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Show The White River Ute People 99 Johnson for some land to farm. Meeker assigned him a plot of land and some horses to help with the working of the land. Meeker soon discovered that Johnson was using the land to pasture the horses for racing rather than farming, and he took the land away. He decided that instead of letting the land go to waste it should be cultivated. As some of Meeker's employees were plowing the land, a bullet sped past their heads. The plowing stopped, and Meeker held a meeting with Johnson. Quinket and other People attended the council. Johnson agreed to give up the land if Meeker would dig him a well, build a house, and give him a stove. Meeker agreed, but was not too optimistic about their future relations. Just as Meeker had feared, Johnson was still upset over losing the land. At a meeting of the two men on 8 September, Meeker suggested that Johnson shoot some of his ponies because he had too many. Johnson, stunned at the suggestion, grabbed Meeker and threw him to the ground. Meeker sent for military aid. Major T. T. Thornburgh at Fort Steele, Wyoming, was dispatched with a force of two hundred men. When the Ute People found out that the soldiers were coming, five leaders, including Nicaagat and Colorow, met the army and requested that they stop their advance. Meeker, realizing the situation was dangerous, wrote a note to Thornburgh supporting the leaders' request. Thornburgh agreed, but then led his troops closer to the agency in order to get water for his horses. However, this alarmed the People. Nicaagat and his band ambushed the troops at Milk Creek 29 September. The People kept them pinned down for six days. The army lost twelve men killed including Thornburgh. Forty men were wounded and hundreds of animals were killed. Upon hearing about the attack on the army troops, some of Quinket's band, who felt that Meeker had betrayed them, attacked the agency. They killed Meeker and his employees, and took Mrs. Meeker, her daughter Josephine, Mrs. Price, and her children captive.13 News of the incident startled the country. Military authorities moved swiftly to prevent a general Ute uprising. General Wesley Merritt was dispatched from Fort Russell, Wyoming, to Milk Creek with 350 men. He reached the battleground 5 October and rescued the soldiers whose situation had become critical. |