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Show Smoke From The Reservation By C. L. FRETWELL PART IV Although the Confederated Bands of Ute Indians lost their 12,000,000-acre reservation with the Act of June 15, 1880, three of the four member bands were authorized to occupy lands within with-in the general boundries of their former reservation. Only the White Rivers were forced from Colorado and onto the Uintah reservation. The severalty bill of 1880 provided pro-vided lands on the Grand river near the mouth of the Gunnison for the Uncompahgre band. Their later move to the Uintah was not fdrced, but arranged for by the executive order of January 15, 1882. In that order the President of the United States set apart a reservation in Utah for the use: of the Uncom-1 pahgres. It was a part of the Uintah reservation, for which the Uintah and White River bands were later compensated. Thus the Uintah became two reservations, but for administrative adminis-trative purposes they were subsequently sub-sequently joined under the name of the Uintah arid Ouray, with a sub-agency established at Ouray Ou-ray on Uncompahgre lands. A detailed review of the legislation leg-islation and executive order concerning the Uintah reservation, reserva-tion, plus agreements between the Uintahs, the original occupants, occu-pants, the White Rivers and Uncompahgres will justify the current insistance that there are band rights which should be recognized. Confusion, change and disregard disre-gard seem to have dominated the history of the Uintah and Ouray reservation, and have had their effect upon the Ute inhabitants. That effect is evident evi-dent in the apathy and insecurity insecur-ity that exists among the Ute people today. The reservation underwent its major transformation with the Presidential Proclamation of July 14, 1905, which opened it to white settlement. And that action was surrounded by the same confusion, the same misunderstanding mis-understanding and lack of concern con-cern that typifies the reservation's reserva-tion's history. An executive order prior to the opening- sought to protect Indian rights, in theory if not in fact, with this wording: "That the Secretary of the Interior, with the consent thereto there-to of the majority of the adult male Indians of the Uintah and White River tribes of Ute Indians, In-dians, to be ascertained as soon as practicable by an inspector, shall cause to be allocated to each head of a family eighty acres of agricultural land which can be irrigated, and forty acres of such to each member of said tribes ..." To liquidate claims involved in the Uncompahgre move, some twenty-three years before, the order provided that: "And the sum of seventy thousand and sixty-four dollars and forty-eight cents is hereby appropriated, to be paid to the Uintah and White River Tribes of Ute Indians, under the direction direc-tion of the Secretary of the Interior, In-terior, whenever a majority of the adult male Indians of said tribes shall have consented to the allotment of lands and the restoration of the unallotted lands within said reservation as herein provided." The appropriation was made to compensate for the allotment of lands on the Uintah reservation reserva-tion to Uncompahgre Indians. Executive orders and proclamations procla-mations flowed freely between 1902 and 1905, and all were to have their effect upon the Ute way of life. One of them struck a telling blow to the economy of the Utes by taking their important summer grazing graz-ing lands and placing them within the Uinta forest reserve. Commenting on the events which culminated in the opening open-ing of the reservation to white settlement, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs made this observation obser-vation in his report for 1905: (Continued on page 8) Smoke From The 'Reservation (Continued from page 2 "When the Indians were given giv-en this reservation by the Government Gov-ernment in 1861, they were promised that this would not be taken from them nor opened for the White man unless two-thirds two-thirds of their male population voted in favor. This right was never given to them. Representatives Represen-tatives were sent out from Washington and called a meeting. meet-ing. They instructed the Indians to select their allotments or the Government would do it for them." Twenty-one years later the Utes were to be sold another "bill of goods," under the label of a democratic system of tribal trib-al government. (To be continued.) |
