1879

Morning view near Leadville, Colorado.
Nearly two miles above sea level.

 

The Leadville Silver Rush.

By the start of 1879, word has spread. There might be rich silver deposits in the area of Leadville, Colorado. As Thayer writes in Marvels of the New West, two years earlier the town had a population of 300. 

With the additional discovery of rich veins of gold in the area, the town grows suddenly to thirty thousand.

 

By the time Thayer told the story of the town in 1890, population had fallen to 20,000. He was still impressed with what he saw.

 

He describes the town:

 

In less than two years from the time of opening the rich mines, the town could boast a strong city government, with ample means to maintain itself; well-organized police and fire departments; water-works to supply the city with water, and gas-works to supply it with light … three daily newspapers; a free-school system established, and five high-school buildings erected, with a competent and experienced educator for superintendent of schools; and four Protestant churches, with efficient pastors, together with a Catholic cathedral nearly completed…All this accomplished in less than two years!

 

The Leadville of today is a well ordered city of 20,000 inhabitants, industrious, enterprising, and thrifty. The “floating population” has floated away, leaving the intelligent and reliable class to control and build up a town of grand possibilities.

 

The city is located between two lofty ranges of mountains, more than ten thousand feet above the sea level, and therefore above the clouds, and hence called “the city of the clouds” …. Its public buildings – especially its Opera House – would be regarded with pride in the best towns of the East. Its newest and largest hotel is represented below. It bears the name of Leadville’s most successful capitalist and generous benefactor, Hon. Horace A. W. Tabor, of whom the editor of the Herald-Democrat says: “He may justly be styled the father of Leadville. Having rocked its cradle in infancy and sustained it generously through childhood, he is entitled to its allegiance and reverence in its maturity, both of which he unquestionably possesses.”

 

The Grand Tabor is a large, costly hotel, built of brick, with stone trimmings, and furnished as elegantly as the best hotels east of the Mississippi.

 

Leadville has been supposed by the eastern people to be exceedingly mean, morally, next door to the pit, possibly; but we assure the reader that it is really a Christian city to-day, because its eight or ten active churches give tone and direction to public thought and sentiment. Vice is no more prevalent than it is in Eastern cities, and crime does not make so black a record as it does in numerous Eastern towns we might name.

 

Leadville schools would be an honor to any city of New England. In February, 1878, the first school was opened in a rude log house, where thirty boys and girls were taught by Mrs. A. R. Undergraff. In eighteen months from that time, there were twelve public schools and thirteen teachers. One year later, there were twenty-one teachers and two thousand pupils.  … Today the schools of Leadville lose nothing in comparison with the best schools of the land. No teacher is paid less than twenty dollars a week; And the best paid ones receive forty-two dollars per week. Most of them came from the East, where they had already won a reputation for skilful [sic] work in the schoolroom.

 

Twenty-five carloads of coal  were needed daily to provide the needs of the town.

 

The Denver and Rio Grande ran eight passenger trains every day, to and from the town.

Equal to $270 million today.

 

In 1879, the mines of Leadville produced $10,333,740 worth of precious metals and lead, roughly equal to $270 million today. (In the next six years, the output from the Leadville mines was never less than $12 million – or $313 million.)

 

As Thayer notes, the great fortune of Horace Tabor was made in Leadville, built at first on a store selling supplies to miners.

 

One day two men called upon him, August Rische and George T. Hook, signifying that they had abandoned shoe-making for gold hunting, and found themselves without money to prosecute their purpose. After considerable discussion about the mining business and future prospects, Tabor agreed to furnish them with an outfit, which would amount to about seventeen dollars each, and provide them food, for one-third interest in their discoveries. The two men went to work with a will, and when they had sunk a shaft twenty-six feet, mineral was found so rich that a wagon load of ore sold for $200. They christened the mine Little Pittsburgh, and Tabor became a rich man.

 

Within four or five months they extracted $375,000 from the mine ($9,750,000 in our time). They bought up every mine they could in the vicinity. These mines became part of the Little Pittsburgh Consolidated Company and in a year-and-a-half they extracted just under $2.7 million in valuable metals – or 26 times that much in 2021 dollars. Not a bad return for Horace Tabor on his $34 dollar investment.

 

The Little Chief “was located by four poor, hard-working men,” who took from it $100,000 within three or four months (roughly $2.6 million in modern dollars, and then sold it to J. V. Farwell, of Chicago, for $300,000 ($7.8 million in 2021 dollars). By April 1, 1880, the Little Chief had produced gold, silver and lead to the value of almost $2,474,000, or $64 million today. (463-474)

 

Thayer notes that the rich veins or ore were in some places twenty-seven feet thick. In 1879, the Leadville mines yielded 6,004,416 ounces of silver, 17,650 tons of lead, and 1,100 ounces of gold.

 

He describes the smelting process:

 

Ores are smelted in what are known as water-jacket furnaces, constructed of iron, of circular or square shapes, six feet more or less in diameter, and of much greater height. They are lined internally with fire clay and rest on a cement and clay foundation. The ore is shoveled into the furnaces along with the necessary proportions of coke, charcoal, and slag, from a floor over that where the bullion is discharged, the furnaces being uprights and extending upwards through the building, with outlets for fumes and smoke above. The proper mixture of ores and fuel are important points to success, and the more refractory the ores the greater the care needed to avoid chilling the furnace and other troubles. Weighing the ores is one means of determining their character, as the per cent can thus be approximated. The molten mass separates itself in the furnace according to its specific gravity, the lead with its silver content settling into a lead well at the bottom and one side, from which it is dipped into iron moulds where it cools into bars about one hundred pounds weight. Furnaces are run night and day from one month’s end to another; to allow them to cool down would entail a heavy expense in drilling out the mass of iron and slag that would have to be removed, and in fact would stop business completely.

