When the Spanish arrived in the Southwest, the people they called the Yutas, or Utes, ranged across much of present-day Colorado, northern New Mexico, and Utah. According to anthropologists, the Utes were organized into loosely defined bands, but the basic social unit was the extended family, which could most efficiently utilize the available natural resources. These small family units of perhaps ten to forty people followed a seasonal migration pattern, moving into the higher country in the spring and summer and returning to lower elevations in the autumn. They hunted deer, elk, antelope, and occasionally mountain buffalo and other animals and gathered seeds, fruits, and wild berries in the summer and fall.

Each extended family had a recognized use area. Every autumn the Utes moved southward out of the high country of southern Colorado to exploit the antelope herds in the canyon and mesa country south of the San Juan Mountains. In spring they gathered in large groups for the annual Bear Dance, which was an important ceremonial and social event, and then moved into the high mountain valleys of the San Juans and the Uncompahgre Plateau.

Because they were a nomadic people, the Utes had a relatively simple material culture, but that changed dramatically after the arrival of the Spanish. Like other Indians in the Southwest, the Utes began to acquire horses, which revolutionized their way of life. Because of their proximity to Spanish settlements in New Mexico, the Utes had relatively easy access to horses and quickly amassed large herds, which allowed them to trade the animals to other tribes. Horses greatly increased the Utes' mobility and made their life easier by enhancing their ability to utilize the available food resources. Hunters could now travel over greater distances, and the tribe could exploit the food resources of a larger area. Thus, the Utes began to consolidate into larger camps. The band replaced the family as the basic social unit, and large Ute camps were now able to travel to the Great Plains to hunt buffalo. The organization of large camps and large hunting expeditions led to the development of more powerful and influential leaders, and the movement to the Great Plains to hunt brought the Utes into contact with hostile Plains Indians, spurring the rise of war leaders.

Plains Indians such as Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Comanches often tried to keep Utes off of the buffalo grounds and raided traditional Ute areas in the mountains. The Utes learned from their Plains adversaries, adopting the tepee and utilizing buffalo hides for items of clothing. The Utes also copied Plains techniques of using quill, bone, and paint for decoration, and about 1900 they adopted the Plains Indian Sun Dance.

As Ute bands became more clearly defined, four laid claim to the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado: the Muache, Capote, Weeminuche, and Tabeguache (Uncompahgre). The Muache lived in the mountains of the Front Range in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, ranging as far north as the present site of Denver and as far south as Santa Fe. The Capotes frequented the San Luis Valley and the adjacent region of New Mexico, especially the Chama Valley area, but they and the Muache hunted as far east as the Texas panhandle. The Weeminuche were located west of the Continental Divide and north of the San Juan River and made use in particular of the La Plata and San Miguel Mountains. The Tabeguache inhabited the valleys of the Gunnison and Uncompahgre Rivers in Colorado, the northern part of the San Luis Valley, and the area of South Park. Other Ute bands inhabited northern Colorado and Utah.

As the Utes traveled through this country, they used trails that subsequently have been replaced by modern highways. They crossed passes such as Poncha and Cochetopa in the east and Dallas Divide in the west. Both Vallecito Creek and the Los Pinos River provided routes to the north, and Baker's Park, which later became the site of Silverton, was a summer camp area. In the late nineteenth century the present site of Vallecito Reservoir was a favorite recreation area, and future tribal leader Buckskin Charley frequently camped there. The Utes enjoyed hot springs such as Pagosa Springs and those in the vicinity of Ouray, Ridgway, Hermosa, and Dunton. They hunted in the high San Juans, on Grand Mesa, and on the Uncompahgre Plateau and took refuge in sheltered valleys such as the Mancos during cold weather. Today much of the route of the San Juan Skyway follows traditional Ute trails.

Before 1848 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which transferred present-day New Mexico, Arizona, southern Colorado, southern Utah, and southern California to the United States, the Utes generally were on good terms with the Spanish and then with the Mexicans, despite suffering from slave-raiding expeditions by the Spanish. Gradually, however, white settlement in the vicinity of Taos and up the Chama Valley encroached on land that the Utes saw as theirs. This trend would accelerate after 1848.

