OCR Text |
Show 158 After the selection of these lands, and after the agency buildings were nearly completed, a military force arrived, under the command of Capt. Hawkins, and • camped on the north side of Green River, near the agency. We are now informed that an order has been issued by the military authorities taking for military reservation the following territory, to wit: Beginning at the junction of the Duchesne and Green Rivers, thence up the Green to include what is known as Mormon Bend, thence westward to a junction with the Uintah road to a point about five miles from its mouth, thence across the Duchesne to embrace the bottom lands to a point opposite the mouth of White River, and thence up the Green River, including all the islands in the stream, to the place of beginning. This takes in a considerable portion of the best bottom and hay land in these valleys and in close proximity to the agency. It is, we think, desirable that the Indians should, so far as practicable, occupy all of the available lands in the vicinity of the agency, and we regard the land included in this reservation as very important for their future peace and prosperity. It is unfortunate that the military authorities should have considered it necessary to take so much of the bottom and hay land in the immediate vicinity of the agency. We beg to suggest that it would, in our opinion, be of great advantage to these Indians if the action of the military in designating their reservation could be reconsidered and their reservation established at a greater distance from the agency. The improvements made by the military at this point are only of a temporary ^character, and while we have no special knowledge of their necessities, it seems to us that they could be stationed at some other point ten or fifteen miles from their present location and make it quite as pleasant and desirable for them, and equally safe for all concerned.1 The confused state of affairs is illustrated in this report, for even in this formative period the complaint that the military had taken so much of the land in the area was a clue that there was lnReport of the Ute Commission, 1881," pp. 329-330, |