Existing comment:
Federal Involvement
In 1873, government explorer and administrator John Wesley Powell recommended that the Kaibab Paiutes be placed under Federal jurisdiction, in order to provide them with food and land for farming. However, no Federal action was taken. Powell then recommended that they move to the Ute or Moapa Paiute reservation. The Utes were their traditional enemies and the Moapa area was too far from their homeland. The Kaibab remained.
"The Kanab or Kaibab Indians are in very destitute circumstances; fertile places are now being occupied by the white population, thus cutting off all their means of subsistence except game....The foot hills that yielded hundreds of acres of sunflowers...the grass that grew so luxuriantly when you were here...and many other plants that produced food for the natives is all eat out by stock....I should esteem it a great favor if you could secure some surplus merchandise for the immediate relief of their utter destitution."
-- Jacob Hamblin to John Wesley Powell, 1880 |