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Show 46 The Southern Utes unfortunate Utes from their primitive life and civilizing them by teaching them to cultivate crops. The Utes, however, did not jump at the opportunity to stop hunting and start farming. There was great resistance, primarily because they felt that nature should not be disturbed by plowing up the ground. This resistance was widespread among the Utes' neighbors as well. When the United States Government sent an Indian Bureau official to persuade the Shoshones to farm, the Shoshone chief Washakie said, "God damn a potato." The Utes seemed to realize that the change to farming would mean a change in their whole way of life. Before 1879, the Utes had made a few changes in their economy. They herded on a small scale; the Government had encouraged sheep raising and some of the Utes had taken on this new job. Some of the women had small gardens, but hunting was still the basis of their economy. Men hunted as they had for centuries, some of the bands even going back to their old hunting grounds for buffalo after they had been placed on reservations. The women still tanned hides and made clothes for their families. Food gathering had decreased after the Utes got horses because hunting was easier, and it decreased still more after the first treaties because the United States Government sent annuity goods to the Utes. There was a real conflict between the two cultures. The Utes wanted to continue hunting, trading, and raising horses; the Whites wanted them to settle down and support themselves by farming. This conflict was at the bottom of the Meeker incident in 1879. Nathan Meeker, the Indian agent at White River, was a man who sincerely tried to make the Indians come into the white man's culture and cultivate the land; Meeker thought growing crops was best for everyone. He also tried to make the Utes sell most of their horses, since he thought it was foolish to let horses eat good grass when cows would provide milk and meat. The culmination of a long series of misunderstandings between friendly Utes and their equally well-meaning agent was the massacre of Meeker and others by the Utes. Meeker couldn't cross the barrier of different cultures to convince the Utes that they should start farming and his failure to communicate his intentions led to tragedy both for himself and his charges. The Southern Utes adapted to agriculture more easily than the Northern Utes, perhaps because they had more contact with the |