In 1919, two sons of the Diné medicine man Gunshooter stopped at a trading post for a snack and ended up in a shooting that killed Charles Hubbell, brother of one of the West’s most famous Indian traders. What Dorothy Denetclaw‘s family had always known was self-defense cost the brothers years of their lives and was followed by a century of flattering stories about the Hubbells. On this episode of JSW Radio, Jennifer Jenkins talks with Denetclaw, Gunshooter’s granddaughter, and former investigative reporter Matt Fitzsimons, co-authors of The Sons of Gunshooter: A Navajo Resistance Story (University of Arizona Press, 2026). Speaking from Santa Fe’s Indian Market, they explain how the oral history Denetclaw’s father passed to her in Navajo held up against the National Archives, right down to a horse missing one shoe. They also discuss what the Hubbell Trading Post at Ganado still leaves out, and why resistance and Diné teachings of love and ethics can’t be separated.
Hosted by Jennifer Jenkins, produced and edited by Carlos Quintero
Notes and Resources
• UA Press website for Sons of Gunshooter: https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/the-sons-of-gunshooter
• Book presentation at Collected Works Bookstore in Santa Fe (video): https://www.c-span.org/program/american-history-tv/the-sons-of-gunshooter/674825
• “Her uncles were convicted of 1919 Navajo Nation shooting. This new book sets the record straight” (Rado interview with Matt Fitzsimons at KJZZ): https://www.kjzz.org/the-show/2026-05-14/
• “Authors Dorothy Denetclaw and Matt Fitzsimons present The Sons of Gunshooter, A Navajo Resistance Story.” (Navajo Hopi Observer): https://www.nhonews.com/news/
• Fitzsimons, M. (2022). The counterfeiters of Bosque Redondo: Slavery, silver and the U.S. war against the Navajo Nation. The History Press): https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/
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