 

But the most famous of all mines of Leadville is the Robert E. Lee. It is claimed that no mine in the world ever yielded silver ores of so high a grade. It embraces about five acres of ground. The whole property was originally purchased for $7000. In August, 1879, work was pushed, and at the depth of one hundred and fifty feet the richest silver ore in the world was discovered. Other silver mines had surprised the most credulous; but the unsurpassed richness of this mine was well-nigh incredible to many.

 

In the first three months the Robert E. Lee yielded $495,000 in precious metals. In January 1880 the yield reached the extraordinary amount of $301,494.79. On just one day that month, the thirteenth, there they were taken out in $118,500, the average of the ore being $1200 a ton. Two tons “yielded 23,678 ounces of silver.” From the middle of August 1879 to the end of January 1880, the ore taken out of the Robert E. Lee was worth $1,000,000, an excellent return on the original $7,000. Again, adjusting for inflation in the last hundred and forty years, that ore would be, in modern dollars, worth $26 million.

 

“Not in your day, nor mine,”

One visitor to Leadville at the time expressed the view that the mines would be quickly exhausted.

 

“Not in your day, nor mine,” a resident assured him. “At first, it was supposed that a few months or years would exhaust even the best of them, but recent developments assure us that all such fears are groundless….Only a small per cent of our mineral lands are worked as yet. Science and experience are teaching us to mine more economically and profitably every year; and we shall be able to accumulate larger profits in future for this reason.”

 

Thayer noted that by 1886, the total value of the lead, silver and gold taken out of the mines was $120.8 million.”

 

In modern numbers: $3,140,800,000. (463-475)

 

Back East, stories had been told of the low character of the people of the mining camps. Thayer hoped to change the narrative.

 

Roughs became a prominent factor in the early history of most mining camps. But, in self-defense, the moral and reliable citizens soon weeded them out. Mining camps that have outgrown their swaddling-clothes will show a large per cent of intelligent, honest, enterprising, and virtuous citizens.

 

Thayer reports that many of the worst elements of society had been moved on to the newest silver rush towns in Montana. According to another writer, the miners of camps like Leadville might “live in rude cabins, but they do not therefore relinquish the graces of life. It is only the half cultivated who, under such circumstances, relapse towards barbarism. Mountain life soon rubs off the veneering, and we know of what wood men are made.”

 

Charles H. Shinn, author of Mining Camps, was even more impressed, writing,

 

As we have seen, there were times in almost every camp when the rowdy element came near ruling, and only the powerful and hereditary organizing instincts of the Americans present ever brought order out of chaos. In nearly every such crisis, there were men of the right stamp at hand, to say the brave word, or do the brave act; to appeal to Saxon love of fair play; to seize the murderer, or defy the mob. Side by side in the same gulch, working in claims of eight pieces square, were, perhaps, fishermen from Cape Ann, loggers from Penobscot, farmers from the Genesee Valley, physicians from the prairies of Iowa, lawyers from Maryland and Louisiana, college graduates from Yale, Harvard, and the University of Virginia. From so variously mingled elements, came that terribly exacting mining camp society, which tested with pitiless and unerring tests each man’s individual manhood, discovering his intrinsic worth or weakness with almost superhuman precision, until at last the ablest and best men became leaders. They fought their way to the surface through fierce oppositions, and with unblenching resolution suppressed crime, and built up homes in the region they had learned to love.

 

He adds, “The Anglo Saxon race finally asserts itself in the mining camp, to control its boisterous elements, as it does in the town.”

 

Thayer also provides a capsule of the lives of several “Mining Kings.” We shall include only details of Tabor’s life. He was born in Vermont in 1830, and at age 25, headed for Kansas, where he was an active supporter of the  “Free Soil” movement. In 1859, as mentioned, news of gold and silver discoveries near Denver convinced him to head west. He located in California Gulch in the spring of 1860,

 

Where he was exclusively engaged in mining up to 1865. He then began merchandising, and followed it in connection with mining from that time on with varied success until May 1st, 1878. At that time, although he had not succeeded in acquiring great wealth, he was far from poor, having accumulated a competency of some $35,000.

 

During these years of his mercantile life in California Gulch, he was always the firm friend of the miner and prospector; And it is said of him that he was ever ready to give them credit, however unfortunate may have been their successive ventures. In May, 1878, August Rische and George F. Hook, whom he had “grub-staked,” made the discovery of the mine which has since become famous as the “Little Pittsburgh,” he being entitled by the agreement to one-third.

 

Rische and Hook sold their interests quickly, while Tabor waited until May 1879 and sold for $1,000,000. He invested extensively in other mining properties and his wealth only grew. He bought real estate both in Leadville and Denver, and became the director of First National Bank of Denver. His “fine opera-house” in Leadville was finished in sixty days after contracts were signed, in 1882, and Thayer predicted it would “ever remain a lasting monument to Mr. Tabor’s enterprise, public spirit and generosity.” He rose in politics in following years, was mayor of Leadville for the first fourteen months of its existence, later Lt. Governor of Colorado, and then a U.S. senator. (523-524)

(According to the census in 2020, Leadville population stood at only 3,058, about ten percent of its heyday.) 

