Ute

• CATEGORY: Tribe
• CULTURE AREA: Great Basin
• LANGUAGE GROUP: Uto-Aztecan, Yutish Genus, or Eastern Numic
• PRIMARY LOCATION: Utah, Colorado
• POPULATION SIZE: 13,528 (Southern Ute Reservation, CO); 1,751 (Ute Mountain Reservation and Off-Reservation Trust Land, CO, NM, UT) American Community Survey 2018-2022

The Ute (or Yutas) people inhabited the eastern fringe of the Great Basin and the Colorado and northern New Mexican Rocky Mountains; some hunted buffalo as far east as the Great Plains. Ute called themselves nutc (“the people”). The state of Utah is named for the Ute people.

Early History

The Ute people speak an Eastern Numic dialect of a Uto-Aztecan language, with the Northern Ute people speaking a dialect called Chemehueviand and the Southern Ute speaking the Kaiba dialect. These languages are likely related to other Uto-Aztecan languages, including those languages spoken by the Shoshoni, Comanche, and Paiute Nations. Ute people were traditionally nomadic hunters and gatherers, traveling in extended family groups in established nomadic circuits. They lived in either brush huts or, when large game was available, skin-covered tipis. Their primary sources of food were berries, seeds, prickly pear cactus, onion, dandelion, wild greens, and game animals. With the acquisition of the horse in the seventeenth century, larger bands congregated, the nomadic circuit extended, and larger game, such as buffalo, became more accessible. These bands were identified by their geographic locations and were led by chiefs whose authority lay in their hunting and raiding power. Ute people were regarded as warlike, and raiding became a natural extension of hunting. Ute religion was not complex, and most religious observances were related to healing ceremonies or folkloric rituals and taboos.

European Contact

The first contact Europeans had with the Ute people was with the Spanish in New Mexico by the seventeenth century and was based on trade, both at New Mexican settlements and with traders who penetrated into Colorado and Utah. Ute-Spanish relations were generally friendly, although conflict was not unknown. From the Spanish, the Ute people obtained horses and arms in return for buckskins and Indigenous captives. The Ute became a major link in the spread of the horse to other Indigenous people.

Although fur trappers had operated throughout the Ute territory, extensive White penetration began in 1847 with the Mormon migration to Utah, and in 1848 when the Mexican-American War brought an influx of U.S. citizens to New Mexico. Although relations remained generally friendly in Utah, antagonism flared briefly in 1853 under Walkara and again from 1863 to the 1870s under the direction of Black Hawk. During the 1860s, Utah Ute were consolidated on the Uintah Reservation. Once there, they became known as Uintah Ute. A related tribe, part Ute and part Paiute, known as the Pahvant, remained friendly to the Mormons; they converted almost en masse to that religion and successfully resisted removal to the reservation.

A preliminary treaty between the United States and Ute in Colorado and New Mexico was signed as early as 1849. As precious minerals such as gold and silver were discovered in the Colorado Rockies, however, additional treaties were negotiated, ceding increasingly larger tracts of land in 1863, 1868, and 1873. During these negotiations, a central Colorado Ute Chief, Ouray, rose to prominence because of his ability to communicate with White individuals and his ability to convince other chiefs to conciliate with, rather than fight, the United States. As a result, Ouray was appointed the spokesman and head chief of the “consolidated” Ute Nation.

With the treaties came agencies that localized Ute bands and gave rise to modern identifications: The three major northern Colorado bands (the Yampa River, Grand River, and White River Ute) became the White River Ute, the central Colorado Tabeguache became the Uncompaghre Ute, the Mouache and Capote became the Southern Ute, and the Weeminuche became the Ute Mountain Ute.

The Meeker Massacre

In 1879, Nathan C. Meeker, a new agent at the White River Agency, antagonized northern Ute people by moving the agency to, and plowing up, their prized winter horse pasturage and race track. When Meeker called for troops to protect him, troops under the command of T. T. Thornburgh were dispatched to the reservation. The Utes feared that the troops were there to remove them forcibly to Indian Territory (Oklahoma). On September 29, more than three hundred Ute people, under the direction of Captain Jack, Antelope, and Colorow, attacked and besieged the column as they entered the reservation. Upon hearing of the attack on Thornburgh, other Ute people massacred the agency personnel and took the women there captive.

