All about the ancient tribes
Wars
1854 Ute War started by an attack by Utes on Fort Pueblo. The Utes were mainly from the Mouache band under the leadership of Chief Tierra Blanca. Several skirmishes resulted in the Indians suing for peace. 1855 In early summer, a treaty was concluded with the Caputa band and one with the Mouache band in August.
The Pawnee, Osage and Navajo also became enemies of the Plains Indians by about 1840. Some Ute bands fought against the Spanish and Pueblos with the Jicarilla Apache and the Comanche. The Ute were sometimes friendly but sometimes hostile to the Navajo.
Indians had to choose sides or try to stay neutral when the American Revolution broke out. Many tribes such as the Iroquois, Shawnee, Cherokee and Creek fought with British loyalists. Others, including the Potawatomi and the Delaware, sided with American patriots.
The current challenges and opportunities that the Ute face are similar to those of other Native American tribes that live on reservations. There are strong cultural differences between Utes and the rest of America that have resulted in poverty, educational difficulties and marginalization in society.
The Ute Black Hawk* War (1865-1868) erupted on account of the disruption white encroachment inflicted on ecosystems on which Native American populations depended. Indians began to steal cattle from the settlers to stave off starvation.
The Ute weren’t just all work and no play. They took a lot of time to play games. They played such games as dice, where if someone rolled certain symbols they would win. They also played games that were similar to baseball and kickball.
Utes were known for their tanned elk and deer hides which they traded along with dried meat tools and weapons. Around 1637 Ute captives escaping from the Spanish in Santa Fe fled, taking with them Spanish horses, thus making the Utes one of the first Native American tribes to acquire the horse.
Various tribes fought on each side in King William’s War, Queen Anne’s War, Dummer’s War, King George’s War, and the French and Indian War, allying with British or French colonists according to their own self interests.
The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations that occurred in 1876 and 1877 in an alliance of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. The cause of the war was the desire of the US government to obtain ownership of the Black Hills.
Ute women did most of the child care, cooking, and cleaning, and also made most of the clothing and household tools. Only Ute men became chiefs, but both genders took part in storytelling, artwork and music, and traditional medicine. What were Ute homes like in the past? Most Western Ute Indians lived in wickiups.
Anthropologists argue that the Utes began using the northern Colorado Plateau between one and two thousand years ago. Historically, the Ute people lived in several family groups, or bands, and inhabited 225,000 square miles covering most of Utah, western Colorado, southern Wyoming, and northern Arizona and New Mexico.
Ute (pronounced yoot ). The Ute call themselves Noochew, which means “Ute People.” The name of the state of Utah comes from the Spanish description for the Ute (Yutah ), which means “high land” or “land of the sun.”