Southern Ute lands, 1846-1899: the creation of a reservation

The treaty of Guadalupe-Hildago of 1848 placed the Southwest under the jurisdiction of the United States Government. One group of people greatly affected by this change of Governments was the Southern Ute bands of the Ute nation. Prior to I848 these Ute Indians had experienced only occasional contact with the Spanish and the Mexicans. The United States citizens who came into Ute lands after the I848 treaty occupied the Ute lands permanently. This intrusion brought tremendous pressure on the Southern Utes to give up claim to their lands. The Treaties of 1864 and 1868 and the agreement of 1874 reduced the Indian's domain. By 1879 the Southern Ute Indians had been placed on a reservation in Western Colorado. But this too was changed. A new agreement, approved June 15, 1880, attempted to even further reduce Ute lands. The law contained a section which said the Utes would be moved from their larger reservation in southwestern Colorado to a smaller reservation along the La Plata River in southwestern Colorado and northeastern New Mexico. The land in this region, however, was found unsuitable for the agricultural pursuits of the Indian people. The alternative to relocation in the La Plata River area was to move the three bands of the Southern Utes-Muache, Capote, Weeminuche-into the Utah area. The choices in Utah were either the Uintah Valley Reservation, where other bands of Ute people were already located, or a proposed reservation located in San Juan County. The Uintah reservation was rejected as a future home for the Southern Utes due to lack of agricultural land and the fact that a large number of Utes were already in the area. A strong congressional effort for removal was made by the representatives of Colorado from 1881 until 1888 when the Senate passed a bill to open negotiations with the Southern Utes for removal to Utah. The Ute people agreed to move; however, the House of Representatives failed to support the Senate's decision after several investigations of the future reservation proved it to be poor agricultural land. In addition, the people of Utah became upset at the prospect of having another Indian reservation established within the territorial boundaries and pressure was applied through their delegate to Congress as well as by memorials to the President of the United States and to both Houses of Congress. For six years attempts were made to move the Utes. However, the congressional support needed for approval was not found, and in 1894 the decision was made by the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to leave the Southern Utes in their present location. Further, it was decided to reduce the size of the reservation but to allow the Ute families to take allotments on the reservation before reduction. These arrangements were confirmed by Presidential proclamations in 1895 and 1899. After the reduced reservation had been defined, the remaining land was opened to white settlement.