| OCR Text |
Show 55 of this sum will not be required; I trust it may not; but a portion of it "is absolutely necessary, in my judgement, to be used for the purposes indicated." Thus we see that while the federal officials in the field were functioning credibly, the breakdown occurred at the Cabinet and Congressional levels. The money needed so desperately did not arrive until many of the Ute people had starved to death. And so it was, in the spring of 1863, after three of the past four winters had brought starvation and death to the Utes that they decided to fight. Feeble attempts were made to open an agency at Uintah in 1862. There was little or no provision for their coming, and few or no Utes stayed near their new location. Because of the loss of revenue and food, the Utes did what they had always done in times of starvation-they splintered to more effectively gather food, or they organized inl^o effective raiding parties. The splintering was evidenced first. The competition for the meager supply of food was so intense that the second alternative was also used. With Wakara and his brother Arapeen both dead, new leadership was inevitable. In 1863, a man by the name of Black Hawk had risen * • , from obscurity to become the leader of the Utes. (This Black Hawk !5lbid. , p. 1. l6F. W. Hatch in RCIA, 1862, pp. 207-208. |
