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The Gottfredson Files

 

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Our Story Is Cosmic And Reflects Our Relationship With The Universe

 

It is a lesson that America should learn and live by. Great nations are judged by how they treat their indigenous people. If America had treated its indigenous people fairly and justly and had taken this lesson to heart in the way it treats the indigenous people of other worlds, would 9/11 have happened? It is something to ponder. The signs, posters and stickers may be gradually disappearing, but I hope the deep feelings that caused them to be exhibited are never lost.

(Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the former editor and publisher of Indian Country Today. He is the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association.)

 

EAGLE WALKING TURTLE

The following is taken from Eagle Walking Turtles book titled Indian America published in 2001.

"More than 50,000 years ago, our people arrived on this continent. There were seven original people--three men and four women. They came from Man Carrier (our name for the Big Dipper). From these seven people, our people developed.

In the early days men were strong, living without fire, hunting small animals and birds, using sharp shells, stones, or bones to butcher their kills. Later, one of the people, named Moves Walking, had a vision from the sun and learned how to make fire. From then on, our people cooked their meat by boiling it in water heated by hot stones.

All of our people  lived together on the shores of a great sea in the south, known now as the Gulf of Mexico. They had chiefs to lead them, and warrior societies developed to maintain order. When our people became too numerous, a medicine person called Slow Buffalo had a vision that everyone should disperse throughout the land. The main council of chiefs divided our people into seven bands, appointed a chief for each band, and divided the common fire among them to establish a permanent relationship.

Oral history recalls only three of the bands chiefs appointed at the council, High Hollow Horn led his people east to little Turtle Island (Atlantis). Slow Buffalo led his people west; they found the sacred arrows, and eventually they found the horse. These people became the Cheyenne, Kiowa, and other tribes. Moves Walking (probably a direct descendent of Moves Walking who was one of the original people) led his people north; they domesticated the dog and were given the Sacred Pipe Bundle. These people became the Sioux and the Arapahoe. Slow Buffalo named the directions and created kinship relations that became the standards for living in peace and harmony.

As our people dispersed, names were created for everything, and languages became different. Customs grew from the differences found in the environment. Because of our living together like relatives, we were doing just fine. We roamed the country wild and free; there was plenty, and we were never in want. The Great Spirit gave us our spirituality, based on the four directions and on the four-legged animals. Through them we sent our voices and prayers to Him that created us all and intended us all to be relatives.

So, our story is cosmic and reflects our relationship with the universe and the whole of all living things. Long before the coming of Europeans to this continent, a man named Wooden Cup foresaw  in visions the coming of white men, the disappearance of all animals back into the earth, and the destruction of our lifeways. Prophecies such as this taught our people that certain events were inevitable and that the outward defeat of our culture was a part of a cosmic plan, not the result of individual failings. This lifted the burden of responsibility from us all, our people and foreigners alike.

But, unfortunately, the foreigners did not comprehend the relationship that our people had with all living things. The foreigners had been native people, and they had had such a relationship centuries before, but with the coming of their industrial revolution everything had been lost. They did not know that the four-leggeds and the wings of the air and our Grandmother Earth were supposed to be relatives.

Then the foreigners came on us like floods of water. They covered every bit of the land we had. We looked for islands where we were free to save our people, but we could not do it. We were always leaving our lands as floods of foreigners devoured the people and the four-leggeds even as we tried to flee. Eventually we came to three small islands were we are today, and the flood and it's influences are all around us.

Even the four-leggeds have been forced to live on islands create by the foreigners. The four-leggeds will vanish because of the greed of the foreigners will eliminate their environment. The flood closes in on us continually. The spirituality that our people had was left behind as they fled.

Now we are nothing but prisoners of war on our small islands. We are surrounded by the people we had befriended when they first arrived on our lands.

