Canyons, Cows, and Conflicts; A Native American History of Montezuma Canyon, 1874-1935

Remains ofa cabinin Montezuma Canyon.Photoby author.

Canyons, Cows, and Conflict: A Native American History of Montezuma Canyon, 1874-1933

BY ROBERT S McPHERSON

To LOOK AT MONTEZUMA CANYON ON A MAP of San Juan County, Utah, and select it as an important geographic entity might seem facetious. Beyond the Anasazi ruins that dot its length and the tributary canyons that lead from it, there are few significant alterations made by man With the exception of a dirt road that extends its length and a handful of structures built to assist in the livestock, uranium, and oil industries, little appears to elevate this canyon above dozens of others that surround it.

Looks are deceiving. The canyon has been home to the Anasazi, Paiutes, Utes, and Navajos, as well as Euro-Americans in the various guises of cattleman, trader, settler, and miner seeking its resources. Yet recorded history came late in its story because Montezuma Canyon is located in one of the last areas of settlement in the continental United States.

The natural features of the canyon proved useful to human inhabitants. Its flat, wide bottom, winding its way from the San Juan River to a narrow defile as it reaches Blue Mountain, served as a natural thoroughfare for hunters and gatherers as well as stockmen who capitalized on the resources of river and mountain. The water that runs down the canyon encouraged small agricultural plots that depended upon both flood and pot irrigation techniques. Also, the network of canyons that feeds into Montezuma forms a lattice of pathways that extends through southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado

William H. Jackson provided the first detailed account of Euro-American entry into the canyon when he and five other men separated from the Ferdinand V. Hayden survey party in 1874.After camping in the scrub oak on Blue Mountain the group found a "practicable" way into the canyon through a narrow valley that widened as the men reached the canyon floor. Jackson recalled that "The ruins were so numerous now that frequently one or more were in view as.we rode along. Arrow points were so plentiful that there was an active rivalry as to which one of us found the greatest number. Broken pottery of all kinds and beads and other trinkets were also collected."1

The next morning as the men broke camp they discovered that their horses had gotten into some Indian corn fields, but since the owners were not around the group just continued on its way Eventually a large canyon from the east entered at a right angle to the main course. The travelers took this route and within a few miles came to a large camp of brush wickiups. One man emerged from the site to greet them and was soon joined by fifteen to twenty warriors who, according to Jackson, came

rushing full tilt toward us Shouting their shrill 'hi, hi' and swinging their guns over their heads, they did not stop until they had run right into us and, turning about, surrounded us completely. . . . Crowding around us, all the Indians joined in a noisy chorus of greetings and shaking of hands They appeared to be friendly, however, and finally insisted upon our going to their camp In a spirit of pure mischief or deviltry, they got behind us, and with quirt and lariat, lashed our horses and mules into a breakneck race, never letting up until we dashed among their wickiups. It was a regular stampede all the way.

Old Pogonobogwint [Poco Narraguinip], a Weeminuche Ute, presided over them and as leader offered a lunch of boiled green corn and insisted his guests stay overnight The white men declined the offer, left the camp as hastily as possible, and searched for a way out of the canyon. Two Indians followed the party but were soon lost by a sharp turn up a brushy side canyon. Although Jackson's group climbed out of this side canyon they wandered about for a day before deciding to return to the Indian camp for water and a better route of travel. The Utes greeted them again in a peaceful manner and then returned to their campsite in the canyon bottom The next day, before the party left, the Indians confronted them about the newly discovered damage done to their cornfields by the white men's livestock. Jackson recounts, "We had nothing to give them, and when they got ugly about it, I had the packers rush the train ahead, while Harry and I remained behind to stand them off until we could make a get-away." From there they went to Hovenweep and then on to the La Plata rendezvous site to meet Hayden.

The Jackson party recorded the first account of white incursion into the canyon, but within ten years powerful forces came into play that dramatically altered the hunting and gathering capacity of the Utes and consequently their initial friendliness towards Euro-Americans. Because the scope of this article is limited to the activity that occurred in Montezuma Canyon, only brief mention is made of events of a more general, historical nature Other Ute groups in San Juan County under the leadership of Red Jacket, Narraguinip, Mariano, Bridger Jack, Polk, and Posey reacted to the same general deterioration of lifestyle incurred during this and later time periods.2

One of the greatest threats to Ute resources came in the guise of cattle companies searching for free-use public lands. By the 1880s four major outfits ranged thousands of cattle on the grass and brush of San Juan canyon country The two most important were those of Edmund and Harold Carlisle, called the Kansas and New Mexico Land and Cattle Company, and the L.C outfit headquartered on Recapture and Verdure Creek at the head of Montezuma Canyon These were large companies, the L.C. alone selling 22,000 head between 1891 and 1893.3 Herds of that magnitude changed the quality of the environment within just a few years, increasing the conflict between Indians and whites. Although many of the cattle companies would rise to meteoric heights only to fail, there was always another group to step in to keep the cattle business alive.

