Americans today shudder at the concept of ethnic
cleansing, but in the 19th century, it was widely considered a
noble endeavor, at least where Indians were concerned. The
Utes Must Go! by Peter R. Decker chronicles the sorry
treatment of that particular tribe. Taking its title from an 1870s
Denver Tribune editorial, the book recounts how
fear-mongering politicians ousted the Utes, a group of disparate,
far-ranging bands, from their traditional territories in Colorado
and Utah.
For two centuries, the Utes coexisted with
their Spanish and Mexican neighbors, but American settlers, pumped
up by Manifest Destiny, were not interested in amicable relations
with “a dissolute vagabondish, brutal and ungrateful race (that)
ought to be wiped from the face of the earth,” as the
Rocky Mountain News opined in 1863. Not all
whites wanted to see the Utes exterminated; some were bent on
“reforming” them. Equating Christianity, agriculture and capitalism
with civilization, they sought to turn the nomadic Utes from
communal hunter-gatherers into deed-holding farmers.
The
effort was doomed. In a fascinating chapter, Decker describes how
Nathan Meeker, a reformer who had participated in two failed
utopian communities, became the Indian agent for the White River
Reservation in northern Colorado. Meeker’s obsession with
forcing the Utes to farm led to the 1879 battle at Milk Creek. U.S.
Army troops invaded the reservation after Meeker alleged he’d
been assaulted by one Indian who didn’t want a valuable horse
pasture plowed. Scores died in the ensuing combat, and Meeker and a
number of other agency civilians were killed or abducted. The
consequent outcry led to the Utes’ removal from their lush
homelands to arid reservations in Utah and southern Colorado.
Well-researched and readable, The Utes Must
Go! is a tribute to a distinct but neglected people.
The Utes Must Go!
Peter R. Decker
256 pages,
softcover $17.95.
Fulcrum Publishing, 2004.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Forcing nomads to farm — the Utes’ sad story.
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