The first thing our people learn as children is to love each other and to be relatives to our four-leggeds. The next thing is to stand by your word. The Great Spirit made all men all alike, and we should treat all our fellowmen alike. We tried to love the foreign people as we did ourselves. On account of this, many of our people are now in misery. The foreign were men like us in all but their color, and we wanted to live in harmony with them. But now we see that the foreign people have done harm to our people.

As you read Indian America, you will find that our people live today on reservations. Even these small islands have been broken up by private and other government land within the reservation. In many places, our people live in communities without any reservation left at all. Our housing is often built with the help of HUD, and the policies of the federal government combined with the policies of our own sovereign governments have created a system that provides houses, mainly for relatives of those on the tribal council. Greed has spread to our own people; it may be one of the worst traits that the foreigners brought with them.

The houses are often in project tracts in rows. Some are Easter egg houses in pink, turquoise, and blue; stucco houses to imitate adobe in the Southwest; and urban development solar heated styles similar to the one that you may live in. Shacks and log houses are here. Beer cans and dogs and wrecked cars may be in the yards of our people. The domed-shaped structure behind the house is a sweat lodge. The tipis are usually for Peyote meetings of the Native American Church. What you see will depend on what part of our country you are in. Reservations and our people's lifestyles vary greatly in America. Watch for the bumper stickers on our cars: America Is Indian Country; Fry Bread Power; Custer Wore Arrow Shirts; Custer Died For Your Sins; Indians Should Have Better Immigration Laws; and more. Indian humor is tongue-in-cheek, but we know why we are laughing.

And our sense of humor is reviving along with our spirituality. The spirit and philosophy of our ceremonies is becoming strong again in the Offerings Lodge (the Sun Dance), the Native American Church, the Sweat Lodge, the Stomp Dance, and the Kiva. We are aware of the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, and all living things within the whole of all living things that form the spokes of our Medicine Wheel. Each breath and act of our lives is reflected in our ceremonies and is tied to the spirit of the whole of all living things.

Our people on the small island reservations carry the spirit of the past in their hearts. Adjusting from the culture we left behind to the culture of the foreigners has not been easy. As you visit our small islands, you will be reminded of the atrocities committed against us by racial prejudice, greed, and government policies. You may be appalled by some of our living conditions. But if you attend one of our ceremonies or one of our powwows, the spirit of the goodness of the past will remind you of the time when your ancestors lived in tribes and felt a relationship with all living things. The great hoop of the Medicine Wheel is so big that everything is within it. It is the great hoop of all living things in the universe. We all are within it and have available the goodness only it can teach us.

Do not be afraid to follow the path of the Medicine Wheel with our people. Be extremely respectful at our ceremonies. Wear clothing that reflects that respect; maintain a quiet and respectful attitude; and follow the manners of the native people who are there. You will learn that the Medicine Wheel and the sacred places and look up to pray with the whole of all living things; look down to pray with our Great Mother Earth. All places are sacred, and the great hoop of the Medicine Wheel is always with us. It is with us everywhere, not just in a church building but in the mountains, in the hills, in the woods, and streams, in the plains and valleys, and in the cities of our Grandmother. Within the great hoop there is a center; The heart of all living things resides there. It is where the Tree of Life will grow, leaf, bloom, and fill with singing birds from the wisdom of the elders--if we follow their direction. It is our responsibility to heed their words and warnings and to follow their teachings. The safety and everlasting life of the spirit is found beneath the Tree of Life. Do not be afraid to ask the elders and medicine people about our relationship with the whole of all living things. They will communicate to you the beauty of the great hoop, the Medicine Wheel.

Four quarters define the four directions around the great hoop. Each quarter has it's own sacred colors and sacred objects that represent the four directions, the whole of all living things, Grandmother Earth, and our own individual self.

The spiritual relationship with the Medicine Wheel and the whole of all living things can be and must be reestablished and maintained. The survival of the human race and all other living things depends on it.
We are earnestly pursuing the building of a bridge between our cultures that will bring the best of both into a new culture that portrays the goodness that the world holds for us with a place for all living things to live in happiness.