The Navajos also looked for grazing lands for their sheep herds that sometimes numbered in the thousands. The Navajos' fear of the Utes had abated by the 1880s, and so Montezuma Canyon started to appeal to them as range land. Capt. H. H. Ketchum reported the first Navajo use of this area in 1883when he traveled twelve miles into the canyon from its mouth. There he found four Navajo families with their flocks. Even though it was November and the men were off hunting on Blue Mountain, he told the women to contact their husbands, break camp, and cross the river with their sheep. Ketchum mentioned that the next day he met three families fording the San Juan, but he did not specify that these were the same ones he had talked to previously.4 During the next ten years letters between Indian agents indicate a growing number of Navajos on Ute lands both on and off the reservation

For the Weeminuche living in or near Montezuma Canyon the cumulative impact of these events was overwhelming. With Mormon and gentile settlers creating homesteads at the mouth of Montezuma and neighboring canyons, livestock companies operating at its head and ranging cattle on Blue Mountain and the La Sals, and the government compressing the Muache, Capote, and Weeminuche into a reservation 15 miles wide and 110 miles long, a growing resentment smoldered. The Utes in Montezuma Canyon as well as other Utes, Paiutes, and some Navajo allies reacted to stem the loss of their resources. Fights at Pinhook Draw, White Canyon, and on the Carlisle range erupted when the tension became too intense.

It is difficult to separate the Indians in Montezuma from those living nearby, but one personality definitely lived in this canyon and had a faithful following—a Weeminuche named Johnny Benow. He and his associates made life miserable for the cattlemen. Edmund Carlisle wrote to the Southern Ute agent, saying his charges were at Paiute Springs (near present-day Monticello) and in Cross Canyon (which enters into Montezuma Canyon), "killing many cattle and burning the grass and timber Unless something is done to check them, theywill do very serious damage. The citizens talk of organizing and killing off these Utes. . . . Benow is the leader at Cross Canyon and Narraguinip and Mancos Jim appear so out here [Monticello area]."5

InJuly 1884 the government sent a troop of cavalry, augmented bya detachment, to Montezuma Creek to protect the cattlemen being robbed by Indians. An earlier fracas ended with the death of a Ute over the ownership of a horse. The Indians retaliated by driving off a herd of horses; the cavalry and cattlemen pursued them and a fight ensued in White Canyon.6 Edmund Carlisle identified Benow as a participant in this fracas and complained that some cowboys later saw Benow riding one of Carlisle's favorite horses. The rancher then requested "a fair recompense from the government for the heavy losses my company has sustained from depredations of the Ute Indians,"estimated at this time as over 150 head of horses.7

Each spring, summer, and fall trouble arose. Agents sought help from the military to bring the Utes back to the reservation. Talk of secret organizations formed bycattlemen and settlers to rid themselves of the Indianswascommon One of these vigilante groups exterminated a Ute family of six camped on the Dolores River Chiefs on the reservation did not have the power to maintain control of their charges and occasionally denied Ute involvement in altercations. OnJuly 20, 1887,a company of infantry set up camp on the North Fork of Montezuma Creek to maintain the peace and stayed there until October 9, 1887.8

Although no incidents occurred, correspondence indicates the reason for some of the problems. One letter stated that

a number of Ute Indians under the leadership of Ben-ar [Benow] living in the Blue Mountains in Utah is not on the Agency rolls The Indians referred to are a band of wild Indians that have never been brought under the influences of civilization; . . . [they] have the appearance of extreme poverty, look half-starved, are nearly naked, and are subsisting upon rations issued to the Southern Utes.9

The Indians on the reservation offered to accept their brethren on the tribal rolls, but Benow chose to remain in the twilight zone, visiting the agency while maintaining residency in the Montezuma Canyon area. During the 1880s and again in the 1890s this canyon, part of San Juan County, came close to being incorporated into the Ute Reservation, but vocal white opposition stopped these attempts.10

The situation for the Utes did not improve A military report of 1894 stated that a group of about 95 Utes and 80 Paiutes under Benow refused to come in to the reservation.11 They realized what was happening on the eastern part of the Southern Ute Agency where whites took unallotted lands not filed on by Indians, where Ute culture deteriorated through the processes of education, missionary efforts, and agent control, and where agriculture rather than hunting became the only practical lifestyle. Indeed, large deer drives and out-of-season hunting by the Utes put intense pressure on the herds. Letters from settlers, game wardens, and government officials to the agents stressed the harm done to the diminishing wildlife.

