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Show not want any commission sent there; we are opposed to that. We have no more land that we want ourselves for our own use. 13° The Uncompahgre allotting commission ( R. Griffin and E. R. Harper) concluded their work in January 1899. After holding councils and meetings with " individual and influential" Uintah and White River Utes, the commission reported: The Indians were unanimous and determined in their opposition to making cession to the government of any of their lands and to allowing an Uintah or White River Indian to take and hold an allotment in severalty on said reservation. 131 A group of White Rivers led by Sowawick even attempted to return to Colorado: We have put our hand on that land, and it belongs to us; our relatives are all buried there. Washington agreed to buy the land from us; but they never paid us for it, and it is still ours., 32 Late in 1899 a bill was introduced in the Senate to set aside part of the Uintah Reservation ( north of the Duchesne River and east of Lake Fork) for the Indians and to open the " residue" to entry and settlement. The bill was an attempt to take the land without negotiation. It did not pass. In December of 1901 another bill was introduced in the Senate to set aside certain lands within the Uintah Indian Reservation for the use of the Indians and to sell or dispose of the " residue" of lands. Because of this bill and the many applications for leasing the lands ( see page 22), hearings were held in the Senate on the Leasing of Indian Lands. 133 Indian Commissioner Jones commented about the negotiations with the Uintah Reservation Utes which had failed to secure land for white entry: . . . there is a sort of feeling among the ignorant Indians that they do not want to lose any of their land. That is all there is to it; and I think before you can get them to agree to open the reservation, you have got to use some arbitrary means to open the land. 134 The Utah Congressional delegation was particularly eager that those arbitrary means to open the reservation be found. Representative George Sutherland argued during the hearings that the Indians were not rightful owners of the reservation; therefore, negotiations and consent were not required in order to take the lands. He rationalized that a treaty had never been made with the Utah Utes; that since the Uintah Reservation was created by the President and Congress it could be dismantled the same way without the approval of the Indians; that the Uintah Valley Reservation belongea no more to the Uintahs than it did to any other Indians of the state; and that the federal government had the power to restore the reservation to the public 26 |