With one word defined and acted on and placed into reality, we can accomplish peace, harmony, happiness, and love throughout the whole of all living things. This one word is respect.
Aho"
 

Dehumanizing your victims is a necessary tactic in the process of conquest. Oglala Lakota patriot Russell Means said, "...who seems most expert at dehumanizing other people? And why? Soldiers who have seen a lot of combat learn to do this to the enemy before going back into combat. Murderers do it before going out to commit murder. Nazi SS guards did it to concentration camp inmates. Cops do it. Corporation leaders do it to the workers they send into uranium mines and steel mills. Politicians do it to everyone in sight. And what the process has in common for each group doing the dehumanizing is that it makes it all right to kill and otherwise destroy other people. One of the Christian commandments says, "Thou shalt not kill," at least not humans, so the trick is to mentally convert the victims into nonhumans. Then you can proclaim violation of your own commandment as a virtue." And I might add the same tactics were used by Spanish explorers from the time Columbus washed upon the shores of America.

1849-1850, Nuche in his 20's, witnessed as four of his family were brutally murdered when fired upon in a early morning surprise attack from Mormon militia at Battle Creek in the mountains above Pleasant Grove. According to the historic accounts, young Nuche was then taken captive along with six family survivors, and was transported to church headquarters in Salt Lake. Nuche

was then returned to Fort Utah dressed in a military shirt. He then was then made to witness the gruesome decapitation of his kin while held captive by the same Mormon militia at Fort Utah in Provo. While huddled together under the cannon platform inside the fort in the freezing winter cold, as many as fifty severed heads of his family were piled in open boxes and placed before Black Hawk and fellow captives for two weeks until they rotted and then were burned. This tactic was used to "teach the Indians a lesson." Can one fully comprehend the intended impact this "lesson" had on a young man's mind barely in his twenties, whose way of living could never have prepared him or his people for this brutal terror? Is there any question how demoralizing this was? As for those who performed this dark deed, they were never held accountable or punished, but were granted amnesty and regarded as heroes.

Jon Lurie
News From Indian Country
09-30-1995
Black Hawk's bones found in Mormon college basement.

(AP) -- The remains of Ute Chief Black Hawk were kept in the basement of the LDS Historical Department, but nobody remembered them until a Payson Boy Scout started looking.

Shane Armstrong, now 14, began looking into the life of Black Hawk in 1993 for his Eagle Scout Project. His goal was to have the chief's remains registered with the U.S. Forest Service.

"I thought it was weird that no one had records on him," Armstrong said.

I had the honor of interviewing Shane on camera for our documentary film. I asked Shane, "you were only 14 years old at the time. Your parents must have given you the idea?" To which Shane replied, "no, I had a teacher who told me a lot about Black Hawk. I was interested in him. I was curious where his bones were. When I started asking people no one knew."

A member of the family of Black Hawk told me the story of the day when they went to Brigham Young University to claim the remains of their ancestor. "We were taken to a two story house in Provo (Utah), and when we went in there were boxes, containing the remains of our ancestors. We had heard of there being the remains of many ancestors stored away in places, but it is one thing to hear about these things all our lives, and another to see. They opened one of the boxes and it was very emotional for us to see. Then we were taken into a room where there were more boxes. They pulled out one that they said was Black Hawk. Then when they opened the box, we knew it was our grandfather. It was very hard for us. There were many tears." I deeply felt the emotions as I was told this story. My eyes and heart opened to the generations of agony my friends have endured. My friend continued, "When we buried him at Spring Lake, the whites showed very little respect, offered no ceremony. It was just a matter of putting him in the ground. But we were filled with sorrow in our hearts. But we were also very angry for the disrespect toward us. As we concluded our ceremony, we looked up to see two hawks or eagles circling above us. They continued to circle then flew off to the east.”
 

