UTE Indians in Colorado

Early UTE History

The Ute people are the oldest residents of Colorado, inhabiting the mountains and vast areas of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Eastern Nevada, Northern New Mexico and Arizona. According to tribal history handed down from generation to generation, our people lived here since the beginning of time.

Removal of Utes

As more white settlements began appearing in the Eagle County area, tensions escalated between whites and Utes all over western Colorado. The Utes were promised the western third of Colorado in an 1868 treaty, but new mining claims in the Eagle County area and elsewhere resulted in a growing Anglo-American incursion onto Ute lands. The tension culminated in the Meeker Incident in present-day Rio Blanco County in 1879. Utes at the White River Agency killed Indian agent Nathan Meeker and other white staff, and the resulting outrage among Colorado’s white population prompted the Utes’ expulsion from western Colorado by 1882.

When were the Utes removed from Colorado?

The US government failed to fulfill the treaty's obligations, and its coercive attempts to assimilate the Utes led to the bloody Meeker Incident of 1879 and the removal of most of Colorado's Utes in the early 1880s.

MY understanding, is that as the UTE's exited Colorado, immigrants moved in.

 

Click on the links for more information about the Utes.
https://www.southernute-nsn.gov/history/

 

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