Indigenous peoples have lived in the area now known as the state of Utah for thousands of years. Today they are divided into five main groups: Utes, Goshutes, Paiutes, Shoshone, and Navajo. Each occupies a different region within the state, many of which regions extend across borders into other states. In the 2010 census, [1] there were a total of 32,927 American Indian and Alaska Natives living within the state, which totaled to 1.19% of the total population of Utah.
Evidence has shown that people have been drawn to areas in Utah as long as 10,000 years ago, specifically in the Escalante Valley in Southern Utah as well as in the Great Basin, near the Utah/Nevada border. [2] The earliest time in Utah's human history is classified by archaeologists as Paleoachaic, which dates back to 11,000 years ago, with evidences of occupation over 11 feet below the current ground level. [2] There is very little information on these times, except that the peoples depended on wild foods to sustain themselves. Hunters had much success in going after deer, beaver, marmots, and even poultry such as ducks, grouse, and turkeys. Different tools were used to capture prey, and after the kill the leftover meat was dried and preserved. The men primarily did the hunting, while the women searched for plants and processed them. Occasionally they participated in small game hunting. [2]
The practice of farming only started to become popular in the first few centuries A.D. and continued until around A.D.1300. In these farms many things were grown such as corn, beans, and squash, meanwhile the practice of hunting and gathering continued. [2] During this period trade also became very important among the people of the Fremont culture and the Anasazi, who inhabited the region. [2] Although much information about these ancient peoples is gained through archaeology, it is only after the arrival of Europeans in the 1700s that their history is preserved through writing.
Spain was the "owner" of most of the western part of Utah before the westward expansion by the United States. [3] In 1765, Juan Maria Antonia Rivera and his party may have been some of the first Euro-Americans to explore parts of Utah. 11 years later, Dominguez and Escalante traveled through Utah, in what would become a famous expedition. [3] The Spanish "claimed" the land, although the number of Indigenous peoples inhabiting the land far outnumbered the few Spanish explorers. [3]
For around the next 85 years mainly fur trappers and traders would pass through the state. Jedediah Smith and Jim Bridger were among the first, later followed by Peter Skene Ogden, Miles Goodyear, and Etienne Provost. [3] The relations between the trappers and Natives were varied, some were friendly and some were hostile. Over time, the trappers and traders learned to communicate better with the Natives, first through signs and later on some even learned their native tongues and intermarried with the Native women. [4]
July 24, 1847 is recognized as the day the Mormon Pioneers entered into the Salt Lake Valley. This day is now a holiday celebrated in Utah, known as Pioneer Day. However, when the Mormon Pioneers arrived, they did not happen onto an empty landscape. It is estimated that around 20,000 Native Americans already inhabited the land now encompassed by the boundaries of Utah. [5]
The first few years of settlement, the relations were generally peaceful and some trading occurred. As the pioneers would settle the land beyond the Salt Lake Valley, the Native Americans became more displaced and tensions started to arise. [5] Although most conflicts were resolved peacefully, this was the start of the deterioration of the relations. In 1853 the Walker War was started, and was then followed by the Black Hawk War in 1865. [5] Once the 1870s began, federal policy on Native American relations began to be enacted in a more organized manner, which created less personal disputes among the Natives and the settlers. This was the start of a period of around 100 years with many different policies and practices regarding the Native Americans in Utah and across the country. [5]
Since 1900, fifty percent of Native Americans have been enrolled in public school. The government did not want a large need for Indian reservations so they used public schools as a way to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. [6] The idea was that the Native Americans would leave their culture behind by assimilating to white culture. Overall, the feeling of white Utah residents regarding the integration of Native Americans was not positive. Many teachers were openly against the integration and that made school difficult for Native Americans. The hostility was in part because Native Americans lived on non-taxable reservations so they did not pay taxes for school. [6] There were reported incidents of bus drivers not picking up Native American students. Racism was present in the school system. [6] This problem continued for Native American children until the Indian Education Act of 1972. This helped some Native American children but a lot of Native American children dropped out of school before this. [6]
The history of Native American sovereignty is usually divided into four categories: aboriginal culture and sovereignty in pre-Columbian times, movement of Native Americans onto reservations, assimilation through policy passed by Congress, and modern efforts of the Native Americans to establish sovereignty in Indian Country. [7] This history has created much confusion between the distinction of Native American sovereignty and the powers of the federal government. They were recognized as individual nations with treaty-making powers, with the right to their land and to govern however they desire, but also the process of assimilation sought to dissolve these powers. [5]