 

*

Afraid only of two things, “a decent woman and being set afoot.”

 

E.C. Abbott, later known as “Teddy Blue,” is ten year old when he first rides with a herd north, his father having just moved his family from England to Nebraska. He later tells his life story in We Pointed Them North, first published in 1939. As for the men who drove the herds,

 

They were medium-size men as a rule, quick and wiry, because a big man was too hard on the horses. Most of them were ex-Confederate soldiers from Texas, inured to hardship and violence, often bitterly racist toward blacks and Mexicans, but usually very good-natured with each other. They were only afraid of two things, says Abbott, “a decent woman and being set afoot.”

 

Teddy spent his teenage years helping his father with the cattle on a ranch in Nebraska.

 

When his father and brothers gave up on cattle, Abbott drifted down to Texas. In 1879, at the age of 19, he was leaning against a bar in Austin when a trail boss asked him if he wanted to go up the trail with a herd. “What outfit?” Abbott asked. “Olive outfit,” came the reply. The Olive brothers – Ira, Marion, and I.P. “Print” – were known as a tough, violent, murderous bunch, and young Abbott, who was itching to be a badass, hoped to bolster his reputation by riding with them. Print had murdered nine blacks and various Mexicans with impunity and was known as “The Manburner” after he hung two nesters [farmers] in Nebraska and allegedly set them on fire.

 

 

The following excerpt is from a 1955 printing by the University of Oklahoma, and adapted by Scott Foresman. My students always found it interesting:

 

Those first trail outfits in the seventies were sure tough. … They had very little grub [food] and they usually run out of that and lived on straight beef; they had only three or four horses to the man, mostly with sore backs, because the old time saddle eat both ways, the horse’s back and the cowboy’s pistol pocket; they had no tents, no tarps and few slickers [raincoats]. They never kicked, because those boys was raised under just the same conditions as there was on the trail – cornmeal and bacon for grub, dirt floors in the houses and no luxuries. In the early days in Texas, in the sixties, when they gathered their cattle, they used to pack what they needed on a horse and go out for weeks, on a cow-hunt, they called it then. That was before the name roundup was invented. …

 

Most all of them were Southerners, and they were a wild, reckless bunch. For dress they were wide-brimmed beaver hats, black or brown with a low crown, fancy shirts, high-heeled boots and sometimes a vest. Their clothes and saddles were all homemade. Most of them had an army coat with cape which was slicker and blanket too. Lay on your saddle blanket and cover up with a coat was about the only bed used on the Texas trail at first. …

 

One night at sundown, after we had been working the cattle in the brush all day, we came to a little open prairie just about big enough to bed down the heard. I tied my night horse to the wagon, took off my chaps and laid down on them, pulled my slicker over me and went to sleep. About nine o’clock a clap of thunder woke me up, and somebody hollered: “They’re running.” I grabbed my hat and jumped for my horse, forgetting to put on my chaps, and I spent half the night chasing the cows through that thorny brush. When daylight come and we got them all together we hadn’t lost a head. But I was a bloody sight. I had a big hole in my forehead, and my face was all over blood, my hands was cut to pieces – because I’d left my gloves in my chaps pocket – and my knees was the worst of all. I was picking thorns out of them all the way to Kansas. …

 

They used to have some terrible storms on the North and South Platte [rivers]. The year before this, in ’82, I was in one that killed fourteen head of cattle and six or seven horses and two men, on the different herds. …

 

But…I believe the worst hardship we had on the trail was loss of sleep. … Our day wouldn’t end till about nine o’clock, when we grazed the herd onto the bed ground. And after that every man in the outfit except the boss and horse wrangler and cook would have to stand two hours night guard. Suppose my guard was twelve to two. I would stake my night horse, unroll my bed, pull off my boots and crawl in at nine, get about three hours sleep, and then ride two hours. Then I would come off guard and get to sleep another hour and a half, till the cook yelled “Roll out” at half past three. So I would get maybe five hours’ sleep when the weather was nice and everything smooth and pretty, with cowboys singing under the stars. If it wasn’t so nice you’d be lucky to sleep an hour. But the wagon rolled on in the morning just the same.

 

Teddy remembered that the tired men would sometimes rub tobacco juice in their eyes to keep awake.

 

Abbott later became friends with the famous artist, Charlie Russell. Later still, his memoir greatly influenced Larry McMurtry, when he wrote the novel Lonesome Dove. He was helped to write his book by Helena Huntington Smith, who tracked him down to get his story. She found Teddy, then 78, living with his wife on a ranch near Lewiston, Montana. Smith described him, even in old age, as “tough as whipcord, diamond-clear as to memory, and boiling with energy.” 

 

Abbott told Smith that many of the books written about the cowboys were good, but objected to the way cowboys supposedly conversed around the campfire at night, grumbling, “and you’d think they was a bunch of preachers, the way they talk. And yet some of them raised more hell than I did.”

 

He died the same year his memoir was published.

 

* 

“Blood enough in Chinatown to float their bodies to the bay.” 

May 7: The State of California ratifies a new constitution. Included are provisions meant to block almost all Chinese from entering the state. Denis Kearny, born in Ireland in 1847, was one fiery leader of a laborers’ movement, and an adamant foe of allowing Chinese workers to enter. 