As punishment for the uprising, the White River bands were forced to cede their reservation to pay reparations and were removed to the Uintah reservation in Utah. Although the other Ute bands had refused to join in the uprising and Ouray had assisted the U.S. government in quelling the violence and retrieving the captives, the remainder of the Ute people were forced to negotiate another treaty in 1880. Within a year, using a technicality in the treaty, the Uncompaghres were also expelled from Colorado and given a barren reservation (called the Ouray reservation) adjoining the Uintah reservation. The Southern Ute successfully resisted attempts to remove them from their narrow, southern Colorado reservation, though conflicts involving bloodshed were not infrequent. Some Ute people affiliated with the Ute Mountain Tribe also obtained southeastern Utah lands through homesteading.

In 1887, the U.S. Congress passed the General Allotment Act, under which Indigenous lands were to be allotted as individual homesteads and the remainder opened to White settlement. By the early twentieth century, most Ute land had been allotted except on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation. Many of the Indigenous people's allotments were subsequently lost through taxes, irrigation assessments, and entangled inheritance questions.

Modern Period

In 1934, the Indian Reorganization Act allowed the Ute people to develop self-governing tribal entities, and three tribal organizations were formed: the Uintah-Ouray Ute Tribe, the Southern Ute Tribe, and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. Tribal organizations helped regain alienated lands and obtained legal counsel for court battles. Working together as the Confederated Ute Tribe, the three tribes were the first American Indians to combat the federal government successfully over reparation claims; as a result of their suit, the Indian Claims Commission was established in 1946 with the Confederated Ute as its first successful (and largest) claimant. During the 1980s and 1990s, other legal battles were fought to regain jurisdictional rights over original reservation lands and water rights. Tribal governments have established tribal industries, judicial and policing services, and social services and activities.

In the twenty-first century, energy has become a major economic focus for the Ute people. They have relied economically on oil and natural gas deposits on their respective reservations since the mid-twentieth century. The Southern Ute, who established their own gas production company in the early 1990s, also began to branch out into alternative energy production in 2008 and worked to install a photovoltaic solar array on tribal land in the mid-2010s. The Ute Mountain Ute likewise sought to build solar power, hydropower, and wind energy capabilities in addition to its fossil fuel extraction. Meanwhile, the Uinta Ouray Ute Tribe allows hydraulic fracturing on its lands and was approached in 2015 by an oil sands development company, generating debate within the community regarding its potential ecological and health impacts. In the 2020s, the Southern Ute Tribe agreed to work with 8 Rivers Capital to develop the first zero-emissions power plant on tribal lands in a project called the Coyote Clean Power Project.

Although many traditional Ute ways have given way to Western technology, Ute values continue in modern religious manifestations such as the Ute Sun Dance, Bear Dance, and, for some, the Native American Church.

Bibliography

Delaney, Robert. The Southern Ute People. Indian Tribal Series, 1974.

Delaney, Robert. The Ute Mountain Utes. U of New Mexico P, 1989.

Denver, Norma, and June Lyman, compilers. Ute People: An Historical Study. Edited by Floyd A. O’Neil and John D. Sylvester, U of Utah P, 1970.

Emmitt, Robert. The Last War Trail: The Utes and the Settlement of Colorado. U of Oklahoma P, 1954.

Jorgensen, Joseph G. The Sun Dance Religion: Power for the Powerless. U of Chicago P, 1972.

"History of the Southern Ute." Southern Ute Indian Tribe, www.southernute-nsn.gov/history. Accessed 2 Dec. 2024.

Minard, Anne. "Tar Sands in Utah? Oil Industry Comes Knocking at Uintah and Ouray Reservation." Indian Country Media Today Network, 13 Sept. 2018, ictnews.org/archive/tar-sands-in-utah-oil-industry-comes-knocking-at-uintah-and-ouray-reservation. Accessed 2 Dec. 2024.

Rockwell, Wilson. The Utes: A Forgotten People. Sage Books, 1956.

"Southern Ute Indian Tribe Solar Project Achieves Milestone." U.S. Department of Energy, 11 Jan. 2016, www.energy.gov/indianenergy/articles/southern-ute-indian-tribe-solar-project-achieves-milestone. Accessed 2 Dec. 2024.