The White River Museum has a collection of letters that Meeker founding father Thomas Baker kept for many years. There are letters from Nathan Meeker and prominent figures like Chief Ouray, ex-Indian Agents, and the violently anti-Indian Colorado Governor Pitkin, as well as various Army officers from 1874-1879. The letters tell a compelling story from a dramatic period of local history to be shared here.
Department of the Interior
Office of Indian Affairs,
Dec. 23, 1878.
Sir: Many complaints having from time to time reached this office of the absence from their reservation of various bands of Indians, it is deemed necessary that the instructions embraced in circular letter to superintendents and agents, issued under date of Dec. 17, 1874, forbidding the exercise of such roaming propensities on the part of Indians should be repeated, with certain modifications.
You are instructed to notify the Indians under your supervision that they must confine their movements wholly within the limits of their respective reservations; that under no pretext must they leave same without a special permit in writing from the agent, approved by this office, and no such permit will be granted except it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the agent and the office that the issuance of the same will injure to the benefit of the applicant or applicants, and will in no event be likely to prove disadvantageous to the Indian service.
The Interchange of visits between different parties or bands of Indians residing on reservations widely separated from each other is very objectionable, especially in cases where the route of travel from one reserve to the other necessitates frequent contact with white settlements or mining districts.
Whenever it shall be deemed either necessary or judicious to grant to Indians a permit of the character above mentioned, an escort of police should accompany them.
You will endeavor by every means in your power to impress upon the minds of your Indians the urgent necessity existing for a strict compliance with these instructions, and warn them that without this protection, they are liable to be looked upon and treated as hostile Indians, subject to arrest and punishment.
Very respectfully,
B. A. HAST,
Commissioner.
Special to the Herald Times