In 1895 the government approved a new agency at Navajo Springs [near present-day Towaoc], "yet upon this vast tract of land, no water has been provided to even cultivate an acre of land, and during the summer the Indians are compelled to take to the mountains with their stock so as to find a sufficient supply of water to quench their thirst."

12 Little surprise, therefore, that in 1896 "the great majority" of the Weeminuche were "largely in the blanket and divide their time between Colorado and Utah, the latter pilgrims being the Pi-Utes or renegades who inhabit the Blue and La Sal Mountains in Utah and [who] were added to the rolls of this agency in June, 1895. . . ."13

The turn of the century saw little change in conditions. The Utes living at Navajo Springs as well as off the reservation eked out a bare existence. No irrigation ditch existed to water the land; ration issues proved to be a lifeline that extended for only two weeks in a month; springs on Ute lands were dry by the end of summer; and agent turnover was a continuing problem with three such changes in 1900 alone.14 That same year a smallpox epidemic claimed fifty-five reported deaths. Births during the same period totaled eight. A year later their agent prophetically warned "that a clash will eventually occur is demonstrated by the fact that on several instances, serious conflicts have been narrowly averted."15

In Montezuma Canyon the Indians acted out part of this prophecy. During the fall of 1907 four cowboys, Dick and John Butt, Johnny Scott, andJake Young, allfrom the KT outfit, were driving cattle from Tin Cup Spring toward Nancy Patterson Park The cowboys destroyed a brush fence made by the Utes and moved their cattle to greener pastures. The Indians, who included Johnny Benow, Polk, Posey, Wash, and Mancos Jim, were camped at Nancy Patterson As the cows approached their village the Indians mounted horses, waved blankets, and yelled, turning the cattle back down the trail where one cow fell to its death. Both groups became increasingly irate and exchanged hot words over the cowboys' claim to Ute pasturage. Benow drew his rifle while Dick Butt moved forward with quirt in hand. Cooler heads prevailed as one of the cowboys grabbed Butt's reins, turned the group's horses around, and followed the cattle down the canyon. Butt wanted to try again the next day, but his companions refused to become entangled in the dispute.16

Aflurry of letters followed, providing a glimpse of Ute life aswell as attitudes towards them.J. F. Barton, one of the owners of the KT, wrote to the governor of Utah,John C. Cutler, asking that something be done to remove the "Colorado Utes" from SanJuan County. Barton considered the incident in Montezuma Canyon representative of the Indian problem that had been "worked on for several years."17 The unstated problem was how to obtain use of Ute grasslands. U.S. Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah also contacted the governor, advising him and the commissioner of Indian Affairs, Francis E Leupp, that "They [Indians] have a perfect right to go from one place to another the same as any other citizen."18

In the meantime, Sheriff J. H. Wood from Monticello started an investigation he hoped would bring the offending Utes to justice. When he arrived in the canyon with his posse he found the families and their livestock but no leaders. The Indians claimed that their agent had said they could live off the reservation, which to Wood and the others in San Juan County smacked of dereliction of duty. The sheriff asserted that the Indians leased their reservation lands to Colorado stockmen and then came to Utah to "prey upon the property, especially sheep and cattle, of the citizens of this county."19

The Utes, however, had acted to maintain their holdings for what they considered justifiable reasons, and, interestingly, a number of whites agreed For instance, in September 1908J S Spear, the superintendent of the Fort Lewis School, visited Montezuma Canyon and reported his findings. He talked toJohnny Benow, who said that the Indians had lived in the canyon all of their lives and that itwasfar better than being on the reservation. They grew small crops, had about 1,500 sheep and goats, were prosperous, and were "well spoken of except by those who have filed complaints."20 Spear suggested that the reason for the disputes was that conflict provided a convenient excuse to remove the Indians and obtain range lands—even though he believed the members of Benow's band had not given any trouble to white citizens.

