Cowboys, Indians, & Cavalry

Cowboys, Indians, & Cavalry: A Cattleman's Account of the Fights of 1884

By Don D. Walker

INTRODUCTION

When the cattle of the West needed new grass, they sometimes found it on lands traditionally claimed by the Indians; but hunting lands could not be grazing lands without the prospect of trouble. In the history of the open range, trouble did in fact often occur. An enmity between cattlemen and Indians became one of the lasting tensions of frontier life, and from this historical conflict of interest proliferated a century of stories, movies, television dramas, and childhood games.

In Utah's history one of the most exciting clashes between cowboys and Indians took place the summer of 1884, near the Blue Mountains of San Juan County. The first detailed account of this trouble appeared in the Denver Republican on July 29. Written by Harold Carlisle, himself a cattleman, it was marked by the spirit of complaint and justification but was nevertheless remarkably objective and factual, perhaps because its author was informed both by the cattlemen who had made up the posse and by the officers who had commanded the military side of the affair. Although these Indian fights have since been told a number of times, no account is more complete and more historically accurate than Carlisle's letter, written only 11 days after the battle in White Canyon.

Harold Carlisle, with his brother, Edmund Septimus Carlisle, managed the Kansas and New Mexico Land and Cattle Company, a British company with cattle in at least four states. In the ranching regions of southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah, he was known as "the great English capitalist" or "the big English cattle baron." All that one can learn of him shows him to have been well educated and highly literate. All that one can learn of him also shows him to have been, as Charley Redd observes, a tough, shrewd cattleman.

DURANGO, COLORADO, JULY 26, 1884

At a time when the residence of Indians on reservations in the midst of civilizedand well-ordered communities is under discussion, it seems of paramount importance toacquaint the public with such facts as can be substantiated in regard to the conduct ofone body of Indians, in whom the dwellers in this section of the country are mostinterested, and of their Agent; I mean the Indians of the Southern Ute Reservation,and their Agent, Mr. Warren Patten. Trusting that a plain statement of facts may enlistyour sympathy on our behalf, and lead to a searching inquiry into the managementof these Utes, I proceed to my narrative.

On the 3rd instant, the round-up consisting of representatives from Wilson's,Johnson's, and Carlisle's camps, from the Delores River, Casa Grande, and DisappointmentCreek, were at work on South Montezuma Creek, Blue Mountains.

A band of Indians from the Southern Ute Reservation camped below, visited the boys and dined with them, showing to the boys passes which they carried signed by Warren Patten, authorizing them to be off their reservation to hunt on the Delores River.

The boys found among the Ute ponies three horses belonging to Johnson and one belonging to Hudson. Three or four of the boys went to the Indian camp to demand the horses and cut them out from their bunch. One of the Indians drove them back again, when Hank Sharp took down his rope to pull them out. At this the Indian made at him with a drawn knife, attempting two or three times to stab him. Hank, in selfdefense, drew his six-shooter and killed the Indian. This led to a melee, in which the Indians tried to drive off the herd of saddle horses which the boys had near camp, firing into them to stampede them and firing at the boys. Evidently the boys, who were poorly armed and short of ammunition, had to retreat, two of them wounded, leaving their horses, camp, wagons, stoves and blankets in the hands of the Indians.

THE PURSUIT OF THE INDIANS

On the 5th a force of cavalry, under Captain Perrine, started from Fort Lewis, La Plata county, for the scene of the disturbance and were joined by a number of the stockmen on the 9th at Piute Springs. Proceeding to the scene of the fight, they found lying on the ground twelve dead horses and two mules. The wagons, supplies and ranch houses had been burned, and the bedding carried away by the Indians (portions of this were afterwards found on the trail near Elk Mountain).

Following the trail they found they had been joined by other bands of Indians who had been camped in the Blue Mountains, the whole band going by way of Indian Creek to the west of the Blue Mountains. On their way to Indian Creek the Indians had gathered stock horses belonging to the Garlich outfit, to the number of 110 head and one stallion.

Following the trail to the top of a divide leading to the Colorado River, Sol. Wormington, the well known Indian scout, led the way, followed by about ten stockmen, as an advance guard.

Fresh on the trail of the band, they found the trail of two Indians who had been sent out by Agent Patten to recall (as he had informed the Commander of Fort Lewis) his Utes to the reservation.

As long as the trail of these two Indians was in the rear, the band had traveled slowly, making about ten miles a day, camping in more than one place for two days, playing cards, barking trees, and even making race tracks on the heads of Cottonwood and Indian Creeks, to test the metal of the stolen stock, and tending their wounded, as was shown by the rags littered about in their camping places. But the day the trail of Patten's scouts joined with the trail of the band, they traveled seventy-five miles, finally turning down from the divide into a deep valley about ten miles wide and thirty-five miles long, surrounded by cliffs about 2,000 feet high. In making their way down the cliff the advance guard found a signal-fire still burning, and saw the dust of three bands of Indians; about six miles away the squaws and some bucks driving the stolen stock; two miles behind them the main body of the bucks; still behind them were some six or seven bucks. The pursuers got within two miles of them as darkness set in, where they rested and watered. They started out again at moonrise, following the Indians, who were passing along the trail leading from the Bluff City and Utah road to the Colorado River.

Presently the trail turned off across the valley and up the bluff, which here makes two benches.

The first bench, about 300 feet high, was very rough and steep; a horse and mule were lost in making the ascent.

Henry Goodman and another man advanced to the foot of the second bluff and lay there, waiting for the main body to make the first ascent. They heard sheep and goats bleating above. Suspecting a trap, Mr. Goodman warned Wormington when he came up with them not to go up. Meanwhile George Graham drove in two or three Indian ponies that were standing on the hill-side.

