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Show The Intruders, 1550-1882 Europeans began invading the Ute lands about 1550. At first the intruders were few in numbers. The Ute People received them with courtesy and kindness. But there were more and more intruders, and they made more and more demands. They demanded alliances, trade, and finally the land and its resources. They repaid the Utes with disease, whiskey, wanton killing, worthless items of "civilization," and broken promises. The Spanish Intrusion The first intruders were Spaniards who traveled into the area in search of souls and gold. They were lured ever deeper into the interior of North America by tales of mystical events and of mythical wealthy kingdoms just waiting for them over the horizon. The first Spanish expedition to approach Ute land was led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. He came in 1549 looking for the legendary rich cities of Quivera. His expedition went as far east as modern Wichita, Kansas. Coronado probably did not meet any Ute People, but they may have heard of him from their southern neighbors. In fact, the Ute People with their wide trade relations probably heard about Spaniards before Coronado came. However, it was a long time before the Spaniards recognized the Utes as a separate and distinct Indian group. In 1604 an exploratory expedition sent by Juan de Ohate met an Indian, probably a Southern Paiute. He came from the north and spoke the Mexican (Uto-Aztecan) language. He told of a land and a lake of Copala, the mythical home of the Mexican or Aztec Indians, located north of New Mexico and west of Quivera. The Spaniards later called this area El Gran Teguayo, and it became another legendary place Spaniards tried to find. The area was probably the land of the Ute People, and the Lake of Copala may have been Utah Lake.1 The earliest specific reference by Spaniards to the Ute People is in the writings of Fray Geronimo de Zarate Salmeron. He published his reports of the Ohate expedition in 1626. Fray Geronimo wrote that the people of the Jemez Pueblo had told him of the visits before 1598 of the group of Indians who talked like Mexican |