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Show forces. With the defeat of Black Hawk, there was a transfer of leadership. The new leader was Tabby- To- Kwana ( Child of the Sun). Tabby- To- Kwana led the remnant of the Utes from the central valleys of Utah to the Uintah Basin in 1869. There, starving and helpless, they organized one more raid for cattle on Heber City, Utah. Brigham Young, after viewing the desperation of the Utes, gathered together a herd of cattle and had the herd driven to Uintah Valley to rescue them from their forlorn condition. The first three years at Uintah Valley were times of extreme hardship for the Utes. Very meager amounts of federal assistance reached them. Few of the promises were kept; fewer of the obligations were honored. This failure in Indian administration was partly because the agents were ineffective and uninterested in their charges. A major part of the difficulty was that few things were sent to them by the Indian Administration in Washington D. C. It was a situation which, without amelioration, would probably have produced a third major war with the Utes. In 1871 a man of great personal intregrity and amazing tenacity took over the job of Indian Agent for the Uintah Agency. John J. Critchlow was appointed in November 1870 and took control of the Uintah Agency in 1871. Upon arriving at the Agency, Critchlow found " the employees- some of them utterly depraved and worthless- and the Indians completely discouraged..." 17 Critchlow directed his energy toward securing more employees and obtaining housing, fences, lower freight rates, better roads, a sawmill, a flour mill, and irrigation systems. He wanted missionaries and schools, a doctor, and money for all the above. At so remote a spot, the obtaining of these materials was a slow and painful process. Not only was Congress reluctant to vote the funds, but once materials were obtained, they were difficult to move to Uintah. Moving the sawmill from Salt Lake City to Uintah required two arduous summers of hard work. Critchlow is an archetypal example of what the Grant Peace Policy was meant to produce. He was a diligent advocate of the Indian interests. He endeavored manfully to create schools- even pressing his wife into service by founding the first school there. His agricultural and milling pursuits were to remain a hallmark of the reservation for a generation. He complained constantly to Congress for the establishment of churches to be a Christianizing influence on the Indians. Friends in Congress helped arrange to have trading posts established on the reservation so the Indian people did not have to travel great distances for supplies. When a military post was established in the Uintah Basin, he attempted to have it as far from his charges as possible so that the corrupting influence of the soldiers would not be a source of irritation. Critchlow also established herding as a major pursuit of the Indians, reasoning that this economic endeavor was more suited to the Indian temperament than was agriculture. However, Critchlow's efforts were to be frustrated by the removal of Colorado^ Utes- into Utah. 18 The removal of Colorado Utes into Utah < jn_ l 881 - 82was preceded by a long 8 |
