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of the White River. Cowboys, merchants, and farmers from Vernal and nearby towns located claims upon them. 67 With the strip having been removed from the Uintah Reservation as a precedent, many mining men felt that a similar arrangement could be made for changing boundary lines to remove the White River gilsonite lands from the Uncompahgre Reservation. Four of the first locators on the Cowboy Vein persuaded Congress to pass a bill restoring to the public domain a 12- mile strip containing the Cowboy and Bonanza Veins. 68 George W. Gordon was sent by the Interior Department in June to inspect the area. In his report of July 31, he described the area as containing only second or third- rate pasture land, barren mountains, hills, and alkaline patches. The report gave support to the rationale that the lands could be removed since " the Indians do not, and probably never will, need the lands embraced therein or make any use of them whatsoever." 69 Despite Congressional passage of the bill, President Benjamin Harrison vetoed the " Change in the Uncompahgre Reservation Boundaries" explaining that it was a " private and not a public end that is to be promoted, and to take these lands in this manner is calculated to excite [ the Indians'] distrust and fears and possibly to create serious trouble." 70 The miners continued prospecting. Time and again troops from Fort Duchesne were directed by the Indian agent to remove trespassers from the reservation. 7I The Culmer- Seaboldt Vein system located in the northwestern section of the reservation was discovered prior to 1889. However, work on the Culmer Vein, on which was located the Pariette Mine, was not extensive until after 1894. In that year the Assyrian Asphalt Company of Chicago was organized and succeeded in persuading federal authorities to make a jog of one mile to the east in the western boundary of the Uncompahgre Reservation. 72 This left the Parriette Mine outside the reservation and available for exploration. During the year 1890- 1894, seven bills " to change the boundaries of the Uncompahgre Reservation" were introduced to Congress. Finally, in August of 1894, an Indian Appropriations Act was passed which contained a section authorizing the President to appoint a commission of three persons to begin alloting land in severalty to the Uncompahgre Indians, after which the remainder of lands on that reservation would be open to entry under the homestead and mineral laws of the United States. 73 The Indians were to pay $ 1.25 per acre for the lands so allotted them from the fund in the U. S. Treasury realized from the sale of their lands in Colorado. The consent of the Indians to those procedures was to be secured " if possible." However, opinions were given that consent was not needed. 74 The Uncompahgres were angered; they refused to accept the allotments, or to pay the $ 1.25 per acre required of them. As Senator Shoup of the Committee on Indian Affairs noted in his May 1894 report: 16 |
