2016-10-20_PERMIT FILE - C1981035A (18)

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ofeeten had amiable relationships with the Navajo Indians. The Weeminuche band was reported to be living among the Navajo near the Carrizo Mountains in 1818, and frequently participated in raiding excursions together. In 1833, Navajos were reported to be living among the Weeminuche in the vicinity of the La Plata River and Ute (Datil) Mountain (Schroeder 1965: 64). The peaceful interactions between the Navajo and Weeminuche and the likely adoption of cultural traits between the two groups has probably further obscured the ability of archaeologists to distinguish Ute and Navajo ethnicity from the non-perishable material culture of the archaeological record. The earliest historical reference to the Ute Indians is in A.D. 1626, when the Jemez Pueblo Indians told the Spaniards the Ute visited the area prior to Spanish settlement in A.D. 1598. The Spanish waged war on the Ute between A.D. 1637 and 1641, for unknown reasons and 80 Ute Indians were captured and used as slave labor in Santa Fe. By 1670, following the adoption of the horse and the rise of the tribe as a formidable force, the Spanish arranged their first treaty with the Ute (Schroeder 1965: 54). However, intermittent Ute raiding parties, particularly the Mouache and Comanche alliance, hampered the settlement of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado until the United States took control of the territory in 1848, after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo was signed with Mexico. However, conflicts with the Ute Indians apparently continued as the governor of New Mexico arranged the Treaties of Abiquiu with the Ute in 1855, whereby the Ute relinquished all territory in New Mexico with the exception of that area north of the San Juan River (Callaway et al 1986: 355). Due to increasing encroachment by Anglo and Hispanic settlers and subsequent conflicts with the Ute near Colorado City and the San Luis Valley, the Treaty of 1868 redefined the territory of the seven Ute bands and restricted them to the western third of Colorado. The Colorado Gold Rush began with the discovery of gold in the Colorado Springs and Denver area in 1859. By 1860, miners had found rich mineral deposits in the San Juan Mountains. Miners kept pouring into the region despite the Treaty of 1868 and by 1874 the United States had forced the Ute bands to sign another treaty, whittling the original Ute Reservation down to two narrow strips of land along the Colorado -Utah and Colorado -New Mexico borders (Delaney 1974: 52-55). Following the Meeker Massacre of 1879, the Northern Ute bands were forced from Colorado to remote lands in eastern Utah and the Southern Ute lands were again reduced to a small strip of land along the Colorado -New Mexico border. In 1894, the Hunter Act was passed, leading to the privatization of Indian lands. The Weeminuche had not signed the treaty as had the Capote and Mouache bands, and the Weeminuche were eventually given the western half of the remaining reservation lands (Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation). The checkerboard of land ownership that resulted from private allotments of the Capote and Mouache land on the east half of the reservation (Southern Ute Indian Reservation) was partially restored in 1937, when previous land holdings of some 222,016 acres of the original 523,079 acres not allotted (and sold to European settlers at $1.25 an acre) were returned to the Ute (Delaney 1974: 67-79). 4.1.6 European Tradition By 1859, the presence of gold was confirmed in the mountains of Colorado. In 1861, miners had crossed the Continental Divide and entered the San Juan Mountains. Placer mining, a low investment technique based on exploiting surface gravel deposits with pans, shovels, picks, and sluice boxes, was the primary mining technique employed throughout most of the 1860s. Miners established Animas City, just north of present-day Durango in 1861, for processing gold from ore. By the late 1860s, high investment lode mining (underground) was established due to limited and dwindling placer mine deposits, which required An Intensive CRI for GCC Energy's Proposed Groundwater Monitoring Wells on State and Private Lands in La Plata County, CO SEAS 16-098 October2016 14