After the Mexican War, the United States and the Utes signed a treaty of peace and friendship in 1849 in which the Utes recognized the jurisdiction of the United States. Soon thereafter settlers from New Mexico moved north into Ute territory in the San Luis Valley, and a few years later the 1859 gold rush to Colorado brought hordes of newcomers to the area. These two events marked the beginning of a new phase in Ute history and established what would become the major theme in Ute-U.S. relations in the nineteenth century: constant pressure by the United States on the Ute land base. The first mining camps developed in areas that had not been purchased from any Indian tribes, and thus mining interests were constantly demanding that Indians, including Utes, be removed from those areas. The resulting series of treaties and agreements, negotiated over approximately twenty years, reduced the Ute land base to a thin sliver along the Colorado-New Mexico border.

In 1863, at the behest of Coloradans, the United States negotiated with the Utes for the acquisition of the San Luis Valley and other areas of Colorado. The treaty provided an indication of things to come: only the Tabeguache Utes signed the treaty, whereas the Capote Utes, to whom the San Luis Valley actually belonged, did not sign the treaty. Virtually all subsequent agreements would be marked by some kind of chicanery by the United States and its representatives.

Demands for Ute land continued, and in 1868 a Ute delegation was taken to Washington and encouraged to agree to a second cession. By the Treaty of 1868, the Utes were restricted to a rectangular reservation that lay mostly west of the Continental Divide. The Utes retained the area west of approximately Pagosa Springs and south of the present-day Moffat County line. The government promised to exclude all non-Utes except for government officials and pledged to create two agencies, one of which would be located on the Rio de Los Pinos The government wished to encourage the Utes to become farmers, but it established the Los Pinos Agency on a previously unnamed creek in the Cochetopa Hills at a high elevation rather than in the more fertile Rio de Los Pinos region in present-day La Plata County. Moreover, the new agency was not even within the boundaries of the reservation.

Americans almost immediately violated the terms of the treaty by participating in a mining rush into the San Juan Mountains. Soon miners were active in the vicinity of the present-day communities of Lake City, Silverton, Ouray, Rico, Durango, and Hesperus. The Utes protested the presence of miners; some tribal leaders attempted to persuade the miners to leave the reservation, whereas others threatened to drive them out. Colorado officials sought to solve the problem by reducing the size of the reservation, but efforts to do so in 1872 failed; the Utes insisted that the government enforce previous treaties and prevent trespass on their lands. At one point federal officials were preparing to use the army to expel non-Ute trespassers, but howls of outrage by Coloradans caused the government to cease such efforts and to seek instead a new agreement to reduce the size of the reservation.

In 1873 the United States renewed its efforts to purchase the San Juan mining country and succeeded in negotiating the Brunot Agreement, which was ratified in 1874. By this agreement, the United States acquired a block of land with a northern boundary approximately at present-day Ridgway and a southern boundary just south of present-day Durango. However, the Brunot Agreement was blatantly fraudulent; the Utes thought they were selling only the mines, but by the terms of the pact they lost an entire block of territory. The testimony of Utes and reliable Anglo observers unanimously supports the Ute position. The agreement also specifically reserved for the Utes an area between Ouray and Ridgway known as Uncompahgre Park. However, soon thereafter non-Indians moved into the area, and the Utes were never able to retain possession. During the 1870s the government also closed the Ute agencies in New Mexico and removed the Utes from the vicinity of Cimarron and from the Abiquiu and Tierra Amarilla areas of the Chama Valley, placing them all in southern Colorado.

Coloradans continued to seek further reductions of the Ute reservation, and the Meeker Massacre in 1879 gave them an excuse to accomplish that objective. Under the terms of an agreement concluded the year following the uprising, the Northern Utes, who had participated in the affair, were moved to Utah. The treaty provided that the friendly Tabeguache or Uncompahgre Utes should be moved to the junction of the Colorado and Gunnison rivers if sufficient arable land was available there. However, the government chose to ignore this provision and sent these Utes to Utah as well. These people once inhabited the area crossed by the northern part of the San Juan Skyway, and their leader, Ouray, had houses near the hot springs on the eastern side of the present-day town bearing his name and in the vicinity of Montrose, Colorado.

These events left the Weeminuche, Capote, and Muache as the only remaining Ute bands in Colorado, and they occupied a narrow strip of land that was 15 miles wide and 110 miles long on the southern boundary of Colorado. In the fifteen years following the agreement of 1880, Coloradans attempted to have the remaining three Ute bands removed from their state. Every session, the Colorado congressional delegation introduced bills to secure the expulsion of the Utes. In 1895 legislation finally passed to provide for the allotment of land to Utes on the reservation. In keeping with the general thrust of federal Indian policy, the bill provided that land would be allotted to individual adult Indians and would be held in trust for them for twenty-five years, at which time a fee simple patent would be issued. Because many Utes opposed the agreement, the government decided to make the allotments on the eastern part of the reservation and leave the western half for those who wished to live in traditional communal camps.

