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Show Unfulfilled Promises: Negotiations with the Intruders, 1849-1882 61 In September 1873 government negotiations to take the whole San Juan area were resumed. Over one thousand Ute People gathered at Los Pinos. Over two hundred non-Utes were also present â€" including traders, miners, ranchers, servants, and several federal officials. A small city of hastily constructed buildings sprang up to accommodate all the visitors. Felix Brunot served as the sole negotiator for the United States. No Colorado people were allowed by the Ute People to participate. The People were determined to give up only the mineral lands: "The mountains with the mines we will sell but those where the mines are not in we will not sell . . . the white men can go and take the gold and come out again. We do not want them to build houses there."33 Brunot demanded that all of the San Juan district be ceded. The procedures for securing the agreement called for its acceptance by a majority of the male members of each band. Federal officials wanted to avoid the difficulties of past negotiations which resulted in complaints by Ute People that treaties had been made without their consent. However, many of the People refused to sign the agreement. The negotiations were at a stalemate. Brunot then called in Otto Mears. Mears convinced Brunot to offer Ouray a salary of $1,000 a year for ten years. (Ouray had been employed as an interpretor for $500 a year.) Mears also spoke to several Ute People. Ouray, other leaders and members of the Ute bands then signed the agreement.34 This so-called Brunot Agreement (also called the San Juan Treaty) took the whole San Juan district, four million acres, for the invading miners. This drove a wedge in between the northern and southern portions of the Ute Indian Reservation. The agreement was ratified by Congress 29 April 1874.35 (See Map p. 62) Unratified Agreements, 1879 In the summer of 1 878 Congress passed legislation closing the Ute agencies in northern New Mexico at Cimarron and Tierra Amarilla. A new agency was built on the Rio de los Pinos, and in August the New Mexico Utes were moved to the reservation in southern Colorado. A provision of the 1873 Agreement had provided for this action. |