Decedents of  Chief Nuche

Antonguer Black Hawk as pallbearers during re-burial ceremony. May, 1996

Spring Lake

The biggest lie told by our leaders and teachers is that the injustices imposed upon the Native American Indian people is all in the past. Nothing could be further from the truth!! We (none Native Indians) are as much victims of assimilation as are the Indians, as we are never told that the American Indian peoples are still wards of government, and worse they are all too often denied access to media and the justice system. If you think I am exaggerating, Google "Indian Country" and read about the human rights issues they have to deal with everyday.

 

 

Another Tea Pot Dome

“A Brief Oral History of the Terminated Uinta Indians” By: Illa Chivers,  “There is sure to be some who will disagree with what is written here and even retaliation by someone, somewhere, because of what is in this piece. This Article is but a brief History of the Uinta’s Heritage which is being disposed of systematically and is compiled from private oral interview’s!” The history plus the effects of Termination upon the Uinta Band who are tied into Government policy calling them Ute are truly Uinta Band Shoshone according to the Shoshone Goship Treaty of 1864.

In total the Uinta people hold three treaties, these are the 1850 treaty known as the Utah’s Ratified, the 1861 Executive Order signed by President Abraham Lincoln and the 1864 Shoshone Goship Treaty. Total land mass 2,487,474 acres.  The tie in occurred with the Brunot land cessions of Ute land in Colorado plus other actions implemented by the bureau concerning the Uinta Band.

The Ute Tribe has been called migrant by Utah political forces. Utah desires to abolish the entire reservation bringing all the Indians on the Uintah and Ouray (U & O) Indian Reservation under State authority, both politically and judicially.

Three Bands of Indians Reside Within The Uinta Reservation

Reservation. These three bands are the Uncompaghre Utes, the Whiteriver Utes and the Uinta Band of Shoshone. The Uncompaghre and Whiteriver bands of Ute’s are part of the five confederated bands of Ute’s from Colorado. These Confederated Ute bands once held a treaty with the United States dated 1868. The Yampa Indians living in the area in what is now known as Meeker Colorado also once held an independent Treaty with the United States and they too were labeled as Ute’s. Today this band is known as the Whiteriver band of Ute Indians.

The remaining three confederated Ute bands are known as the White Mountain Ute’s, the Ute Mountain Ute’s and the Southern Ute’s and are located on reservation’s in southern Colorado.

The Uinta Band are the soul owner’s of the U&O, aka Uinta Valley, Reservation by treaty. The land and treaty has been abrogated since day one. In docket #44 and 45 entered in the Court of Claims in Washington D.C. both the legislative and Judicial branches of the Government Claims Commission reaffirmed the ownership of the Uinta Band! Today the Uinta Band is facing extinction because of Governmental and Ute Indian Tribal policy’s being revised time and again.  Research into the discrimination on the Uintah & Ouray Reservation towards the Uinta Band was found to have began with the Indian Reorganization Act (I.R.A.) of 1934 which was implemented on the reservation in 1937. According to Oral history, the Government had to bring in interpreters as translators because the Uinta Band could not communicate with the other two Ute Bands cause the Uinta’s spoke Shoshone not Ute, the Indians on the reservation rejected the IRA when it was first introduced in 1934, but the Government asked them to try it for three years. They said that at the end of the three year period Government Officials would return and hold a referendum by the tribal members which was never held.  In 1937 the IRA was put into motion as policy decreeing the IRA tribal charter and bylaws.