Although no verbatim transcript exists of Benow's interview, Spear provided a summary. After Benow denied killing cattle or horses, he said that the Mormons were trying to drive him out of the canyon by fencing the land The Utes had retaliated by doing the same, evoking threats to put them on the reservation. Benow refused to move. Superintendent Spear closed by generally agreeing that the Indians had as much and probably more right to be there than the settlers.21

The next ten years brought more bad publicity to the Utes. The 1915 confrontation between Polk's son, Tse-Na-Gat or Everett Hatch, and the people of Bluff was characterized locally as a full-scale war and encouraged growing animosity between races. 22 Tse-Na-Gat's trial and subsequent acquittal in Denver, along with the visit of an Indian rights activist named M. K. Sniffen, who wrote a report that insisted the Indians were mistreated and maligned, only added fuel to the fire.

By January 1917 the federal government decided to find out for itself why there was continuing unrest. Special investigator Maj. James McLaughlin arrived on January 1andremained for eighteen days, interviewing the Indians at Towaoc, Montezuma Canyon, and Bluff. His findings, as an unbiased source, show clearly the destitute conditions and the fear felt by Benow and others in the canyon.

McLaughlin had hoped that the Utes would journey to the agency to meet with him, but James C. Wilson, an assistant of Samuel Rentz, who owned a small trading post and home in Montezuma Canyon, wrote a letter on behalf of the Indians saying that the trip would be too great a hardship. These Utes, he insisted, were afraid to go to the agency; many were sick, most were without sufficient clothing, many were walking barefoot in the snow and living in shelters made out of "old rotten canvas full of holes," and their horses were too worn to travel.23 They were, however, very anxious to talk with McLaughlin.

The inspector departed the agency and first bumped down McElmo Canyon by auto and then by wagon up Yellowjacket Canyon and across Cahone Mesa to the Rentz trading post where he arrived on January 9for a two-day stay He met with all of the adult male Indians living in the canyon whose total population he estimated at 160, with another 50 around Bluff. All of the Utes were enrolled members of the Ute Mountain Agency at Towaoc but all refused to live on the reservation because they felt the Indians there were unfriendly to them and would not share the land with its insufficient water Spokesmen from the Montezuma group included John Benow, who assumed the chieftainship; George Brooks, a medicine man; and old Polk. The seven-hour conference provided an opportunity to air past grievances in a peaceful atmosphere. Posey and his Bluff contingent met with McLaughlin a few days later and expressed the same anxiety about moving to the reservation.24

The settlers in Bluff also talked to the inspector and gave him a list of suggestions that came as no surprise Calling the Utes a "law unto-themselves," the settlers proposed that they should be put on the eastern (farthest) end of the reservation, their leaders moved away from the main body of people, and that this roundup be conducted in the winter when the Indians were less mobile.25

Although McLaughlin appears to have made a favorable impression on both Benow and the Mormons, later correspondence indicates that he viewed the ultimate solution to the problem to be the removal of the Utes to Colorado. Agent A. H. Symons later talked with Benow, who was waiting for the commissioner of Indian Affairs to visit and ensure the Indians' rights to remain. Symons, who knew that the opposite might occur, asked that his replacement be given the responsibility of moving them so that it could be blamed on the military and not him. His explanation: "If a new man were in charge here, they [Utes] would not attach the blame to him and would start with a clean slate."26 The move did not occur for a number of years, however.

The Utes in Montezuma Canyon had further troubles, this time at the trading post of Samuel Rentz. Polk, his son Tse-Na-Gat, and their band were camping in the vicinity of the post Polk went to the store to redeem a belt he had pawned but questioned the amount of goods he had received. Rentz acquiesced to the Utes' claims. A few days later Polk and his son entered the store to eat dinner and became increasingly boisterous in their demand for bread and coffee. Although out of baked goods, the cook made more and served it to the Indians who crumpled it in their hands and tossed it under the table. Rentz ordered them to pay for their meal and get out, whereupon Tse-Na-Gat reached for a pistol in his boot, only to go down under the blows of the trader Polk tried to help his son by grabbing a knife from the table, but he too went down. The white man then threw them out of the store and listened to their threats of vengeance as they went to camp.

