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Ute War - Sep 1879 - Nov 1880

The Ute people are the oldest residents of Colorado, inhabiting the mountains and vast areas of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Eastern Nevada, Northern New Mexico and Arizona. According to tribal history handed down from generation to generation, our people lived here since the beginning of time. Prior to acquiring the horse, the Utes lived off the land establishing a unique relationship with the ecosystem. They would travel and camp in familiar sites and use well established routes such as the Ute Trail that can still be seen in the forests of the Grand Mesa, and the forerunner of the scenic highway traversing through South Park, and Cascade, Colorado.

The language of the Utes is Shoshonean, a dialect of that Uto-Aztecan language. It is believed that the people who speak Shoshonean separated from other Ute-Aztecan speaking groups, such as the Paiute, Goshute, Shoshone Bannock, Comanche, Chemehuevi and some tribes in California. The Utes were a large tribe occupying the great basin area, encompassing the Numic speaking territories of Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Eastern California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Northern Arizona and New Mexico.

Around 1637 Ute captives escaping from the Spanish in Santa Fe fled, taking with them Spanish horses, thus making the Utes one of the first Native American tribes to acquire the horse. However, tribal historians tell of the Utes acquiring the horse as early as the 1580s. Already skilled hunters, the Utes used the horse to become expert big game hunters. They began to roam further away from their home camps to hunt buffalo that migrated over the vast prairies east of their mountain homes, and explore the distant lands. The Utes already had a reputation as defenders of their territories now became even fiercer warriors.

In November 1806 Zebulon Pike entered the eastern boundaries of Ute lands proclaiming one of the Ute’s most sacred sites as “Grand Peak”, now known as Pike’s Peak. Prior to this, Ute territory had not been explored on a large scale because of the rugged terrain and high mountain passes. Europeans began to take notice of the land’s bounty, timber, wildlife and abundant water. What they did not take into account was that the land was already inhabited by the Ute people, who considered the land their home. As westward expansion increased and eastern tribes were displaced and relocated to barren lands in the west, pioneers began to travel west. Gold and silver were discovered in the San Juan Mountains and the Utes soon found themselves in a losing battle to retain their homelands.

The origin of the difficulties with the Utes seems to have lain partially in the fact that this tribe, like the Cheyennes, could not content themselves upon their reservation. In 1874 the US took Ute lands, granting hunting rights as long the Utes were at peace with the white people. U.S. sets aside a perpetual trust of $50,000 per year in money or bonds which shall be sufficient to produce the sum of twenty five thousand dollars per annum. Which sum of twenty five thousand dollars per annum shall be disbursed or invested at the discretion of the president or as he may direct, for the use and benefit of the Ute Indians annually forever. For said services Ouray Head Chief of the Ute nation shall receive a salary of one thousand dollars per annum for the term of ten years or so long as he shall remain head Chief of the Utes and at peace with the people of the United States. Approved April 29, 1874.

The country north of the Colorado Reservation is very desirable for farming and grazing purposes, and is thickly settled. For three or four years the Indians had been in the habit of intruding into this district, as well as into North and Middle Parks, which practice has caused considerable annoyance to settlers, particularly on Snake, Bear and Grand Rivers. There are many lawless persons in the vicinity, it is said, who for years have carried on a brisk trade with the Indians, supplying them with whisky and ammunition, causing constant complaints to the Indian Office. Depredations have also been committed by the Indians along the valleys of the rivers referred to.

In the fall of 1877 Agent Danforth visited that country, together with Lieutenant Parke, of the Ninth Cavalry, United States Army, with a view to the adoption of measures to protect the settlers and break up this unlawful traffic. They reported in September, 1877, that it would be necessary to establish a military post there, that this would keep the Indians on their reservation, serve to protect the settlers and break up the unlawful trade referred to. The recommendation was never complied with.

