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Show retained the entire Park as Ute land, including any part found to extend south of the boundary as described in the agreement. However, the area was choice farmland, and whites moved onto the southern part. Ute efforts to dislodge the trespassers proved futile. By Executive Order, November 22 1875 President Grant added a small strip of land to the northern border of the reservation as compensation for the loss. 38 Several surveys were conducted on the reservation. The Utes were concerned, as these surveys usually resulted in reduction of their lands. After a particularly fraudulent survey aroused the Utes to vigorous protest, a four- mile square tract of land containing the hot springs in the Uncompahgre Park was also added to the reservation by Executive Order on August 17 1876.39 This action only increased tensions between whites and Utes. Many petitions were sent arguing that whites be allowed to remain in Uncompahgre Park. By 1878 there were 300 whites unlawfully occupying 40,000 acres of land in the Los Pinos Agency area .^ Uncompahgre leaders eventually signed an agreement to sell the four- mile square tract of land for $ 10,000, but the agreement was never ratified. 41 In 1877 Congress acted to remove all Southern Ute People in northern New Mexico to southwest Colorado to be controlled from an agency at Ignacio, as required by a provision in the Brunot Agreement. 42 In 1878 a commission was sent to negotiate with the Utes to remove them all to the area of the White River Agency. The leaders of the Southern Ute bands protested being moved but finally signed an agreement in which they gave up 1,894,400 acres of land and agreed to settle on a reservation located at the headwaters of the Peidra, San Juan, Blanco, Navajo, and Chama Rivers. The agreement was ratified and funds were appropriated to remove the Southern Utes to the area. 43 That year the White River Utes were appointed a new agent- a determined reformer named Nathan Meeker, who was foolish enough to use coercion on the Utes to get them to farm. In September 1879 an outbreak occurred in which Meeker and some of his staff were killed and his family captured and outraged. The U. S. Army was called in. The first group was defeated and surrounded; a second detachment had to be sent. To prevent a hopeless encounter with the reinforced army, the leader of the Uncompahgre, Ouray, intervened. This so- called Meeker Massacre finally gave the Colorado citizenry the leverage needed to force the Utes, even those not involved in tne incident, to give up all of their land. 44 f , interior An agreement was negotiated in Washington by Secretary of the Interior Charles Schurz and a delegation of Ute leaders. The W* ™ ^ J ™ ™ £ 1 the Utes to sell their reservation in exchange for allotments of ^ d ? f ™ y and certain annuities. The Southern Utes were to settle on the La PlataKrve , and the Uncompahgre were to settle on the Grand River in Colorado rf sufficient agricultural lands were available there ^ otherwise on la^ d n Utah. The White River Utes were to move onto the Uintah Reservation 12 |