Tse-Na-Gat returned and took a shot at Rentz from one of the canyon walls. Later Polk arrived at the post with his war paint on and demanded $100 reimbursement for damages. Navajos nearby eventually settled him down. Rentz, fearing retribution, took his family to Dove Creek and then went to Monticello to report the incident to the sheriff. The trader lodged no formal complaints, believing that in a few months the Indians would be moved to the reservation and cease to be a problem.27

Yet, other whites who worked with the Utes on a daily basis valued their friendship Henry McCabe was just such a man Having herded cattle in Montezuma Canyon and its tributaries since 1910, he expressed his appreciation, bordering on admiration, for the Utes, fostered by the understanding that his cows were ranging on their lands. He often asked their permission, tendered payments of meat and skins, and made friendly visits to the Indians in the canyon. His stories illustrate the Utes' lifestyle and also give a humane assessment of them as a people

McCabe told of camping one fall in the north part of Cedar Park where he stored 1,500 pounds of oats, plus sugar, flour, honey, and canned goods under a sheltering overhang He left the food unguarded when he went to Dolores on a week-long trip but returned to a well-worn path in the eight to ten inches of snow that had fallen. The Utes, who were camping a quarter of a mile away, were curious about the contents of the cave, but not one of them had entered or disturbed a thing.

Another time, a Ute named Short Hair showed his admiration for McCabe by taking one of his Indian ponies and placing it in the white man's horse herd. Nothing was said, just a mutual acceptance of friendship. McCabe later went so far as to suggest that the Utes served as guards to warn if anything were to bother his cattle.28

Not all was peace, however, as friction occasionally raised its ugly head. In 1915 the KT outfit was camped in Montezuma Canyon when eighteen Utes approached it. The leader suggested to the foreman that since the cowboys had just killed a cow for supper and there was usually meat left over the white men should give the Indians some. The foreman bluntly told the Utes, "Yes, we leave it for the coyotes and the skunks We think more of them than of you." The Indians departed quietly up the trail, found some cattle, and shot one for supper. Most of the men in the cow camp approved of what the Utes had done and believed that the foreman was too scared to say anything to the Indians.29

McCabe also points out that the friction in Montezuma Canyon was not just between Indians and whites. By 1910 several thousand head of cattle belonging to many different outfits wintered in the area of Lower Cahone, Montezuma Creek, Alkali Point, and places where different tributaries empty into the main drainage.30 These areas provided excellent winter feed until they became overstocked and the cattle began to starve. A tug-of-war for ranges occurred between many of the outfits but not because the boundaries were unclear; most of the men recognized where their grazing rights began and ended Rather, they seized opportunities to get more grass and brush for livestock, or in some cases intruding was just the more convenient thing to do.

Ute tribal ownership in Montezuma and adjacent canyons was quickly drawing to a close. By the 1915-23 period the two distinct groups of absentee Utes were divided into Polk's band living in Montezuma and Posey's group in the Allen Canyon-Cottonwood Wash area. 31 They shared familial ties Posey, for instance, had married Polk's daughter; but occasional animosities remained between the two men. Polk's band was generally characterized by the settlers as a peaceful group that kept to itself, while Posey continued to irritate the white residents of San Juan County.

Conflict occurred on such a frequent basis that by 1923 the so-called Posey War erupted as the final solution to the Ute/Paiute "problem."32 The total event was blown out of proportion by those involved, but it served as an excuse to force land allotments on the Utes. Hubert Work, secretary of the interior, issued an order in April 1923 that both groups would stop their nomadic life and settle on individual land holdings. Moab's Times-Independent reported,

Old Posey's band, consisting of about 100 Indians will be given parcels of land located on or near Allen Canyon while Old Polk's band, numbering about 85 men, women, and children will be allotted land along Montezuma Creek The two bands which are not friendly, will be located some distance apart.33

The number of allotments in Montezuma Canyon varied. Ira Hatch, who owned and operated a trading post in this area, estimated that there were twenty-three Ute camps in Montezuma and Cross canyons. 34 Today there are no Ute allotments in the former and only a few in the latter, the tribe having bought many of the individual holdings.

While the Utes were losing their grip on the canyon the Navajos were successfully extending their control. Undoubtedly, small groups of Navajos had lived in the canyon before 1900. One man, Dishface, insisted that his residency went back to 1888,while others were not far behind in their claims.35 The general influx of population occurred after 1900, however, when Navajos with their herds of sheep roamed in search of water and grass In 1905 the Navajo agent stated that 250 Indians lived in a triangle of land that started at the mouth of Montezuma Creek, extended east to the Colorado border, south to the San Juan River, and back to Montezuma Creek.