Andrews explains Kearny’s influence: 

Soon began the memorable sand-lot meetings, made famous by the San Francisco Chronicle, which sent its best reporters to describe them. From his new eminence the agitator returned this favor by advising his hearers to boycott the Morning Call and subscribe for its rival, the Chronicle. His speeches were directed partly against the Chinese, but chiefly against the “thieving politicians” and “blood-sucking capitalists.” At one gathering he suggested that every workingman should get a gun, and that some judicious hanging of aristocrats was needed. The sand-lot audiences were largely composed of foreigners, Irishmen being the most numerous, but even the Germans caught the infection.…[Kearny] affected the integrity and stoicism of a Cato. As Cato concluded every oration of his with the impressive “Carthago delenda est” [Carthage must be destroyed], so Kearny introduced each of his harangues with “The Chinese must go!” The contest against the Chinese, he said, would not be given up till there was blood enough in Chinatown to float their bodies to the bay. (11/370-371)

 

As prejudice against what became known as “Asiatic coolieism” took hold. The California Constitution cut the Chinese off from employment by the state or corporations doing business there.

*

“He thought that he could readily teach them how to till the soil.”

 

September 23: The president of the Greeley Colony, in Colorado, Nathan C. Meeker, is killed by Indians and his wife and daughter carried away. William M. Thayer tells the story, as usual, in his biased way (379-389):

 

He was a philanthropist and noble man, and his tragic end deserves mention here. He was appointed Indian agent to the White River Agency, and accepted the trust solely on account of his desire to benefit the Indians. He thought that he could readily teach them how to till the soil, whereby to support themselves, and at the same time, establish schools among them that would insure their intellectual growth. He thought they might be made industrious, intelligent, and virtuous. But, alas! Mr. Meeker was massacred by the treacherous men whom he sought to benefit, on the twenty-third day of September, 1879. The Indians were unwilling to work, and grew restive under the white man’s rule. Naturally lazy and indolent, they became dissatisfied with their benefactor and his plans. After an interview with Mrs. Meeker, and carefully studying the history of the barbarous affair, we believe that these lazy, thievish, treacherous Utes, properly called savages, murdered Mr. Meeker, because he persisted in teaching them industry and virtue.

 

Colonel Steele was at the agency on the 10^th of September, and witnessed so much excitement among the Indians, that he suggested to Mr. Meeker’s secretary that the redskins were bent on mischief. After this conversation with the secretary, “Ute Jack” approached the Colonel, and said: –

 

“What white man want? White man go. Indian want white man go. Indian no like plow and go school. Meeker all time say ‘work and go to school.’”

 

“Presently another Indian approached him, and fired off his ‘white man go.’”

 

“One of the most heartless and hellish butcheries.”

Colonel Steele had abundant reason to believe that the massacre was deliberately planned some time before it occurred – one of the most heartless and hellish butcheries to be found in the annals of time. The following account of it by Mrs. Meeker was published in the New York Herald, soon after her rescue from captivity: –

 

“I went with my daughter Josephine to the White River agency, where we joined my late husband (the agent) July 17, 1878. We did not like the site of the old agency, as it was in a cañon. The altitude was too great for the practice of agriculture, and the winds blew fiercely and constantly. The government, therefore, gave permission to Mr. Meeker to move the agency twenty miles further down the White River to a beautiful valley, where the grass is always green, where there is no snow, and where there is plenty of land to cultivate, and timber in abundance.

 

“Trouble began when the agent indicated an intention of ploughing eighty acres of land lying between Douglass Avenue and the river. The Indians had not used the land except for their ponies to run on. It was open and unoccupied. As soon as he heard of any dissatisfaction about the matter, the agent called the Indians together and settled it by obtaining the consent of the majority of the Indians to plough. Chief Johnson failed to attend the council, and when the Utes gave their permission he grew angry, and it was his son who shot at the ploughman. Afterward Johnson said he was ‘no angry’; but back of all this there were signs of wickedness and secret plotting, suspicious movements, increasing rumors, large sales of ammunition, and false charges that the agent had cut down the rations. This last was false. The government had reduced or changed the issue of rations for all the Indians. My husband gave the White River Indians regular and full government rations, but he had orders from Washington not to issue rationes to the Uncompahgre, Uintah, Arapahoe, or other outside visiting Indians. This was according to his official instructions. The object was to keep the Indians from straying from the reservation and wandering around the country. The Uncompahgre Utes complained to Ouray, and this is the foundation for the statements published that the agent withheld their supplies. All White River Utes proper were fed according to law, and those who worked on the canal received double rations, extra blankets and shoes, and all kinds of agency goods which they needed. An Indian woman was hired to cook for the Indian workmen, and they were paid fifteen dollars a month, cash, for working on their land.

 

“The Indians were well treated.”

The Indians were well treated, but the agent did not propose to have them take charge of his household and office, and dictate to him how he should conduct his affairs. He would not tolerate their idleness and insolence, so they conspired to get him out of the way. They clamored for a new agent, and it was only when they heard of the troops coming that they became frightened at the results of their work. Jane, the woman who first growled about the ploughing, spoke good English. After we were captured, she said: –

 

“‘What could you expect? The Indians had to kill the whites, because neither they nor the agent would do as the Utes told them to do.’

 

“On the morning of the massacre Douglass came to the agency and spoke of the soldiers coming. My husband said: – 

 

“‘Let them come. They will not hurt any one. But we will send for all the chiefs   and head captains, and hear their complaints, and talk the matter over.’

 

“Douglass did not say much, and went away. We did not fear any particular danger, though on Saturday, three days before the massacre, they had moved their tents and women and children to the wilderness. The Indian Pauvitz asked me on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, if I was afraid. I said, ‘No.’ Pauvitz was the husband of Jane.