In June the Utes began burning the forests and grasses along the line of their reservation, a distance of over three hundred miles. Roving bands wandered up and down the entire country, leaving a trail of fire wherever they went. Fires were started in uninhabited districts at first, but in August the houses of Major Thompson and a Mr. Smart on Bear River, Routt county, were burned by Indians who were seen and recognized. Complaints for arson were sworn out before Judge Beck, First Judicial District, who issued warrants for the arrest of two Indians named Bennett and Chinaman. Sheriff Bessey and a posse followed the Indians into the reservation to execute the warrants, but they were unable to find the criminals.

Both the representative of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the government of the state of Colorado had an express agenda for the assimilation of the Ute tribe into mainstream American culture--or better yet, isolation from it altogether. Governor Frederick W. Pitkin was of the view that they were an impediment to the development of the richest part of the state and should be removed to the Indian Territories or elsewhere.

William Vickers, an advisor to the governor wrote in the Denver Tribune: "The Utes are actual, practical Communists and the Government should be ashamed to foster and encourage them in their idleness and wanton waste of property. Living off the bounty of a paternal but idiotic Indian Bureau, they actually become too lazy to draw their rations in the regular way but insist on taking what they want wherever they find it. Removed to Indian Territory, the Utes could be fed and clothed for about one half what it now costs the government."

Nathan C. Meeker had been appointed agent to the White River Agency on 18 March 1878 after actively pursuing the position through poi itical acquaintances, both in Colorado and in Washington DC. Meeker's goal was to establish a kind of utopian state that combined his religious views and the lessons from the Union Colony, a cooperative agrarian experiment, in Greeley, Colorado. Meeker’s attempt to change the lifestyle of the Utes failed. Meeker. He was dedicated to converting the tribe to both Christianity and an agrarian lifestyle. Inevitably, he provoked outrage among his charges when he pursued his policy to the extent of ploughing the paddock the Utes used for horse grazing. Meeker’s destruction of the Utes valued racetrack and killing of their horses was the final injustice.

The Utes viewed themselves as allies to the United States government. Utes had joined "the rope thrower," Kit Carson, during his earlier campaigns against the Navajo and had taken a role in support of the army against their traditional enemy, the Cheyenne." They had not faced an active campaign against them in the past, having relied on their remoteness to protect them from the expansion of the western movement.

Foreseeing trouble, Meeker called in the army for support, a contingent of which arrived under the command, and arguably heavy and impetuous hand, of Major Thomas Thornburgh. In September of 1879, three troops of the 5th US Cavalry, under the command of Major T.T. Thornburgh, left Fort Steele, Wyoming, for the White River Agency in northwest Colorado. Despite promising the Utes he would not escalate matters by military force and would keep soldiers off the reservation, Thornburgh ordered the opposite and was immediately discovered by a watchful and suspicious Ute force. This prompted open hostilities, resulting in the Battle of Milk Creek. Tactically outmanoeuvred, Thornburgh's command was held under siege and suffered significant casualties including the death of its commanding officer - Thornburgh and 13 men were killed in Ute attack. The Utes then rose against their overseers on the reservation, slaughtered several men, including Meeker and took three women and two children into captivity.

The survivors of Thornburgh's command were by now in a poor condition, pinned down in pits behind insubstantial barricades and surrounded by their dead animals. Annihilation would have been certain but for the timely arrival of relief in the form of the 'Buffalo Soldiers' from Fort Lewis under Colonel Wesley Merritt. For the next month the army played a cat and mouse game with the Utes, attempting to locate their camps, while the Utes retreated deeper into the mountains.

Hostilities progressed in the usual manner for the western frontier, once American forces became aware of the situation and applied the resources required for a definitive solution the Utes were defeated. This, irrespective of the merits of their case, was disastrous for the future of the tribe and their displacement from their traditional lands became an inevitability. The Meeker incident resulted in cries for the removal of all Utes from Colorado. The Meeker Massacre precipitated the forced removal of the Utes from Colorado to Utah.