Ute Teepee, Los Pios Agency, Colorado

WILLIAM HENRY JACKSON (1843-1942)

Ute Teepee, Los Pios Agency, Colorado

Between 1878 and 1881

In Mesa, Canon, and Pueblo, Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859-1928) described the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest as "peaceable and industrious, quiet farmers by profession, as they were when the world first found them." Lummis clearly intended to highlight the virtues of his "Original Americans," but his statement also underscores white America's definition of the "civilized" Indian and serves as a reminder of the U.S. government efforts to "reform" American Indian culture. In 1868, for example, the United States government established a 15-million-acre reservation in western Colorado for the Utes, a nomadic Great Basin tribe whose traditional territory ranged from western Colorado to eastern Utah and northern New Mexico. The Los Pios Agency, pictured here, and the White River Agency were opened to assist the Utes in their new careers as farmers. Not surprisingly, farming without irrigation in such an arid environment failed miserably, but officials such as John Wesley Powell (1834-1902) insisted that it was the only option for the Utes: "The sooner this country is entered by white people and the game destroyed so that the Indians will be compelled to gain a subsistence by some other means than hunting, the better it will be for them."

Albumen print

Princeton Collections of Western Americana, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.