 

“I was in the kitchen with my daughter, washing dishes, about half-past one o’clock. We had just finished dinner. Some of the Indians had eaten with us, and chief Douglass had been picking around the table and joking with my daughter Josephine while we were washing the dishes. There came a volley of firearms – a succession of sharp explosions. It was startling, and I knew what was coming. My daughter and I looked into each other’s faces. Mrs. Price, who was washing clothes at the door, rushed in exclaiming: – 

 

“‘What shall we do?’

 

“Josephine said, ‘Keep all together,’ and the girl was as cool as if she were receiving callers in a parlor.

 

“The windows were shot in. Our first move was to get under the bed in Josephine’s room to avoid the bullets, which were whizzing over our heads. Josephine had the key of the milk house, and proposed to go there. The bullets were flying like hailstones, and we locked ourselves into the milk house, which had double walls fitted in with adobe clay, and there was only one little window. We stayed there all afternoon, and heard no sounds but the crash of guns. We knew all the men were being killed, and expected that the Indians would finish the day with the butchery of the women. Frank Dresser came in shot through the leg. He killed an Indian just as we let him into the milk house.

 

“About five o’clock in the afternoon the firing ceased and all was still. Suddenly we heard the low crackling of flames, and smelt smoke. Then we saw it coming through the cracks in the ceiling and knew that the destruction of the agency buildings had begun.

 

“While in the building we barely whispered, and tried to keep Mrs. Price’s babies still. As the fire was increasing we left the milk house cautiously, and Josephine reconnoitered the enemy.

 

“‘It is a good time to escape,’ she said. ‘The Indians are busy stealing agency goods.’

 

“We went around in front of the agent’s office, and found the doors open and things undisturbed, except that some of my husband’s clothing lay on the front stoop. We saw no one, living or dead, and no sign of anyone having been killed. We ran, in a line with the buildings toward the sage brush, so as to keep the buildings between us and the Indians, who were at warehouse pulling out the goods; but we had not gone far before we were discovered, and the Indians made for us, firing as they ran. The bullets fell all around us, and one struck me on the thigh, ploughing through the flesh, just under the skin. It stung me like a wasp, and I thought it time to drop. I fell to the ground. The Indians captured Josephine and Mrs. Price first, as they were behind me, with Mrs. Price’s babies.

 

“You have my daughter’s account of her experience. A chief, whose name I could never learn, came to me and said he was ‘heap sorry.’ He asked me if I could get up. I said ‘Yes.’ He then asked me if I would go with him. I said ‘Yes.’ He said he was ‘heap mad; soldier killed Indian;’ he saw them shoot, and he was ‘heap mad.’ They would ‘no kill women and children.’ The Indians had so ordered it. He said he would take me to chief Douglass’ house, and asked if I had any whiskey. I said, ‘No’; and he asked if I had any money. I answered that there was some in my room in the building then on fire. The Indian told me to get it and he would wait for me. He was afraid to go into the burning building. I got the money, the Indian urging me to hurry up, as he had a great way to go that night. We went to Douglass’ camp, and the Indian made me count the money. There were thirty dollars. The Indian took it and gave it to Chief Douglass. I had two silver dollars, and Douglass gave them to the Indian who captured me. The Indian then went away. I told Douglass that I must have some blankets. He sent an Indian named Thompson to the burning building with me, and I got a hood, a shawl, and one blanket. I handed around bedding, etc., among the Indians, rather than have them destroyed. The Indians took them, and I afterwards saw them in camp, when I was suffering for the want of blankets to keep me warm. I told Douglass that I wanted my medicine and my ‘spirit book.’ I had doctored Douglass and his family. He said ‘Go’; so I went back a second time, and got a large copy of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ and a box of medicines. The box was so heavy that an Indian refused to carry it. It was lost, but he took the book. When I got back to Douglass, and told that chief the Indian had said that the medicine chest was too heavy to carry, Douglass looked disappointed and sorrowful, and asked: –  

 

“‘Couldn’t you have split the box a little so you could have brought part of it?’

 

“In going back this last time I saw the body of my husband stretched on the ground in front of the warehouse; all the clothing was gone but the shirt. The body was not mutilated. The arms were extended at the side of the head. The face looked as peaceful and natural as in life, but blood was running from the mouth. I stooped to kiss him; but just as my lips were near his, I saw an Indian standing stone still, looking at me, so I turned and walked away. Douglass afterwards said that my husband was shot through the side of the head.

 

“Preparations to leave immediately were made. It was now dark, and Douglass lost no time in getting started. Being lame from having had a thigh dislocated three years ago, and not being used to riding, I asked to ride behind Douglass. The moon came out so clearly that the night seemed like day. We forded the river and trotted off towards the mountains on the south.

 

“Douglass’ is breath smelled strongly of whiskey. He said: ‘Your father dead; I had a father once; he too is dead. Agent no understand about the fight Indians make.’

 

“A villainous-looking Indian trotted alongside.”

“The other Indians all took out bottles of whiskey, which they held up between their eyes and the moon as they drank, so as to see how much was left. Douglass, as he rode along, sang what seemed to be an obscene song to a pretty melody in slow measure. When he had finished, he asked how I liked it. My limb ached so terribly that I could scarcely sit on the horse. Douglass held it a while; then he strapped it in a kind of sling to his saddle. I asked if I could see my daughter, Josephine. Douglass replied, ‘Yes.’ As we rode, a villainous-looking Indian trotted alongside, and slapped me on the shoulder, and asked me how I would like to be his squaw, and made indecent proposals. Chief Douglass listened and laughed. He said the Indian was an Arapahoe, and I would kill Utes if I married in Arapahoe.