With the implementation of the IRA the three segregated bands residing on the reservation became one glorified corporation, the Ute Indian Tribe, and which forced the Uinta’s into becoming Ute’s, classifying all three band as Ute’s. Plus the name of the Reservation was changed from the Uinta Valley Reservation to the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. The IRA did away with the traditional Tribal Counsel which was replaced with a Tribal Business Committee made up of two elected members from each of the three bands. By setting up this form of Tribal Government it gave too much power to the Business Committee because it never allowed for any checks and balances which allow’s the Business committee to pass resolution’s without the consent of Tribal members. The members of the Tribe have no way of countering any actions taken by Business Committee member’s.  The Business Committee has passed several resolutions over the years that has hurt Tribal members and Tribal jurisdiction over land belonging to the Tribe.  Utah Code #1953 is a law and order code giving the tribe a guise of holding authority to prosecute Tribal member’s in Tribal Court for committing offences on the reservation but does not give Tribal authority’s jurisdiction to prosecute Non-Indians who break the law on the reservation. This code was accepted and passed by the Business Committee without offering a referendum to Tribal Member’s so they could voted on it and voice their opinion one way or another.  The Department of the Interior claims to uphold Tribal sovereignty. The only case of the Ute Tribe using this sovereign authority is against the terminated Uinta Indians concerning their hunting and fishing rights which was never terminated in which the 10^th U.S. District Court of Utah affirmed. Politically the Ute Tribe is the majority. Those who Page-2 were terminated under the Ute Partition Act are the minority without a voice in matters such as hunting and fishing because of their status as Indian under the law.

Starting in the late 1940’s and continuing though the 1950’s, the policy in Washington D.C. toward Indians was termination. The late Arthur Watkins, Senator from Utah was the chairman of the Senate committee on Indian Affairs from 1947 until about the mid 1950’s. Senator Watkins became known in the Indian world as the villain of Termination. By 1953 this policy had been set in motion.

The Government conducted a survey in 1950 of several Indian Tribes who were being considered for termination to find out if they were ready for termination. The survey taken on the U & O Indian Reservation in Watkins own state of Utah was returned NO! Which was ignored because Senator Watkins had his mind made up that the Ute Partition Act would be made law even before the survey was conducted. The U.P.A. was to become the first of many Act’s that was passed by Congress taking away Indian Identity and ruining countless numbers of live’s.

Virtually every Indian Tribe who was eventually terminated was forced to give up their reservation lands containing some of the largest natural resource in the western hemisphere. Thirteen American Indian Tribes were terminated as whole tribes. But only the Ute Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation was the only tribe where a part of the Tribe became victims of termination and they were 490 members of the Uinta Band.

When the U.P.A. was forced upon the Uinta Indians, the Uinta band numbered 760 members. On August 27, 1954, three quarters of the Uinta band were forced out of the Ute Tribe leaving those Uinta’s who remained in the Tribe a minority without a voice in Tribal politics because the Tribal Business Committee out number the Uinta Delegates four to two. The other two migrant Bands now out numbered the remaining Uinta people by approximately one thousand in head count when it comes to voting on referendum’s concerning Tribal business.

In 1951 the Uinta people was forced to accept a resolution known as the 1950 share and share alike agreement linked to a claim won in the Court of Claims which was the Colorado Judgement Money. This document was taken behind closed doors after the Uinta Band was forced to vote under duress. Government officials along with the Tribal Attorney changed the resolution to include all the lands and minerals belonging to the Uinta Band Treaty People.  This resolution was signed by Uncompaghre and Whiteriver Ute representatives only. No Uinta representative on the Tribal business committee was present. By the time the Uinta’s found out what had been done to them it was too late because the resolution had already been passed by Congress in August of 1951.

This is how the resolution read’s.

(Where as, said Act of Congress further provided as follows:

None of the funds involved herein shall be credited or distributed to the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, consisting of the Uintah, Uncompaghre, and Whiteriver Utes, until the Uncompaghre and Whiteriver Bands present to the Secretary of the Interior a release satisfactory to him relieving the United States of any liability resulting from the inclusion of the Uintah Band in the disposition or use of said trust funds.)

Starting with the Allotment Act of 1902 an (h) was added to the spelling of the word Uinta in all Government documents having to do with the Ute Indian Tribe on the U & O Reservation. The h was also used in the Indian Reorganization Act (I.R.A) as identification on the segregated Corporate identification roll.

