| OCR Text |
Show Las Vegas During the late 1800's and early 1900's when the Moapa Reservation was steeped in mis-management and corruption, the Nuwuvi of southern Nevada were forced to look elsewhere for a home. All inspections at Moapa during this time reported that there were never more than a few Indians there and normally there were none. Mis-management had so well prevented the Nuwuvi from making a living that, in order to survive, they had to seek employment from the white settlers who were intruders on their land. Consequently, Indian colonies attached themselves to settlements in the lower Muddy Valley, in the upper Meadow Valley, and at Las Vegas, all of which were areas they had lived in before the whites came. At these places the Nuwuvi provided a cheap labor supply to the farmers and miners who had no more objection to stealing Nuwuvi labor than they had to stealing Nuwuvi land. Las Vegas always had been used and often occupied by various different Nuwuvi bands. The Pegesits band had been the most common residents because they lived in the immediately surrounding area. Las Vegas also had been the site of considerable conflict with whites on the Old Spanish Trail. It was centrally located in the middle of the desert and in the path of routes running between other springs and favorite hunting and gathering spots. It was consequently of vital strategic importance to Nuwuvi on the move and was also very important to any whites traveling through the area. The early Spanish and Mexicans using the Spanish Trail made the area a major stopover. There is some evidence that the Spanish established a semi-permanent ranch there and even employed Nuwuvi labor. At this time, most of the Nuwuvi lived in Las Vegas Wash, although they camped throughout the area at the multiple springs. When the Mormons settled there in 1855, the Nuwuvi already had been forced to abandon the area to some extent because of slaving caravans and other overly aggressive whites. The Mormon settlement was a final blow which the Nuwuvi refused to tolerate, not only because it deprived them of Las Vegas, but also because it affected 119 |