 

“We left the trail, and came to a little cañon in the mountains, with high rocks on all sides. All dismounted, and the prisoners were searched by the Indians, even to our shoes and stockings. They stole my pocketbook, which was full of needles, and a handkerchief; but they gave the handkerchief back. They talked indecently to us, and made shameful proposals. They were drunk, and their conversation was loud with ribaldry. They even threatened me with death if I did not submit to their bestiality. Fortunately I escaped outrage, but had to submit to terrifying threats of violence and death. Douglass went through the burlesque of imitating the employees and keeping guard at the agency. He mocked the soldiers, walking up and down with a gun on his soldier and sang.

 

“As I lay on the ground, not knowing when I should be butchered, I thought of my young daughter Josephine, who was not far away, and wondered if she had already been slaughtered. My face was partly covered, but suddenly I heard Douglass’ voice. I turned and saw Chief Douglas standing close by me, with the muzzle of his gun pointed directly at my face. I involuntarily cried out. Josephine heard me, and her voice came out of the night, saying: –  

 

“‘I am alright, mamma; don’t be afraid!’

 

“Douglass lowered his gun, raised it again, and took aim. I said nothing and he walked away. An Indian standing near said: –

 

“‘Douglas no hurt you; he only playing soldier.’

 

“After resting for half an hour we remounted and rode until midnight, when we reached the Ute women’s camp. Douglass ordered me roughly to get off the horse. I was so lame and in such pain that I told him I could not move. He took my hand and pulled me off, and I fell on the ground because I could not stand. An Indian and a squaw soon came and help me up, and led me to a tent. When I went to bed Douglass and his wife covered me with blankets, and I was more comfortable that night than at any other time during my captivity. Early next morning Douglass awoke me, saying: –

 

“‘Runner just comes; Indians killed heap soldiers; Douglass go to front; gone five days.’ He said I must stay in his tent and wait until he returned.

 

“Douglass’ squaw treated me very well for one or two days; then she began to ill-use me, and gave me nothing to eat for one day. While Douglas was gone, his son-in-law told me frightful stories. He said the Indians ‘no shoot me,’ but would stab me to death with knives. One squaw went through the pantomime of roasting me alive; at least, I so understood it. Josephine told me that it was only done to torment me. If Douglass had got killed, I would probably have been punished. A row of knives was prepared with scabbards and placed in a tent for use. Then Douglass’ son-in-law, Johnson, came to me and asked if I had seen the knives being fixed all day. I said ‘Yes.’ He replied that ‘Indians perhaps stab’ me, and ‘no shoot’ me. ‘You say Douglass your friend; we see Douglass when come back from the soldiers.’

 

“The Douglas blood was in him, and he was bad.”

“Many of the squaws looked very sorrowful, as if some great calamity were about to happen; others were not kind to me; and Freddie Douglas, the chief’s son, whom I had taken into my house at the agency and washed, and taught, and doctored, and nursed, and made healthy, came to me in my captivity and mocked me worse than all the rest. The Douglas blood was in him, and he was bad. He said I was a bad squaw and an old white squaw. He tried to steal the old wildcat skin that I slept on and stole my handkerchief while I was asleep, and jeered at me during my imprisonment.

 

“Douglass returned from fighting the soldiers on Saturday night. On the next day his wife went back to the agency for the cabbages raised by the cultivation the Indians professed so much to despise. Douglass was morose and sullen, and had little to say. He did not seem to be satisfied with the military situation, but thought the Indians would annihilate the soldiers. Large numbers of head men and captains came to consult Douglas. They were in and out most of the night, making speeches and discussing things in general, as though the fate of the universe depended on their decision. Douglass often asked us where the agent was. I said that I did not know. Douglass rejoined that neither did he know. Mrs. Douglass treated me spitefully, and her chief was not much better, though he gave me enough to eat. When he was gone very little was cooked.

 

“In a day or two Johnson became very cross, and early one morning we began to move again. It was a very long and terrible journey that I made that day. I rode a pony with neither saddle nor bridle nor stirrups. There was only a tent-cloth strapped on the horse’s back, and an old halter to guide him with. It was the most distressing experience of my life. Not a single halt was made, and my pain was so great that the cold drops stood on my forehead. I could only cling to the pony by riding astride. We traveled rapidly over mountains so steep that one would find difficulty in walking over them on foot. The dust was suffocating, and I had neither water nor dinner. Josephine and Mrs. Price rode ahead. One of the mountains was so steep that after making part of the ascent, Douglass’ party had to turn back and go around it. This incident shows what hardships delicate women on bareback horses had to endure.

 

“We reached a camping-ground half an hour after dark and pitched our tents in the valley. The moon was small. I was so faint that I could not get off my horse nor move until a kind woman assisted me to the ground. I was to ill and exhausted to eat, and I went to bed without any supper. We stayed at this place several days. As the soldiers approached, the Indians moved further south, at intervals of two or three days, until they reached the pleasant meadows on Plateau Creek, below Grand River, where General Adams found us. Before we reached this last place Douglass permitted Josephine to come see me every day, and the long hours were more endurable. The courage of the brave girl and her words of hope cheered me very much. My life would not have been save had it not been for her influence with the Indians. She could speak some of their language, and she made them cease terrifying me with their horrible threats and indecent stories. She finally forced Douglass to give me a saddle, so that last days of journeying I had something besides a bareback horse to ride upon. It gave me great joy on one of the evenings of those terrible first days to hear her, as we passed each other in the moonlight, sing out cheerily: ‘Keep up good courage, mother; I am alright. We shall not be killed.’

