| OCR Text |
Show 120 Nuwuvi: A Southern Paiute History their access to long-used surrounding homelands like Tule Springs, Good Spring, Red Rock Canyon, Indian Springs, and Mt. Charleston. So by 1857 Nuwuvi resistance was strong enough to force the Mormons to leave.1 The area was largely returned to Nuwuvi control, but a few whites did continue to live at Las Vegas following the Mormon departure. These few ranches provided some employment, and as the white population slowly grew, more and more Nuwuvi settled there in search of work. Those who came from the Moapa Valley were added to the Pegesits who already lived in the southwestern section of Nevada surrounding Las Vegas. Other groups of Nuwuvi moved up gradually from the mining settlements near the Colorado River in extreme southern Nevada. The Chemehuevis were a Nuwuvi-speaking group who had moved south of the Mohave Indians in the early nineteenth century. Before this move they may have occupied areas as far north as Las Vegas. They had extended contacts in the area and with the Nuwuvi who lived there and consequently were not strangers when they joined the other Nuwuvi groups at Las Vegas. As the mines in southern Nevada closed, more Nuwuvi went north. Many could not find a place to stay. There was not enough land at the various springs to support everyone, and the land at Las Vegas by the turn of the century was mostly taken by whites. In 1911 Helen J. Stewart, a local white, provided the Indians with a ten-acre lot by selling the land to the United States for $500, with the stipulation that it be placed in trust for all the Indians of Southern Nevada.2 The purpose of this purchase was to provide land to establish a day school and to furnish homes for the Indian laborers working in and around Las Vegas. The land was located slightly out of town on the north. In 1912 E. G. Murtaugh, Moapa Superintendent and Physician, moved his headquarters to Las Vegas in order to be more centralized in serving all of the Indians of southern Nevada. He also hoped to put the Las Vegas Day School into operation. However, when the Supervisor of Indian Schools visited in 1913, he found that the school already had been abandoned and that the fifty or so Indians who had been occupying the land had left to camp nearer town. He |