Conflict between the Navajos in this area and the Bluff livestock owners intensified asrumors spread that the land was soon to become part of the reservation. The cowboys hauled off fences that protected crops, burned wood used to construct hogans, and prevented Navajo sheep from using certain waterholes. By May 15, 1905, it was too late; the government had added the land to the reservation by Executive Order 324A.36

Eight years later an estimated 3,000 Navajo sheep grazed this range, many of them infected with scabies contracted from white herds north of the reservation Traders reported that their wool was so infested with lice, ticks, and disease, that unless sheep dipping operations started immediately, the Navajos would become destitute.37 With scabies spreading to herds both on and off the reservation, the government established sheep dipping stations in strategic locations, at least one ofwhich was at the mouth of Montezuma Creek.

Friction continued into the 1920s. While the Navajos and Utes appear to have worked out an unofficial boundary at the intersection of Cross Canyon and Montezuma Canyon, with the Navajos remaining to the south, problems with the Bluff cattlemen continued.38 Evan W. Estep, superintendent of the Shiprock Agency, noted that

the outside stockmen are crowding the Indians just about as hard as it is possible to crowd them and avoid trouble. . . . The present offenders are the younger stockmen and apparently the younger Mormons are not of the same caliber as their fathers were. 39

The underlying assumption was that the Indians did not have the same right to the public lands as the white man. The solution to the problem again tied in with the Posey conflict; so when A. W. Simington registered allotments for the Utes he did so for the Navajos as well Of the thirteen family heads who filed for allotments in 1923 the average length of previous occupancy was fifteen years, with a median of fourteen years, the shortest occupancy being two years and the longest thirty-five years. The amount and type of improvements made on the lands varied, but most had at least one hogan, from three to five acres of planted agricultural land, irrigation ditches, and a corral for livestock.40

The quality of life of these people is partly captured in the life history of Old Mexican as told in A Navaho Autobiography by Walter Dyk His occupation in Montezuma started in 1893 when he selected a site two miles above its mouth He stepped off approximately two and a half acres of land, dug a ditch "four hundred steps long from the river to the farm," and planted melons, squash, and corn that he traded to Navajos and Utes. He made a second, larger farm near the mouth of McElmo. The Montezuma site served as a winter camp for his family and range for his sheep. It was particularly convenient because in 1911 the government constructed a sheep dip at the mouth of Montezuma Wash where he and his extended family dipped their 2,200 sheep.41

Some serious affronts to the Navajos began in 1928 when a new series of quarrels arose between them and the cattlemen. Sixteen additional Navajo families wanted to file for allotments, and the agent encouraged them to do so. A year later thirty-seven families, comprising 200 individuals, were using the public domain.42 The superintendent at Shiprock, B P Six, realized that if each person were given 160 acres it would amount to 32,000 acres, sufficient to graze only 3,200 sheep based on the estimated carrying capacity of the land. If it took 200 sheep to sustain an average Navajo family, then at least 74,000 acres were needed.43 Six suggested that this opportunity be made available to the Indians.

The ranchers reacted by having county officials pass legislation that provided for the "elimination of abandoned horses" and the taxing of sheep found off the reservation. Even more blatant were the tactics ofJack Majors, a cattleman who lived in Montezuma Canyon. He had his Mexican workers herd his livestock over Navajo ranges, burn their dwellings and corrals, and kill their sheep, goats, and horses. On one occasion he forced some Navajos from their home by hanging a dead coyote, a religious symbol of evil,from the hogan ceiling. The Indians fled in horror.44

On March 12 and 13, 1930, the Blanding stockmen, Navajos, and Superintendent Six held a meeting to review the use of lands in the Montezuma Canyon and Recapture Creek area. The whites wanted to preserve their winter ranges by ensuring that the Indians would not be grazing their sheep on them in the summer while the cattle were on National Forest lands in the mountains. The group reached an amicable, verbal agreement, giving the Navajos 75,000 acres for their use if they remained off the whites' winter ranges. Six felt this was a fair solution and recognized that the stockmen of Blanding were well organized and controlled most of the water holes and springs on the range. He also felt, however, that they had been kind and considerate to the Navajos and were "far above the average white communities in the near neighborhood of Indian reservations."45

Contentment with the gentleman's agreement did not last. Starting in September the stockmen and government officials held more meetings to define a fenced border to separate the range lands They eventually reached an understanding that exchanged the 75,000 acres promised earlier for a section of land whose line extended up Montezuma Creek for twelve miles from the already established border of the reservation and then in a southeasterly course to the UtahColorado line.