 

“The last evenings of our stay were devoted to songs and merry-making by those who were not away on the mountains watching the soldiers. Mrs. Price joined in some of the choruses, because it helped us and made the Indians more lenient. They told a great variety of stories, and cracked jokes on each other and on the white men. They had dances and medicine festivals. Notwithstanding these hilarities, however, the Indians were troubled and anxious about the troops. Runners were constantly coming and going. The least rumor or movement of the soldiers threw the Indians into a flutter. Chief Douglass began to realize the peril of the situation. Colorow advised them to go no further south, though the troops were moving down from the north. Better fight and defend their camps, he said, than retreat. Chief Ouray, the friend of the whites, did not want the White River Utes on his domain. Douglas spoke of the agency as gone forever. He said it would have to be built up again. The Indians had lost all; and with a sigh, he explained, ‘Douglass a heap poor man now.’

 

“When he had time he fell to abusing the agent, and said that if he had kept the troops away there would have been no war. One day I was told that a white man named Washington would come soon. At last an Uncompahgre Ute came from Chief Ouray and spoke very kindly to me, and as he sat by the fire, said, ‘To-morrow five white men coming and some Indians.’

 

“Among them would be ‘Chicago man Sherman, a great big peace man.’ General Adams said they were going to have a talk, and the captives would go home. The Uncompahgre said that a wagon would be waiting at a certain place below the plateau.

 

“Next day we were washing at the creek, when Chief Johnson came and said that a big council was to be held, and that we must not come up to the tents until the end of the meeting. Dinner was sent us by the squaws, and we began to have hopes of release, after being deluded with false predictions many times before. Finally, we saw the foremost of the white men on the top of the hill by the tent.

 

“I could not say a word, my emotion was so great.”

“When I first saw General Adams I could not say a word, my emotion was so great. We had borne insults and threats of death, mockery and ridicule, and not one of us had shed a tear; but the sight of General Adams, Captain Cline, Mr. Sherman, and their men was too much for me. My gratitude was greater than my speech. We owe much to the wife of Johnson. She is Ouray’s sister, and, like him, she has a kind heart. Ouray had ordered us to be well treated, and that we should be allowed to go home.

 

“The council was a stormy one. Various opinions prevailed. The war party wanted us held until peace should be made between the Indians and the government. They wanted to set us against the guilty murderers, so as to save them through us. After a few hours of violent speeches, Mrs. Johnson burst into the lodge in a magnificent wrap, and demanded that the captives be set free, war or no war. Her brother Ouray had so ordered; and she took the assembly by storm. She told the pathetic story of the captives, and advised the Indians to do as Ouray requested, and trust to the mercy of the government. General Adams said he must have a decision at once, or he would have to leave. That sealed it, and we were set free.

 

“Next morning, when we were about to start for the wagon, which was a day’s journey to the south, Chief Johnson, who was slightly cool toward us, threw out a poor saddle for me to ride upon. His wife Susan caught sight of it, and was furious. She flung it away, and went to a pile of saddles, and picked out the best one in the lot. She found a good blanket, and gave both to me. Then she turned to her chief, and poured out her contempt with such effect that he was glad to sneak away.

 

“So long as I remember the tears which this good woman shed over her children, the words of sympathy which she gave, the kindness that she continually showed to us, I shall never cease to respect her, to bless the goodness of her brother Ouray – the Spanish-speaking chief of the South. I trust all the good people will remember them. (379-380)

 

*

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“The agreement an Indian makes to a United States treaty is like the agreement a buffalo makes with his hunters when pierced with arrows. All he can do is lie down and give in.”

 

Chief Ouray

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It’s interesting to compare what Dee Brown has to say about the Utes and their dilemma. Ouray, for example, one complained to a reporter, that making treaties with the U.S. government was a no-win situation for his people. As Brown writes, in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, the Utes

 

had seen the white men drive their old enemies, the Cheyennes, from the Colorado plains. Some Ute warriors had joined the Rope Thrower, Kit Carson, in the white men’s war against the Navajos. In those times the Utes believed the white men were their allies, and they enjoyed visiting Denver to exchange buffalo hides for gaudy trade goods in the stores. But each year these strange men from the East became more numerous, invading the Utes’ mountains to dig for yellow and white metal.

 

In 1863, Brown notes, the Utes signed a treaty ceding all lands east of the mountaintops, or Continental Divide, “leaving the Utes all the land west of the divide.” For $10,000 in goods, and a promise of $10,000 annually for ten years, they also ceded their mineral rights. Ouray had been chosen by his people to negotiate with the whites. He spoke both English and Spanish, as well as the Apache and Ute tongues, being half Ute, half Apache, himself. In 1868, he and other Ute leaders were invited to Washington D.C. to discuss a second treaty. There “they were quartered in a fine hotel, served excellent meals, and given an abundance of tobacco, candy, and medals.”

 

“Living in a paradise of magnificent meadows and forests abundant.”

Once again, they were asked to cede control of more land; but Ouray held out for 16 million acres, and language in the treaty that would bar unauthorized whites to “ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon or reside in” the territory now, in theory, protected by the second agreement.