The elders of the Uinta Band have always wondered why this was done. Was it a mistake made by a typist within the Government or was it deliberately done by Government officials to distort official documents so that the true identity of the Uinta’s could not be linked to the Shoshone Goship Treaty of 1864 but instead used to link the Uinta’s to the Ute’s.  Some Indians believe it was intentional done by Government Officials to distort the true identity of the Uinta’s!  In 1953 a delegation from the Reservation made a trip to Washington D.C. to participate in the National Congress of American Indians. Julius Murray spokesman for the Uinta Band was part of the delegation representing the Ute Indian Tribe of the U & O reservation. According to Mr. Murray he noticed the Uncompaghre delegate get up and leave during one of the cessions. Wondering why this person was leaving the meeting with a Government Official, Mr. Murray followed the delegate to an office with in the Department of the Interior.  Standing out side the office door, Mr. Murray couldn’t help over hearing these two persons talking because the door to the office was left open.

It didn’t take the two men long to realized that Mr. Murray was standing in the hall. They invited him in and said you may as well come in and learn what is going on. We, “meaning the Government and the Ute Tribe” are going to terminate the Uinta mixed-bloods members of the tribe on the reservation.  The Bureaucrat with the Uncompaghre delegate was a Carl Cornelius an official from the Interior Department.  In early 1954, Senator Watkins had the termination plan for the Ute Indian Tribe brought to the U & O Reservation. A meeting was called in which all the members of the Ute Tribe who were 21 years and older and eligible to vote. There is no clear record of how many attended this meeting, but it is a known fact that no Uinta Band member voted for termination.

The Uinta people who attended this meeting got up and walked out in protest which was the old Indian way of casting a NO vote. Only eight Uinta’s stayed and they voted no!  Termination was forced upon the Uinta’s by 152 members of the Uncompaghre and Whiteriver Bands. At the time of voting there was only 160 members of the Ute Indian Tribe present which should have made the meeting and the vote null and void because 160 people were not a major of the eligible voting members to make a quorum. The census of the Ute Indian Tribe of the U & O reservation at the time this meeting was held was 1700.

After the vote a bureaucrat stood at the door and took down the names of the Uinta Indian as they left the building and who had voted NO!

The Uinta Band sent an emergency telegram to the Secretary of the Interior trying prevent the signing of the Ute Partition Act because there was not a majority of the member of the Ute Tribe present during the meeting. But to the knowledge of the Indians involved, the telegram never reach the Secretary of the Interior, it was intercepted by someone within the Department and was destroyed.

In the days that followed the vote on termination. Some of the Uinta people and their Elders gathered to hold a meeting at the Tribal head quarters in Ft. Duchesne to figure out a plan to prevent the illegal termination of their Uinta Band members.  The Tribal Business Committee with the backing of the superintend from the BIA, which was instigated by the Uinta’s own Attorney John Boyden, declared this meeting an illegal protest and called in Federal law enforcement to break up the meeting, which violated the Uinta’s Constitutional right to freedom of assembly.

Two of the Uinta’s main Elder’s, Julius Twohy and Etta McCurdy, were arrested and transported to and incarcerated in the Federal Jail in Salt Lake City. Other Uinta’s who were present at the meeting were arrested and hauled off to the Uintah County Jail in Vernal, UT. None of those arrested were put in the Local reservation Jail.

Julius Twohy and Etta McCurdy were convicted and sent to prison. The others were held for a time and released. A writ of habeas corpus was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, Central Division by William C. Reed before Federal Judge Willis Ritter who was hearing cases in Boise Idaho. According to testimony giving by Julius Twohy the incarceration of those attending the meeting was perpetrated by their own legal counsel “John S. Boyden” who was legal representative to both the Terminated Indians and the Ute Indian Tribe! William C Reed served as a Deputy U.S. Marshal in the early 1900,s and was a member of the Uinta Band.  On October 11, 1960 the matter of the petition of Julius Twohy and Etta McCurdy for a writ of Habeas Corpus was heard before Judge Ritter in Salt Lake City. Julius Twohy and Etta McCurdy were represented by Ronald Boyce an Attorney from Salt Lake City who presented evidence that these two Uinta Elders had their Constitutional Sixth Amendment rights to Legal Counsel denied them.

