background image
white river poems 325
settling the country north of their White River
Reservation -- they did not recognize
the treaty ceding Middle and North Parks,
made by Ouray, but not with their consent --
they said this was Ute country. -- Q. That accounts,
then, for the fact that they have driven out,
or tried to, miners and others from that country.
-- A. Yes, sir. I have been ordered out myself,
a number of times. But then we made an agreement --
houses already built they would allow
to stand, but no more houses might be built,
for that was Ute land, they were saving it
for Ute deer and Ute antelope, they said.
They protested bitterly the bringing in
of cows, and fencing land and plowing it.
Horses they don't object to. Cows, however,
mean permanent settlers.
by Mr. DEERING:
They regard the cow as leading the advance of civilization?
-- A. Yes, sir. Last summer a group of Indians
ordered some miners near my lands to leave
within two days; and then before their eyes
began to fi re the grass and timber. Partly
from fear, partly because of the dense smoke,
the miners left -- and left their tools behind.
Colorow, who is the most characteristic,
perhaps, of any man among the Utes
of the White River band, led in these warnings --
up the Blue River valley, on the Swan River,
at Georgia Gulch and Buff alo Flats, we heard
of his entering houses and, if he found a woman
alone, taking her by the hair and making
the scalping motion, then telling her that she,
and her people, must leave within "two sleeps."
Last summer, camping with a hunting party
on the Bear River, we met Colorow,