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. The earliest of the letters follows:
Executive
Department,
Colorado Territory
Denver, Colorado
October 17, A.D. 1874.
At a conference held between E.M. McCook, governor of Colorado, and Ouray, Chief of the Utes, in which Ouray made the following statements:
First. That he believes that the eastern boundary of the reservation was surveyed in the interests of a company for the purpose of a speculation without regard to the parties concerned in the treaty, for the following reasons: first, Mr. Samuel Elbert informed him that nephew of his run the eastern boundary, and from information received from other sources the Utes believe that the surveyors made a false location for the purpose of throwing outside of their reservation arable lands and townsites. He thinks that Ex-Governor Hunt, Evans, Elbert, and Judge Bennett were interested in the speculation. He believes that when the government makes treaty it is with the intention of complying in good faith with its conditions. In regard to the treaty of 1873, he says that the Utes had not any intention and do not understand that they sold any portion of their reservation except that wherein the mines are located; that they especially reserved all arable and pastoral lands; that it was the understanding of the Utes that the boundary of the conceded portion should follow the base of the mountains.
Referring to the treaty as published, he says that it was not so interpreted to him. That the lines proposed to be established therein have never been agreed to by the Utes, and that they protest against the occupancy of any part of their reservation outside the mining region. That without waiting till the boundaries should be established by the government, the whites have taken possession of their farming lands, and in some instances have dispossessed the Utes of farming lands that they held as homesteads. That one “Morse”, a Mormon, who has some knowledge of the Ute language, has claimed a tract twenty miles square of the most desirable lands; he says that he bought it of the Utes, and laid out a town-site, and asks the whites to assist him in keeping possession of it.
This is one of the many instances that could be cited to show the necessity for prompt interference on the part of the government to prevent a collision and probable war between the settlers and the Utes. That he trusts that the matters will receive the attention of Congress at its earliest convenience.
Ouray,
Chief of the Utes.
Special to the Herald Times