After hearing from both sides, Judge Ritter ruled in favor of Julius Twohy and Etta McCurdy and they were ordered to be released from custody.

After his release, Julius Twohy, a proud full-blood Uinta leader was black listed for defending his nation and was forced to live in exile amidst his own people for the remainder of his life. The story behind Julius Twohy’s ordeal is not widely known and will be honored at another time.  Of the 490 terminated Uinta’s, 258 were minor Children in 1954 when this forced termination came about. Many Uinta children were denied enrollment who where born between 1940 and 1954. Two or maybe three families were singled out whose children were full blood Uinta’s and were terminated without their parents consent. They also Terminated a few Uncompaghre children in order to make it look as if there was no discrimination involved in terminating only members of the Uinta Band . The only Indians who were given a choice were Adult Indians listed on the corporate roll’s as full-blood.  Soon after the two rolls had been complied the Government took possession of names to in order to keep anyone from contesting any names being added to the final roll under the termination list. Ninety day’s after the final roll was complied a notice was to be published in a local area newspaper but instead it was published in a newspaper based in Salt Lake City, Utah which was 150 miles west of the Reservation. Very few Indian had any knowledge that the notice had been published. In the 1950’s very few Indians read, let along purchased, any newspaper that was not from the Uinta Basin area.

The Title Nine lands belonging to the terminated minors are now 98% owned by the Ute Indian Tribe which is being held in common grazing stock. These lands fell under two corporate organized under State law. The Antelope Sheep Range Corporation and the Rock Creek Cattle Corporation.  With the passage of the UPA the terminated Uinta Indians became tax pawns to the State of Utah which plunged many into poverty reducing them to third class citizen’s. Denied help of any kind because of their status as Indians under Public Law 83-671 68 stat. 868 many were reduced to State Welfare roll’s . The cultivated lands the Government claims that were divided and given to the terminated Indians were in reality put up for bid and sold to Non-Indians by the BIA. Very few Terminated Indian received anything except a hand few who had a family member seated on the old Affiliated Ute Citizens board of directors and the Ute Distribution Corporation which was established in 1957 to replace the old AUC and put in operation three years before it was made legal under the law in 1961.

Each Terminated Uinta was to receive stock shares from each of the two corporations. One share from the Rock Creek Cattle Corp. was for two and one half head of cattle. One share from the Antelope Sheep Range Corp. was for 10 head of Sheep. These share’s were nothing more then grazing rights.  The Terminated Indian’s never were allowed to take personal possession of these stocks. Officials claim receipts were issued to each individual for their interest when the stock was deposited in the trust account at the First Security bank of Utah. The terminated Indians said if receipts were issued for their interests they must be under lock and key because the Indians claim they never saw a receipt yet along receive one!  This is what the Department of the Interior calls the pro rata share in the division of land and assets under the Ute Partition Act.

The following quote is taken from documented material.  With the minor trust accounts deposited with the First Security Bank of Utah in Salt Lake City Utah under the trust agreement. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs on June 15.  1960 and again on September 27, 1960 approved the sale of grazing shares held in trust and approved expenditures of Ute Tribal Funds for the purchase of these shares belonging to the minor children who were terminated. This purchase of the minor children’s shares along with the purchase from adult mixed-bloods not under section 22, made it possible for the Full-blood Utes to acquire control of both Corporation’s. Some of the Mixed-Blood parents tried to stop the First Security Bank Trust department from selling their minor children’s stock but were denied.

 

 

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