Ignacio & the Southern Ute Tribe

The Southern Ute Tribal council governs its 750,000-acre reservation from Ignacio, which also has a strong Hispanic population and history, as well as tribal past. Historically, the Utes roamed throughout Colorado, Utah and New Mexico in a hunter-gatherer society. As a result of the formation of bands in the historic period, there were several distinct Ute subdivisions in Colorado. The White River Utes ranged across Northern Colorado, the Tabeguache or Uncompahgre across the central mountains of Colorado, including the area of South Park, the Gunnison and Uncompahgre Valleys.
The Southern Ute bands were the Muache, Capote and Weeminuche. The Muache lived in the mountains of the Colorado Front Range. The Capote occupied the area between the Sangre De Cristo Mountains on the east and west side of the continental divide. The Weeminuche were located west of the Continental Divide and north of the San Juan River, which generally marked their boundaries with the Navajos. Their normal territory extended westward to the Blue Mountains and Canyonlands of southeastern Utah.

In the last half of the 1800s the land base of the Ute peoples was continually decreased by intrusion from Anglo-American culture. Through a series of treaties with the U.S. Government (1849, 1855, 1863, 1868, 1873) the traditional land base continued to shrink. During the 1870s Colorado continued to seek further reductions to the Ute Reservation, and the 1879 Meeker Massacre, which involved the White River Utes, provided the opportunity to remove both the White River and Tabeguache Utes to Utah. Efforts were made in 1880 to restrict the Southern Ute bands (the Muache, Capote and Weminuche) to a small area in the La Plata Valley.
In 1887 Congress passed the General Allotment Act (Dawes Act), which provided for the allotment of 160 acres to adult male Indians. It was believed that land ownership would accelerate the process of "civilizing" the Indians. The subsequent Act of 1895 provided that the Southern Utes should vote on the issue of land allotment. A slim majority decided the issue and by 1896 approximately 73,000 acres had been allotted to 371 Utes. As a result of the 1895 Act, the reservation was broken into two distinct units. Most of the Muache and Capote Utes accepted allotments in the eastern portion, which became known as the Southern Ute Reservation. The Weeminuche Utes, led by Chief Ignacio, refused to accept allotment and moved to the western portion, which became known as the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation with agency headquarters at Navajo Springs, then later at Towaoc.
(Source : http://www.scan.org/scanfram/demog.htm#tribes)

Ignacio Community Website
Southern Ute Tribe Website