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Show 42 The Southern Utes ment. The Government hoped that once the Utes had been given the individual allotments that they would become farmers and cultivate the land given to them. The Hunter Act, after some delay in the Senate, passed both Houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland on February 11, 1895.y Before the bill could be implemented, the Utes had to agree to it. A commission consisting of Meredith H. Kidd, Thomas P. Smith, Assistant Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and David F. Day, Southern Ute Agent, was sent to the reservation to explain the new bill to the Southern Utes and to gain their approval. Within several months 153 of the 301 eligible male adult Utes had signed the new agreement. The margin of difference between those wanting to remain on the old reservation and those wanting to move to a new location was only five votes. However, the Secretary of Interior decided that the Southern Utes wanted the new agreement and approved the five vote margin. When the Utes approved the agreement, a new commission was named to distribute the allotments. By April, 1896, 72,811 acres of land had been allotted to 371 Utes. The Department of Indian Affairs approved these allotments on June 12th.1" Because one-half of the Southern Utes voted against the 1894 agreement and the planned allotments, the Government officials felt obliged to accommodate them. Those Utes against the agreement included the Weeminuche band under the leadership of Ignacio. Earlier they had wanted to move to San Juan County, Utah, and had moved when the 1888 agreement had been approved by the tribe. Later when the agreement had failed to pass Congress the Southern Ute Agency had been forced to bring them back to Colorado. They refused to return to the Los Pinos agency, however, and established a camp on the western end of the old Southern Ute Reservation. The western end of the reservation was retained as land-in-common for Ignacio and his band while those areas of the eastern end not taken by the allotments were opened for Anglo settlement. A sub-agency was opened for the Weeminuche at Navajo Springs in 1897. This was the beginning of the separation of the three bands of the Southern Utes into two groups, the Mouache and Capote bands located on the eastern portion of the former reservation and the Weeminuche band located » Ibid., p. 116. 1,1 Ibid., p. 123. |