This agreement denied future opportunities for the Indians to take out allotments beyond this line, but homesteads already established were honored.46 Fourteen Navajo families lived on the newly acquired lands, while fifteen others lived outside Yet it appears that none of them was consulted during the negotiations. Seventeen white homesteads laywithin the Navajo area, twelve of which had little or no improvements on them. Three of these were made in 1931 and ten in 1932 in an apparent attempt to block Navajo acquisition.47

Until these lands were officially added to the reservation in March 1933 conflict persisted.48 The Navajos, Ira Hatch—the trader in Montezuma Creek—and Arthur Tanner, a trader in McElmo, all reported independently that white homesteaders had killed about seventy Indian horses, destroyed hogans by using the wood for fencing, and denied the range to livestock during the winter of 1932.49 Many Navajos living on McCracken Mesa were relocated to the newly defined area after white ranchers exerted continuing pressure on officials. Approximately twenty-five years later the government officially added McCracken to the reservation in a land exchange made necessary by the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam. Charges and countercharges decreased in frequency as whites and Navajos settled down to live within the newly established boundaries. A general peace had finally come to the Montezuma Canyon area.

Thus the history of this canyon has played an important role in the lives of Native Americans in San Juan County. Serving as a refuge for the Utes, it provided the only feasible alternative to an inadequate reservation built on unfulfilled promises Some of the Indians chose to hang on to their old lifestyle as long as possible, even though living as a hunter and gatherer had become infeasible by the late 1890s. Livestock, small gardens, and handouts from the settlers helped the Indians to eke out a bare existence on the public domain The cattlemen of Bluff and Blanding saw them as direct competitors for the ranges and managed to remove them from Montezuma Canyon by either placing them on the reservation or by having them accept allotments in nearby canyons. Now the only traces of Ute occupation in this area are the names it bears, most notably a small tributary canyon named after Johnny Benow.

The Navajo story is slightly different. Because of their aggressive infiltration in the early 1900s they were able to secure through numbers and positive agent action a portion of the canyon. The cattlemen did not like the Navajos any more than they liked the Utes, but no single explosive incident occurred upon which the Navajos' expulsion could be predicated They did not have a reputation as "renegades," nor were they associated with any one symbol of discontent, as Posey had become for the Utes. Additionally, they had agents who spent time trying to secure lands for them.

The main problem, in both instances, lay in the values and ethnocentrism of the white men. All sides committed wrongs in the conflict, but the relentless pressure exerted by stockmen for the public domain eventually forced the Utes out and entrenched the Navajos on a relatively small, fenced portion of the canyon While complaining about the "nomadic" Indians who wandered about with their herds, the cattlemen failed to realize that they werejust as nomadic.

Some whites recognized that they were using Indian lands, but the majority viewed the Indians as a nuisance to be removed even if they were the first ones on the range The law specified that Native Americans had as much right as whites to be on the public lands, but this was conveniently overlooked in favor of emphasizing that they had an area specifically set aside for their use, a reservation. To homestead or graze livestock elsewhere should be unauthorized. If this line of reasoning were extended to the white cattlemen then no one could have used these public lands

Montezuma today is still very much a part of the San Juan County economy. Large cattle ranches cover much of the canyon floor. Oil exploration companies and pumping stations discover and mine their treasures from under the soil Until fairly recently uranium mines burrowed into the canyon walls and gave birth to a network of roads to some of the most inaccessible of places. And the Navajos still have their fenced boundary But from the canyon's history comes perhaps the most interesting and important contribution—an opportunity for people to examine themselves and their past in order to reach a greater understanding.

NOTES

1 William H.Jackson and Howard R. Driggs, The Pioneer Photographer (New York: World Book Co., 1929), p. 266.

2 Ibid., pp. 267-68.

3 "Cattle Companies," General File, Monticello Ranger District, Monticello, Utah, p. 2.

4 H. H. Ketchum to Post Adjutant, Fort Lewis, Colo., December 10, 1883.

5 Edmund S. Carlisle to William M. Clark, October 1, 1884, Consolidated Ute Agency Records, Federal Records Center, Denver, Colo., hereafter cited as Consol. Ute Agency.

6 Don D. Walker, "Cowboys, Indians, and Cavalry," Utah Historical Quarterly 34 (1966): 255-62.

7 Edmund S. Carlisle to William M. Clark, December 30, 1884, Consol. Ute Agency.

8 Larabee to Thomas McCunniff, June 17, 1889, Consol. Ute Agency; "Report of BrigadierGeneral Crook," Report of the Secretary of War, 1887, 50th Cong., 1st sess., p. 133.

