OCR Text |
Show 42 The Intruders, 1550-1882 The federal government abandoned the farms but was slow in establishing the Uintah Reservation. With the wild game disappearing and the whites occupying the land, the Ute People were in desperate circumstances. And so it was, in the summer of 1863, that a Ute leader, Black Hawk, held a council with members of the Tumpanawach, Pah Vant, Parianuche, and Yamparika to plan war. Early in 1865 Black Hawk began leading a series of attacks on the Sanpete settlements. The "Black Hawk War" was actually no more than an intensifying of the raids which had been conducted against the Mormon intruders since 1849. The Indians probably did not expect to expel the settlers but only to obtain more food. However, the effort was in vain. The Mormons continued to increase in numbers and strength. Local civil authorities and Indian agents began moving the People to the Uintah Valley Reservation. Many were not content to remain there. Several groups moved back to their old territories and attempted to survive. They traveled into Wyoming and Colorado. Some requested annuities and supplies from agencies in those areas. Others tried to continue their hunting way of life. However, by 1879 the last Ute hunting areas in Utah and Colorado were being invaded and depleted of game. The non-Indian population in Utah had grown to 145,000. Only then did the Utah Ute People begin to remain year round near their agency at Uintah. By then their numbers had decreased from about 4,500 in 1859 to about 800.27 Settlers in New Mexico and Colorado There were also intruders on Ute lands in northern New Mexico and Colorado. First the Spanish and then the Mexican governments granted lands in the area to settlers who would agree to develop the land and to protect the frontier. Many of these grants included Ute lands, such as the San Luis Valley. The United States agreed to respect these land grants, without regard to the People, under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) which ended the war with Mexico. The first formal treaty made by the United States with the Ute People was negotiated soon after the Mexican War in 1849. This |