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Show 32 The Southern Utes the appropriations act of 1877." An amendment was added to the bill which stated that the provisions of the 1874 agreement would be carried out and an agency for the Southern Utes located on the southern portion of the reservation. In May, 1877, Indian agents, Francis A. Weaver and Benjamin M. Thomas selected a permanent site for the new agency on the Rio de los Pinos, the Pine River. However, by the end of the year the agency had not been built nor had the Indians been removed. Further legislation was necessary before the building and the removal took place. By July, 1878, that legislation had passed Congress and the Utes at both Cimarron and Abiquiu were readied for the removal. The trip from northern New Mexico took one month. By August 16, 1878, they were located at the site of the new agency. After nearly twenty years' effort the Government had finally moved all of the Utes in New Mexico to one reservation in Colorado. The Anglos of northern New Mexico were satisfied with the removal of the Utes from their area, but the people of Colorado were not. The gold discovered in the San Juan Cession had brought increased numbers of people to the area. They felt the removal of the Utes into southwestern Colorado would only cause them more problems. Also, Colorado had become a state in 1876, and the Anglo citizens felt that additional Indians would discourage settlers from coming to the state. The citizens called for the complete ouster of the Indians from the state. As the Utes were being removed from Cimarron and Abiquiu, New Mexico, a commission was being sent to meet with the Utes in negotiations for removal from Colorado. A bill had passed both houses of Congress during the spring of 1878 directing President Rutherford B. Hayes to seek approval from the Colorado Indians for removal.4 This committee met with the Southern Utes at the same time those Indians from New Mexico were arriving at the Los Pinos Agency. The commission asked the Southern Utes to move to the northern portion of the Colorado reservation. The Indians refused. Those Utes who had just arrived didn't want to move again and the rest refused to live with the northern bands. However, the Southern Utes did agree to move to a smaller reservation located just north and east a Ibid., p. 22. * Ibid., p. 25. |