DEATH OF ROWDY AND WORMINGTON

The troops were recalled to rest horses and get something to eat, but Wormington, accompanied by Rowdy (an Oregon boy whose father had been killed by Indians) began the ascent, ten or twelve of the stockmen staying below.

When about seventy-five feet from the top, the Indians opened fire, killing Rowdy instantly and wounding Wormington, who lingered about thirty minutes.

The troops and boys kept up a desultory fire to prevent the Indians descending, and waited till evening in hopes of recovering the bodies. To attempt such a thing in daylight would have been madness, as the ascent was about 1,500 feet up a very steep and rocky trail, ending in a narrow pass flanked on both sides by rocks, behind which the Indians lay entirely protected.

As provisions were running short, and Captain Perrine had with him no means of shelling the position, had no surgeon and no appliances for taking care of the sick and wounded, a retreat was ordered and carried out successfully.

On their return over the same trail, stolen horses were picked up that had been dropped out by the Indians. They had stolen in all on this particular raid about 150 head of horses from Carlisle's Camp, twenty from Johnson's, and about the same number from Wilson's, all of Durham's horses, many of Phelps' and other parties who were on the round-up, besides destroying ranches, wagons and stores belonging to the Carlisle boys.

On the 10th, six of the Utes from the Southern Reservation (Patten's), who had been on the Blue Mountains at the time of the first conflict, came to Mitchell's store, where they found Sergeant Fashe and ten infantry soldiers waiting for them. The Sergeant disarmed and took them prisoners.

THE DURANGO TROUBLE

On the 12th at 4:30 a.m. Chief Red Jacket, a Southern Ute, with about fifty warriors, all armed and well mounted, came on the Sergeant and his squad, and demanded the surrender of his prisoners, together with their arms and ponies. The Sergeant was finally obliged to submit, protesting the while. Red Jacket and his band remained in the neighborhood until he and some others appeared in Durango on the 24th, and were recognized by some of the stockmen who had been in the fight on the Blue Mountains. Town Marshal Foley had been in the habit of relieving the Utes of their revolvers and retaining them until they left for the reservation. On this occasion in attempting to take a revolver from a Ute, the Indian resisted. The Marshal slipped handcuffs on him. Upon this, another Indian struck the Marshal on the head. Turning his prisoner over to a bystander, the Marshal went for his assailant, who jumped on his horse and together with the others, who were unusually well armed, rode away, and well they might, for the citizens, as soon as the Marshal was struck, got together what horses and arms they could find and gave chase, but could not overtake the fugitives. The prisoner being detained, Agent Patten, who had been telegraphed for, came to town and demanded him, intimating that there were four hundred warriors whom he could not control, who would take the town if the prisoner was not released. He was promptly informed that in such an event the town would protect itself, and the people who were in the streets in crowds backed up the statement. They could and would protect the town.

They wanted the Utes to have no more privileges than they themselves possessed, and required no less for them. They were determined to vindicate the law at all hazards.

On the 25th the Indian was tried and fined as though he had been a citizen. The conduct of Agent Patten has excited the most intense indignation. He is accused of attempting to intimidate the Marshal and people by suggesting that the Indians would force the Indian from the grip of the law. In his conduct with reference to the Indian raid he has placed himself between the horns of a dilemma. Impalement on one or other point he cannot escape. On the eighth instant he telegraphed to Washington as follows:

Ignacio, Colorado, July 8

I understand the cattlemen have gone west to drive Utes out of the country. I have telegraphed the commanding officer at Fort Lewis to prevent a conflict if possible. The Agency Indians are all here, and want no trouble.

THE AGENT'S DISOBEDIENCE

On the tenth he informed Major Hall that he had sent out two of his Utes to recall to the Agency such of the Utes as were off the Reservation. The disastrous results of the mission which these two carried out, we have told above.

Now, either Mr. Warren Patten telegraphed to the authorities at Washington a statement which he knew to be contrary to the facts, or else, he deliberately sent out two Utes to warn a band of marauding Indians of the punishment which was being prepared for them, thus causing the loss of two brave lives, and ruining an expedition which had been planned by the military authorities, or else he was guilty both of misstatement and of playing into the hands of the enemies of the Government.

That his Indians were not on their reservation, but came into conflict with white men on the tenth, twelfth, fourteenth and twenty-fourth is now a matter of history. That the Indians had no right to be off their Reservation, and that Warren Patten has no right to issue passes to them the following official communication clearly shows:

Harold Carlisle, Esq., Ouray, Colorado:

Department of the Interior Washington, July 12, 1884

Dear Sir: •—• I have yours about Indian troubles. Patten reports that the difficulty was not with his Indians, but with Indians from the other reservations. He has no authority to give passes to the Indians to be off the reservation and I will immediately call his attention to this complaint.

It has not been my policy to allow the Indians off the reservation. I hope there may be no further trouble in your section. Very respectfully yours.

(Signed) H. M. Teller

I have only to add that this band of Utes that is causing so much trouble, this band to whom Agent Patten has seen fit to issue passes in defiance of authority, is the band that committed depredations around the Ute Mountain and in the Montezuma Valley last spring, killing cattle off their reservation by the hundred; the band that killed some forty head of cattle for the Mormons of Bluff City in Utah; the band that has tried different times to sell horses stolen from Mr. Johnson, offering on one occasion a 3-year-old for a sack of flour; the band that tried to terrorize the cow camps last spring, ordering and compelling Henry Goodman and his outfit to leave their winter camp, some thirty or thirty-five miles from the reservation.

HAROLD CARLISLE

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