By 1896 land had been allotted to 371 Utes, and soon thereafter the unallotted land on the eastern part of the reservation was made available to white settlers. As a result, the eastern portion of the, reservation, now known as the Southern Ute Reservation, is a checkerboard of Indian and non-Indian ownership. The Utes who opposed allotment, largely members of the Weeminuche band under the leadership of Chief Ignacio, moved to the western portion of the reservation. In time a subagency was established for them at Navajo Springs, although eventually it moved to the present location at Towaoc. In time, the western part of the reservation was established as a separate jurisdiction and became known as the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation.

The early twentieth century was a time of transition for the Southern Utes. They had to adjust not only to reservation life but also to the shrinkage of their land base caused by the allotment and the sale of surplus land to non-Indians. Gradually they began to rely on agriculture and stock raising to replace the traditional activities of hunting and gathering. The goal of federal Indian policy was to "civilize" American Indians, to destroy traditional culture and replace it with the culture of white Americans. The Bureau of Indian Affairs agency at Ignacio provided the focal point for these programs. Schools were located at the agency and at Fort Lewis (south of modern Hesperus, Colorado), which was transferred from the army to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1891.

During these years, Buckskin Charley and Severo were the principal leaders of the Southern Ute Reservation. Severo died in 1913, and Buckskin Charley continued to fill that role until his own death in 1936. That same year the Southern Utes formally accepted the Indian Reorganization Act and adopted a constitution that provided for a chairman and a tribal council. In subsequent years the Southern Utes developed an efficient tribal government with administrative departments to manage fish and wildlife, oil and gas, irrigation, and so forth. Today the tribe operates a modern motel and restaurant, the Southern Ute Cultural Center, and Sky Ute Downs, a modern equestrian facility. The council sponsors social programs for tribal members and maintains close ties with nearby Fort Lewis College, which has educated many Utes. Those interested in Ute culture can attend the annual Bear Dance and Sun Dance at Ignacio.

Life has been more difficult in the twentieth century for the Ute Mountain Utes because of the lack of resources on their reservation. The lack of water, in particular, has inhibited the development of agriculture and stock raising. Although Bureau of Indian Affairs officials recognized in the nineteenth century that the absence of water was a significant problem, little was done about it. The Ute Mountain Utes accepted the Indian Reorganization Act and adopted a constitution in 1940. Exploration for oil and gas in the 1950s provided needed revenues, and McPhee Reservoir, completed in 1986 near the town of Dolores, will provide desperately needed water for the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation.

In the 1990s the Utes rely heavily on revenues from oil and gas, and both Southern Utes and Ute Mountain Utes have established casinos to increase their income. Today Ute leaders seek to develop economic and educational opportunities while preserving the Ute language and traditional culture.

REFERENCES

Delaney, R. W., 1989. The Ute Mountain Utes. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 134 pp.

Delaney, R. W., 1974. The Southern Ute People. Phoenix, AZ: Indian Tribal Series, 102 pp.

Ellis, R. N., 1989. The Ute Legacy. Ignacio, CO: Pinon Press, 12 pp.

Hughes, J. D., 1977. American Indians in Colorado. Boulder, CO: Pruett Publishing Co., 143 pp.

Jefferson, J., R. W. Delaney, and G. C. Thompson, 1972. The Southern Utes: A tribal history. Ignacio, CO: Southern Ute Tribe, 106 pp.

Linton, R., 1940. Acculturation in seven American Indian tribes. New York: Appleton- Century Co., 526 pp.

Marsh, C. S., 1982. People of the Shining Mountains. Boulder, CO: Pruett Publishing Co., 190 pp.

Pettit, J., 1990. Utes, the mountain people. Boulder, CO: Johnson Books, 174 pp.

Smith, P. D., 1990. Ouray, Chief of the Utes. Ouray, CO: Wayfinder Press, 222 pp.

Thompson, G. C., 1972. Southern Ute lands 1848-1899. Durango, CO: Fort Lewis College, Center of Southwest Studies, Occasional papers, 62 pp.

Wood, N., 1980. When buffalo free the mountains. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 293 pp.