OCR Text |
Show Utes, and She-be-reachers lived in the eastern and southern part of the Territory, and numbered over 5000. They did not cultivate the soil but lived by hunting and fishing. They were warlike and constantly migrated from place to place and were a source of great annoyance to the early inhabitants of the country east of the Wasatch Mountains. After 1861 the Uintah Utes were given approximately 110,000 a year and were encouraged to settle on a large tract of land in the Uintah Valley. Most of them, however, preferred the chase to settling on the lands and cultivating them. The Timpanagos lived in Utah valley and numbered 500 people. The word Utah was applied to most of the Indians inhabitating the Great Basin, and from this tribe Utah derived its name. In the various dialects, Utah is spelled Yutah, Eutaw, Ute, and Spanish Ayote, but the exact meaning of the word is as yet unknown.The Utah Indians committed many depredations in the early days. This was due to the fact that they felt keenly, as did all the western tribes, the encroachment of the whites upon their lands. The pioneers of Utah treated themwith fairness and justice, and many noble chiefs made lasting peace with the whites. In the early days a few Indians settled on lands and began raising wheat and potatoes. In 1855, Pe-teet-weet, chief of a band of Indians near Springville, made a selection of a large tract of land for a pasture, and numerous treaties were made with the settlers. In September, 1855, a large band of Shoshones met Governor Brigham Young in Salt Lake City and made a treaty of peace in which it was stipulated that they, the Indians, should have lands and should be given rations. The Indians were under a chief named Ti-ba-bo-en-dwart-sa (white man's friend') and numbered in all about three hundred. In the early spring of that year some of the Utahs and Poh-bantes were taught how to farm. During the year 1855 the people were unable to provide food for the Indians who came to the various settlements begging for flour. Drought and the grasshoppers had destroyed nearly all the crops and the people had a hard time to keep from starving. The Utah Indians lived upon fish, roots, pinion nuts, grass seeds, berries, and small game. In early days the eastern Utes hunted the buffalo withPHOTOGRAPH AT DAWN OF A UTE TEPEE, PITCHED IN THE LOWLANDS OF THE UINTAH BASIN |