Existing comment:
The Ute Domain
First described by Spanish explorers as the YUTA Indians (pronounced Ute-ah), the ancestors of the Ute people are thought to have migrated from the deserts of southeastern California over 700 years ago. The Utes moved into predominately two areas and became somewhat distinct because of that geographical division. The eastern Utes (Colorado) migrated to the east of the Colorado River and settled on the Colorado Plateau. On the other hand, the western Utes (Utah) established their camps in the valleys between the rugged mountain ranges on the eastern margin of the Great Basin.
In south-central Utah, one of the earliest camps has been dated to around A.D. 1380 and consists of stone circle 10 to 15 feet in diameter that would have anchored skin or brush shelters called wickiups. Unlike the Fremont and Anasazi Indians who preceded them, the ancestors of the Utes were not farmers but rather relied on hunting and gathering for their sustenance.
When encountered by the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition in 1776, the Utes were found living in "houses of grass and earth" near the shores of Utah Lake. Father Escalante, the chronicler of the expedition, describes the Indians as having good features with most of the men wearing long beards. The Indians called themselves the Timpanogotzis or the "fish eaters" but their diet also consisted of plants, herbs and wild game. Escalante wrote that the Utes were a docile and peace-loving people.
Over a half century later, an adventurer by the name of Dan Storm spent the winter of 1839-40 with the Utes in an encampment near Utah Lake. The village consisted of two dozen buffalo-hide tipis occupied by 100 men, women and children. The people kept about 300 horses which they had obtained from the Spanish beginning in the early 1800s. The Utah Lake Utes, according to Storm, were one of the strongest of the six independant bands that made up the western Utes. Storm found the Utes considerably more aggressive than had the Spanish, and he writes of participating in a raid on the Gosiute Indians of western Utah. Many prisoners were taken in this raid with women and children ultimately sold as slaves to the Navajos and the Mexicans.
With the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in 1847, relations between the Utes and the newcomers were at first peaceable and friendly. George A. Smith, of the Utah Indian Service wrote that, "They are virtuous, honest and free from licentiousness; they are humane and kind to one another." Smith described the Utes as typical mountain Indians. They were wanderers and had seasonal camps all over central and southern Utah including those near Spanish Fork, Payson, Nephi, Manti, Fish Lake, Meadow, Kanosh and Parowan. On occasion, the Utes ventured as far as the plains of Colorado in search of buffalo meat and hides. Marriage was polygamous, and a man might take as many wives as he could afford. Women were expected to raise their children, butcher and process wild game and plants, provide meals, and to move camp. The role of the men, in contrast, was that of hunter and warrior.
The greatest warrior and chief during the early pioneer period was a tall, handsome man named Walkara, the "Hawk of the Mountains." Born somewhere between 1808 and 1815 on the Spanish Fork River near what is now Provo, Walkara rose to power when he assumed the role of war chief in his father's band, the Tim-pan-ah-gos Utes. The Hawk quickly increased his prominance as a leader by his skill and prowess as a "procurer" of horse flesh. Raiding as far away as the coast of California near San Luis Obispo, Walkara terrorized western ranches for over a quarter of a century until his death in 1855. According to fragmentary accounts, his raids were conducted between 1825 and 1854. The largest number of horses stolen on any one raid was 3,000 with several raids netting at least 1,000 head. Horses could be sold at a mountain rendezvous for as much as $50 per animal or traded to other tribes for Indian children who were then exchanged for ammunition, blankets, pots and pans, and trinkets at the Santa Fe slave market.
Inevitably, the differences in culture, customs and economics brought the Utes and Mormon Pioneers into armed conflict. The Utes found their hunting and camping grounds increasing crowded with settlements while the Christian values of the pioneers prevented them from ignoring the issue of slavery. In 1853-54 and again in 1865-67, smoldering hostilities were fanned into open warfare. In 1872, with their ranks desimated by both war and disease, 1,500 Utes were removed by treaty to the Uintah Indian Reservation in northeastern Utah. Today, headquarters for the Ute Tribe of Utah or the "Northern Ute Tribe" as it is now called is located near the center of the reservation at Ft. Duchesne. |