The lands in the state of Utah designated for Native Americans are reserved from "settlement, entry, sale, or other disposition and set aside of the use and benefit of [the Goshute] and other Indians on the public domain in the State of Utah". [7]
The 1975 Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act, which has allowed the tribes greater freedom in governing themselves through the administering of federal programs and having more control over their resources. [8]
Indian Reservations are places that are designated as places for Indigenous people to live. These places are run by the government of a specific Indigenous Nation instead of the state governments of the United States of America. [9] Federally recognized tribes govern the reservations. These tribes have a government-to-government relationship with the United States of America. [9] Reservations in Utah include The Skull Valley Reservation which is located in Tooele County, Utah. The Goshute people are the federally recognized tribe there. [9] There is also the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation, on which the Ute tribe is the federally recognized tribe to govern the land. This reservation is the second-largest in the US and is located in the Uintah, Duchesne, Wasatch, Grand, Carbon, Utah and Emery counties in Utah. [10] Not all indigenous people that live in Utah live on Indian Reservations. About 46% of indigenous people in Utah live in urban Salt Lake. Many also live in Weber, Utah, and Davis counties. The majority of the remaining 54% of the indigenous people in Utah live on the reservations. [11]
The Ute people are native to the states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The language they speak is Shoshonean. [12] They are ancestors of Uto-Aztecs and the people are now divided up into groups called bands. The bands of the Ute People include The Mouache, The Caputa, The Weenuchiu, The White River Ute, and The Pahvant. [12]
The Ute people used many different strategies to acquire food for their families. They would gather food from wild plants. Also the men would typically hunt larger animals while women would trap smaller animals. [12] There were some bands of the Ute people that began to farm, while others discovered how to use plants for medicine. [12]
The Goshute people are native to the Great Salt Lake Desert in Utah. They were very effective hunters and gatherers in this desert region. In their tradition, they believe to have always lived in the Great Salt Lake Desert. [13] Living in the desert region provided some benefits for the Goshutes, such as not being bothered by white settlers until the middle of the 1800s when Mormon settlers arrived. [13] When this happened they were pushed out of their territory.
The Paiute people are native to Utah and were a nomadic people that traveled quite frequently. Their original territory covered 30 million acres, in which they moved around following the seasons and animal migration. [14] Paiutes were relatively unharmed by European settlement until the 1850s when Mormon settlers came to their territory. [14] The most notable interaction between the Paiutes and the Mormons was in 1857 during the Mountain Meadows Massacre. After this massacre, the Paiute people have been very vocal about not being involved, while the Mormons at the time of the incident blamed them. [14]
The Shoshone people are native to Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah. The name Shoshone originates from a word from their own language, the plural of the term for a type of high-growing grass; they are sometimes referred to as the "Grass House People". [15] The Shoshone people are native to the Great Basin area. They were mainly a hunter-and-gatherer type of people, with bison meat being their most important resource. [15]
The Navajo people are native to the southwestern states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. They are the second-largest federally recognized tribe in the country with 300,000 people enrolled as Navajo. [16] The people were largely hunters and gatherers but eventually adopted farming techniques. The Navajo people originally lived in places that are now modern-day Mexico but when Spanish explorers came they were pushed back to Southern Utah and other southwest states. [17]
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions:
The Goshutes are a tribe of Western Shoshone Native Americans. There are two federally recognized Goshute tribes today:
The Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin are Native Americans of the northern Great Basin, Snake River Plain, and upper Colorado River basin. The "Great Basin" is a cultural classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas and a cultural region located between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, in what is now Nevada, and parts of Oregon, California, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah. The Great Basin region at the time of European contact was ~400,000 sq mi (1,000,000 km2). There is very little precipitation in the Great Basin area which affects the lifestyles and cultures of the inhabitants.
Antonga, or Black Hawk, was a nineteenth-century war chief of the Timpanogos tribe in what is the present-day state of Utah. He led the Timpanogos against Mormon settlers and gained alliances with Paiute and Navajo bands in the territory against them during what became known as the Black Hawk War in Utah (1865–1872). Although Black Hawk made peace in 1867, other bands continued raiding until the US intervened with about 200 troops in 1872. Black Hawk died in 1870 from a gunshot wound he received while trying to rescue a fallen warrior, White Horse, at Gravely Ford Richfield, Utah, June 10, 1866. The wound never healed and complications set in.