9 Ibid.

10 Gregory C. Thompson, "The Unwanted Indians: The Southern Utes in Southeastern Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly 49 (1981): 189-203; Gregory C. Thompson, "Southern Ute Lands, 1848-1899: The Creation of a Reservation," Occasional Papers of the Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College, March 1972.

11 Copy in Frank Moss Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, p. 55.

12 Report of Agent in Colorado—Southern Utes, RCIA, 1898, p. 140.

13 Report of Agent in Colorado—Southern Ute Agency, RCIA, 1896, p. 132.

14 Report of Agent for Southern Ute Agency, RCIA, 1900, pp. 213-14.

15 Report of Agent for Southern Ute Agency, Annual Report of Department of the Interior Fiscal Year Ending fune 30, 1901, p. 205.

16 Jake Young interview by Amasa Jay Redd as cited in Lemuel Hardison Redd, fr., 1856-1923, Pioneer-Leader-Builder, comp, and ed. by Amasa Jay Redd (Salt Lake City: Published Privately, 1967), p. 103, hereafter cited as LHR.

17 J. F. Barton to Gov. John C. Cutler, December 23, 1907, LHR.

18 Reed Smoot to John C. Cutler, January 17, 1908, LHR.

19 J. H. Wood to John C. Cutler, January 17, 1908, LHR.

20 F. E. Leupp to John C. Cutler, January 11, 1908, LHR.

21 Ibid., statement by Johnny Benow.

22 Forbes Parkhill, The Last of the Indian Wars (New York: Collier Books, 1961).

23 James C. Wilson to Agent A. H. Symons, January 5, 1917, James McLaughlin Papers, Microfilm #8, Denver Public Library, Denver, Colo., hereafter cited as McLaughlin Papers.

24 James McLaughlin to Indian Commissioner Cato Sells, January 18 and 20, 1917, McLaughlin Papers.

25 Undersigned of Bluff to Maj. James McLaughlin, January 12, 1917, McLaughlin Papers.

26 A. H. Symons to Maj. James McLaughlin, February 3, 1917, McLaughlin Papers.

27 "Old Polk and Son Again on Warpath," Times-Independent, September 18, 1919, p. 1.

28 Henry McCabe, Cowboys, Indians, and Homesteaders (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1975), pp. 183, 188-89.

29 Ibid., p. 184.

30 Ibid., p. 295.

31 Fern O. Shelley, "The Life Story of William Edward Oliver, 1858-1935," family history in possession of author, compiled 1980, p. 15.

32 Robert S. McPherson, "Paiute Posey and the Last White Uprising," Utah Historical Quarterly (1985): 248-67.

33 "Government Allots Farms and Livestock to San luan Paiutes," Times-Independent, April 19, 1923, p. 1.

34 Mr. and Mrs. Ira Hatch interviewed by Floyd A. O’Neil and Gregory C. Thompson, September 10, 1970, Doris Duke Oral History Project, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, p. 9.

35 A. W. Simington to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, July 23, 1923, NUOL.

36 William Shelton to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 1, 1905; Harriet Peabody to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 28, 1905, NUOL.

37 "Supervisor Rosenkrans to Davis, January 7, 1914; Freeland to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, January 12, 1914, NUOL.

38 McLaughlin to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 20, 1917, NUOL.

39 Evan W. Estep to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 9, 1921, NUOL.

40 Brugge, NUOL, pp. 170-76.

41 Walter Dyk, A Navaho Autobiography (New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1947), p. 151.

42 B. P. Six to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 7, 1929, NUOL.

43 Ibid.

44 Shelley, "The Life Story of William Edward Oliver," pp. 7-8.

45 Six to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 20, 1930, NUOL.

46 Charles Redd to Congressman Don Colton, November 17, 1930; Memorandum of Agreement, July 15, 1932, NUOL.

47 Statement by Superintendents Mark Radcliffe and E. R. McCray and S. J. Jensen, Stockman, September 29, 1932, NUOL; Brugge, NUOL, p. 202.

48 U.S., Senate, "Addition to the Navajo Indian Reservation in Utah," Report 1199, 72d Cong., 2d sess., February 10, 1933, pp. 1-4.

49 Statement by Radcliffe et al., September 29, 1932.