Ute Mountain Ute Tribe - History

History

The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe are descendants of the Weeminuche band who moved to the Southern Ute reservation in 1897. Two thousand years ago, the Utes lived and ranged in the mountains and desert over much of the Colorado Plateau: much of present day eastern Utah, western Colorado, northern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico. The use of lands in the Four Corners area, where the Ute Mountain Ute tribe now live, though, came later. Most anthropologists agree that Utes were established in the Four Corners area by 1500 A.D. The Ute people were hunters and gatherers who moved on foot to hunting grounds and gathering land based upon the season. The men hunted animals, including deer, antelope, buffalo, rabbits, and other small mammals and birds. Women gathered grasses, nuts, berries, roots, and greens in woven baskets; They also processed and stored meat and plant materials for winter use. Ute in the western part of their territory lived in wickiups and ramadas; Hide tipis were used in the eastern reaches of their territory.

• Ute Native Americans, 1878, Arizona Historical Society

• Ute wickiup used in the western regions

• Tipis painted by George Catlin who visited a number of tribes in the 1830s and recorded Native American daily life

As a result of American westward expansion, the Utes now possess only a small fraction of the land that they once traveled seasonally. The Ute people consist of three populations of people:

• Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation near Fort Duchesne in northeastern Utah.
• The Southern Ute live on a reservation in southwestern Colorado near Ignacio.
• The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe headquartered in Towaoc, Colorado, the subjects of this article.