The Southern Paiute people are a tribe of Native Americans who have lived in the Colorado River basin of southern Nevada, northern Arizona, and southern Utah. Bands of Southern Paiute live in scattered locations throughout this territory and have been granted federal recognition on several reservations. Southern Paiute's traditionally spoke Colorado River Numic, which is now a critically endangered language of the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, and is mutually intelligible with Ute. The term Paiute comes from paa and refers to their preference for living near water sources. Before European colonization, they practiced springtime, floodplain farming with reservoirs and irrigation ditches for corn, squash, melons, gourds, sunflowers, beans, and wheat.
Western Shoshone comprise several Shoshone tribes that are indigenous to the Great Basin and have lands identified in the Treaty of Ruby Valley 1863. They resided in Idaho, Nevada, California, and Utah. The tribes are very closely related culturally to the Paiute, Goshute, Bannock, Ute, and Timbisha tribes.
Ute are an Indigenous people of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau in present-day Utah, western Colorado, and northern New Mexico. Historically, their territory also included parts of Wyoming, eastern Nevada, and Arizona.
Chief Walkara was a Northern Ute leader of the Utah Indians known as the Timpanogo and Sanpete Band. He had a reputation as a diplomat, horseman and warrior, and a military leader of raiding parties in Wakara's War.
The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe is one of three federally recognized tribes of the Ute Nation, and are mostly descendants of the historic Weeminuche Band who moved to the Southern Ute reservation in 1897. Their reservation is headquartered at Towaoc, Colorado on the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation in southwestern Colorado, northwestern New Mexico and small sections of Utah.
The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.
The Black Hawk War, or Black Hawk's War, is the name of the estimated 150 battles, skirmishes, raids, and military engagements taking place from 1865 to 1872, primarily between Mormon settlers in Sanpete County, Sevier County and other parts of central and southern Utah, and members of 16 Ute, Southern Paiute, Apache and Navajo tribes, led by a local Ute war chief, Antonga Black Hawk. The conflict resulted in the abandonment of some settlements and hindered Mormon expansion in the region.
The Ute Indian Tribe of the Uinta and Ouray Reservation is a federally recognized tribe of Indians in northeastern Utah, United States. Three bands of Utes comprise the Ute Indian Tribe: the Whiteriver Band, the Uncompahgre Band and the Uintah Band. The Tribe has a membership of more than three thousand individuals, with over half living on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. The Ute Indian Tribe operates its own tribal government and oversees approximately 1.3 million acres of trust land which contains significant oil and gas deposits.
The Shivwits Band of Paiutes is a sovereign, federally recognized tribe located in southwestern Utah. The Shivwits Band is one of five Bands comprising the inter-Tribal government of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah.
The Timpanogos are a tribe of Native Americans who inhabited a large part of central Utah, in particular, the area from Utah Lake east to the Uinta Mountains and south into present-day Sanpete County.
The Pahvant or Pahvants were a band of Ute people that lived in present-day Utah. Called the "Water People", they fished and hunted waterfowl. They were also farmers and hunter-gatherers. In the 18th century they were known to be friendly and attentive, but after a chief's father was killed by emigrating white settlers, a group of Pahvant Utes killed John Williams Gunnison and seven of his men during his exploration of the area. The bodies of water of their homeland were dried up after Mormons had diverted the water for irrigation. Having intermarried with the Paiutes, they were absorbed into the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah and relocated to reservations.
Northern Shoshone are Shoshone of the Snake River Plain of southern Idaho and the northeast of the Great Basin where Idaho, Wyoming and Utah meet. They are culturally affiliated with the Bannock people and are in the Great Basin classification of Indigenous People.
Utah, a state in the western United States that straddles the intersection of the Colorado Plateau, the Great Basin, and the Rocky Mountains, has been the traditional home of several Uto-Aztecan bands from a few tribes that are considered Paiute and Shoshone. The Shoshone in Utah belong to the Goshute and Northern Shoshone linguistic group, while the various Paiute peoples either belong to the Ute or Southern Paiute linguistic classifications. As such, in total, there are two Native American languages spoken in Utah: Shoshone and Colorado River Numic.
Wakara's War, also known as Walker's War was a dispute between the Ute people and the Mormon settlers in Utah Valley and surrounding areas. This war is characterized as a string of disputes and skirmishes over property and the land from July 1853 to May 1854. This war was influenced by factors such as religious differences, the slave trade, and the division of the Salt Lake Valley.
The Seuvarits Utes are a band of the Northern Ute tribe of Native Americans that traditionally inhabited the area surrounding present-day Moab, Utah, near the Grand River and the Green River. The Seuvarits were among the Ute bands that were involved in the Black Hawk War. The Seuvarits and other Ute bands were eventually relocated onto reservations by the United States government after their population severely declined after exposure to disease and war during the latter half of the 19th century.
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