OCR Text |
Show 'Three Ufe Tribes Number About 3,000 People IGNACIO, Colo. It Is estimated that there are about 1,750 "Northern Ute" Indians on the Uintah-Ouray reservation In Utah. The Southern Utes tribe numbers about 650, and the Ute Mountain Tribe, with headquarters at To-waoc, I Colo., numbers approximate-1 ly 62S people. Included In the Ute Mountain tribe are the Allen Canyon Utes, about 123 in number, who live near Dlanding, Utah, Each of the three tribes has its own tribal government, and each of the tribes now Is getting experience. In managing its own affairs. All are looking forward to the time when the wardship of the federal government will be ended. The 550 Southern Utes of today are descendants of two of the early bands, the Mouache and the Capote. Original home of the Mouache was the Front Range of the Rockies, from the point where Denver now stands southward to the Cimarron country. The Capote lived in the San Luis Valley. Through the treaty of 1868 the Ute bands, with Chief Ouray as their leader, agreed to remain west of the Rockies. The Mouache and Capote then settled eventually in the San Juan Basin, for the most part In the river valley of what Is now La Plata county. Their cousins, the Weeminuche band, lived In the same general area. The Weeminuche In about 1R9S moved westward, and now are the Ute Mountain tribe of Towaoc. The Mouache and Capote finally merged to become one tribe under the leadership of Chief Buckskin Charley. After the Weeminuche moved to Towaoc, the Southern Ute reservation consisted of a strip of land on the southern border of Colorado, 15 miles wide and 72 miles long, in Archuleta, La Plata and Montezuma counties. After the Indian families had been allotted farms, the reservation was opened to white homesteaders and much of the best land was taken up by non-Indians. The Southern Utes still hold, however, about 309,000 acres of land. About 7,000 acres Is under irrigation, and water Is available for another 7.000 acres of irrigable land which Is to be subjugated In the next few years. The reservation has more than 25,000 acres of merchantable timber and the rest U grazing land. Of the total, 298,-000 acres is considered oil and gas land, and much of this Is under lease. There is already soma production of natural gas. |