The Ute Indians, for whom the state of Utah is named, had an aboriginal homeland which included much of the present-day states of Colorado and Utah as well as portions of New Mexico and Arizona. The name Ute means “high up” or “land o fthe sun.”
Carl Waldman, in his book Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, describes Ute territory this way:
“The forested slopes of the Rockies offered much more wildlife than the Basin floor and the Basin uplands. And the rivers flowing westward from the Great Divide provided plentiful fish for food.”
While it is common today for historians and others to speak of the Ute Indians as though they were a single tribe, in fact there were many politically autonomous Ute tribes which were unified by a common language and cultural heritage. The Ute language is a part of the larger Uto-Aztecan language family and is closely related to Shoshone and Paiute.
Each Ute band had a well-defined territory, but their territorial claims were not exclusive. Attorney Parker Nielson, in his book The Dispossessed: Cultural Genocide of the Mixed Blood Utes, points out:
“Land was viewed as a gift of creation, to be shared in common, and was not an object of private possession.”
As with other Indian nations, trade among the diverse Indian peoples was well-developed long before the coming of the Europeans. Parker Nielson writes:
“They bartered with the desert tribes to the west, with the Navajo and Pueblo Indians to the south, and with the Plains Indians as far distant as the panhandle of present-day Texas and Oklahoma.”
In addition to trade goods, information—news and gossip—flowed along the trade routes. The Utes heard about the Spanish invaders in Mexico long before they encountered any Spaniards. They had undoubtedly heard about Spanish cruelty and barbarism and the strange Spanish lust for gold and silver.
In their conquest of Mexico, the Spanish obtained massive wealth in the form of precious metals (gold and silver) so their expeditions from Mexico into the Southwest also looked for this form of wealth. The Spanish began their exploration of the Southwest in 1539 and by the end of the century Spanish colonization of the area had begun. From an American Indian viewpoint, the Spanish, settlers, priests, and soldiers, were intolerant, demanding, and cruel.
The Spanish colonists brought horses with them, and the Utes soon acquired horses from their Pueblo trading partners. The Utes played a key role in the diffusion of the horse into the Plains, Great Basin, and Plateau tribes. They also became the first horse-mounted Indian warriors and by the eighteenth century had acquired a reputation among the Spanish as a warlike tribe. Carl Waldman writes:
“With increased mobility, the Utes became wide-ranging raiders and traders.”
As the Spanish moved north, they continued to look for gold and silver and to pursue any rumors about these precious metals. In the late sixteenth century, Spanish expeditions from New Mexico were searching for precious metals in Arizona and other areas.
In 1765, Juan María Antonio de Rivera (1738-?) was commissioned to lead an exploring expedition to search for silver deposits in the mountains north of Santa Fe and to verify the existence of the Colorado River and its canyons. The Spanish had heard stories from the Ute about silver deposits and in one instance a Ute man had brought a lump of virgin silver ore to the blacksmith at Abiquiú. Rivera appears to have had some practical mining experience.
Since the Ute were sensitive to the appearance of Spanish military, the expedition had no armed escort and disguised themselves as traders. Knowing the Utes reputation as warriors, the Spanish expedition knew that it was vital to appear to be a peaceful trading and exploring group.
On his first entrada, Rivera followed a trail known as the Navajo War Trail, or the Ute Slave Trail, which runs into present-day Colorado and Utah. Near the present-day town of Bayfield, Colorado they found ruins of an ancient town and what appeared to have been a smelter where gold was separated from ore.
Near present-day Durango, Colorado, they encountered a Ute camp under the leadership of a man they called El Capitán Grande. Here they talked with the daughter of the man who had taken the lump of silver to Abiquiú. She gave them directions to the location of the silver. However, the Spanish explorers were unable to locate the silver source.
With the guidance of a Ute whom they called Capitán Asigare, the Spanish traveled to the Dolores River near the present-day town of Dolores, Colorado. From here, Asigare had them send out a small party to contact the Payuchi Ute under the leadership of Chino. Chino told them that he would show them the river crossing if they returned in the fall.
The Spanish returned to Santa Fe and reported to the governor. In the fall they began the second entrada. They traveled back to Colorado and made contact with Chino. With their Ute guides, the Spanish started out to find the river crossing. Clell Jacobs, in an article in the Utah Historical Quarterly, reports:
“It is apparent the Utes wanted to make the trip so difficult and dangerous that Rivera would become discouraged and disheartened, give up his quest, and return to Santa Fe without finding the crossing and without making contact with the people on the other side of the river.”
The Ute guides led the Spanish on a circuitous and difficult route to the camp of the Tabejuache Ute under the leadership of Tonampechi near present-day Moab, Utah. Tonampechi attempted to discourage further exploration but was unsuccessful. The expedition continued to the Colorado River. Two of the Ute guides were then sent across the river to contact the people on the other side and to invite them to trade. The guides returned with five Sabuagana Ute warriors who told them that some of the people were hiding from the Spanish because they feared Spanish reprisals for having killed some Spanish years earlier.
The Spanish returned to New Mexico and Rivera made no new entries in his journal after leaving the Uncompahgre Valley. While the Spanish went back to New Mexico unsuccessful in their attempt to find mineral wealth in Ute territory, for the next two centuries the Utes would continually have to deal with European and American greed for gold and silver.
Indians 101/201
This series presents a variety of American Indian topics. Indians 201 is an expansion/revision of an earlier essay. More eighteenth century histories from this series:
Indians 201: The Iroquois Peace, 1700-1713
Indians 101: The eighteenth-century fur and hide trade
Indians 101: Little Turtle's War
Indians 101: Russians and Native Americans in the 18th century
Indians 201: The Royal Proclamation of 1763
Indians 201: Pontiac's War
Indians 201: The Yamasee War and the Indian Slave Trade
Indians 201: Moor's Indian Charity School