his people's cause before they were utterly destroyed. (9.7.5)
Unfortunately, Father Latour doesn't agree to help him, claiming that the Protestant American government would never listen to a Catholic's views about Native Americans. But the truth is that Latour is probably scared of angering the wrong people and bringing a world of pain down on his own church.
In the end, he leaves Manuelito and his people to fend for themselves. He hopes that they'll be okay but secretly believes that people like Kit Carson will eventually kill them off or push them all the way into the Pacific Ocean.