Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
History
Colorado's history is written in petroglyphs, gold dust and ski tracks. A story about
the making of today's United States, it's also a parable about European domination of
the New World. Ambitious adventurers and salespeople, colonizing politicians and
warriors intermingled and spread slowly across Colorado, overtaking the domain of
Native Americans whose complex cultures had survived countless generations at the
time of first contact.
FATE OF THE NATIVE AMERICANS
The US government signed treaties to defuse Native American objections to expanding settlement. Huge reserva-
tions and rations were an attempt to compensate Native Americans for the loss of hunting territory. Under pressure
from miners and other emigrants, the federal government continually reduced the size of the reservations, shifting
many to less desirable areas.
Ute territorial sovereignty survived a bit longer than that of other Native Americans in the region, but with the
influx of silver miners west of the Continental Divide in the 1870s, Chief Ouray had little option but to sign treaties
relinquishing traditional lands.
In 1879, the White River Band of Utes attacked federal troops and White River Indian agent Nathan Meeker and
his family near the present-day town of Meeker. All Utes suffered vicious American reprisals. By 1881, Utes not
removed to forsaken lands in Utah were left with a narrow 15-mile-wide plateau in southwestern Colorado.
