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Show were not using the water, it should be taken from them. Kneale decided to buy 95,000 acres under cultivation. Most of the Utes were uncooperative. He then decided to take an alternative course. With Indian Office support, he began an advertising campaign to get non- Utes to either lease land or to buy land from the Indians. The campaign was so successful that the agent could barely handle all applicants. About 30,000 acres were thus leased or sold. The consequence was damage to the resources of the Uintah Basin in general and to the Indians in particular. Most of the acreage was used for cattle; this resulted in over- grazing and subsequent erosion. 177 It was not until 1923 that the Indian Office officially refused recognition of any jurisdiction of the state over Indian water rights. Even then the " Winters Doctrine" 178 was not vigorously applied in Utah; the Indian Office felt that " the state laws of irrigation would be followed in order to avoid criticism by white land owners." 179 A 1932 report listed the lands held by the Utes and the Indian Service for the Utes as follows: 261.400 acres Tribal lands - grazing, timber reserves 20,683 acres School, agency, and other reserves 84.318 acres Individual allotments 366.401 acres 18° Non- Utes had taken over all of the Strawberry Valley. Thirty- two of the 1,358 allotments ( a total of 28,709 acres) had been fee- patented and sold to non- Utes. Land sales, homesteading, and leasing resulted in a checkerboard condition as between the Ute lands and those taken by settlers and purchasers. Ute rights to water had not been rigorously protected. Even the grazing reserve had been threatened. In 1915 authority had been granted to lease the reserve - an idea especially welcomed among sheep owners holding grazing permits in the adjacent National Forest. l81 Eventually, non- Utes petitioned to have 250,000 acres within the reserve thrown open for settlement. The argument was familiar: " This tract is more valuable as farming land than as grazing land... and the Indians are not using it." 182 The bills introduced in Congress to take the land were not passed. In the 1930s there was a change in United States Indian policy. The Indian Reorganization Act passed in 1934 prohibited further individual allotment of land and provided for the acquisition of additional tribal lands. 183 Under this Act the Bureau of Indian Affairs began to encourage the Ute Tribal Business Committee to use tribal funds to buy land. The Indian Office also moved to fulfill their responsibility for administering for the benefit of the Indian lands which had not been < entered upon or sold to whites. In 1937 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs authorized the Superintendent of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation to administer the unsold lands and issue permits for their use. This authority and the Indian right of jurisdiction over the land were challenged in 1945 by Paul S. Hanson who provoked a test case by driving 35 |