 

The government returned in 1873, as miners began to flood into Ute lands. This time the Utes were asked to surrender four million acres, in return for $25,000 a year (Brown is not clear, but likely for ten years). Ouray, himself, “was to receive a salary of one thousand dollars a year for ten years, ‘or so long as he shall remain head chief of the Utes and at peace with the United States.’” Brown describes the life of the Utes: “Living in a paradise of magnificent meadows and forests abundant with wild game, berries, and nuts, the Utes were self-supporting and could have existed entirely without the provisions doled out to them by their agents at Los Pinos and White River.”

 

One agent later said it was impossible to count the Utes, and get an accurate number regarding provisions. “A count is quite impossible. You might as well try to count a swarm of bees when on the wing. They travel all over the country like the deer which they hunt.” At the White River agency, the Utes, says Brown, showed little interest in learning how to farm – because they had long supplied themselves with food in other ways. At both agencies, “the Utes humored their agents by keeping small beef herds and planting a few rows of corn, potatoes, and turnips, but there was no real need for any of these pursuits.”

 

The beginning of the end of freedom upon their own reservation came in the spring of 1878, when a new agent reported for duty at White River. The agent’s name was Nathan C. Meeker, a former poet, novelist, newspaper correspondent, and organizer of cooperative agrarian colonies. Most of Meeker’s ventures failed, and although he sought the agency position because he needed the money, he was possessed of a missionary fervor and sincerely believed that it was his duty as a member of a superior race to “elevate an enlighten” the Utes. As he phrased it, he was determined to bring them out of savagery through the pastoral stage to the barbaric, and finally to “the enlightened, scientific, and religious stage.” Meeker was confident he could accomplish all this in “five, ten, or twenty years.”

____________________

 

“Meeker set out systematically to destroy everything the Utes cherished, to make them over into his own image, as he believed he had been made in God’s image.”

____________________

 

 

In his humorless and overbearing way, Meeker set out systematically to destroy everything the Utes cherished, to make them over into his own image, as he believed he had been made in God’s image. His first unpopular action was to move the agency fifteen miles down White River, where there was fine pastureland suitable for plowing. Here Meeker planned to build a cooperative agrarian colony for Ute Indians, but he overlooked the fact that the Utes had long been using the area as a hunting ground and for pasturing their horses. The site he chose to build agency buildings on was a traditional racing strip where the Utes enjoyed their favorite sport of betting on pony races.

 

In several ways, Brown’s account meshes with Mrs. Meeker’s, but Brown adds rich detail, painting a picture that is far more complex. Douglas (spelled with one “s”) owns 100 ponies, “which made him rich by Ute standards.” But he had lost most of his followers to Nicaagat, or “Jack.” Jack was also half Apache, and once lived with a Mormon family, where he learned some English. He had served as a scout with General Crook in the wars with the Sioux. “When he first met Meeker,” Brown notes, “Jack was wearing his scout uniform – frontier buckskins, Army boots, and a wide-brimmed hat. He always wore the silver medal given him by the Great Father when he went to Washington with Ouray in 1868.”

 

Colorow had lived with his followers on a small, temporary reservation near Denver. “When it pleased them they roamed freely through the town, dining in restaurants, attending theaters, and clowning for the white citizens.” Their reservation was closed in 1875, and they moved to White River.

 

Canalla, or “Johnson” was the chief medicine man, and a brother-in-law of Ouray. He was also “the operator of the pony-racing track where Meeker wanted to build the new agency houses. Johnson liked to wear a plug hat which he had obtained in Denver. For some reason Meeker chose Johnson as the most likely a man to help him lead the Utes out of savagery.”

 

Meeker also brought his wife Arvilla to help, and his daughter Josie, and liked to have the Utes call him “Father Meeker,” seeing them almost as children in need of guidance. He soon had 40 acres plowed, but much of that work was done by seven white employees at the agency. He did manage to get thirty Utes to help dig irrigation ditches; but when agency funds ran out and he could no longer pay, they went away. “Their needs are so few that they do not wish to adopt civilized habits,” he complained. “What we call conveniences and comforts are not sufficiently valued by them to cause them to undertake to obtain them by their own efforts…the great majority look upon the white man’s ways with indifference and contempt.”

 

The White River agent soon floated a new plan. Why not take away the Utes’ ponies and replace them with draft horses, suited to the plow. He would force them to give up the hunt, and deny them rations if they refused to dedicate themselves to farming. “I shall cut every Indian down to the bare starvation point,” he wrote one U.S. senator, “if he will not work.” In an essay for the newspapers, Meeker also warned that the Ute lands were really owned by the U.S. government. In an imaginary dialogue with a Ute woman, he wrote, “If you don’t use it and won’t work, white men away off will come in and by and by you will have nothing.”

 

Colorado politicians playing for votes.

Colorado politicians, playing to voters, seized on Meeker’s essay, and an essay titled, “The Utes Must Go!” by William B. Vickers, appeared in several newspapers. Vickers accused the Utes of starting forest fires to drive out miners. There was a story that the Indians had burned down the home of a previous White River agent. Jack decided to go to Denver to talk to Governor Frederick W. Pitkin. He told him that on the way he had passed the house of the agent, supposedly burned, and it still stood. Meanwhile, Meeker informed the federal government he was planning to establish a police force among the Utes, noting, “They are in a bad humor.”

 

Mrs. Meeker mentions the incident of the Utes firing at the plowman – which they did – although they must have planned to miss. Her husband, Brown notes, was furious. In a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, he wrote, “This is a bad lot of Indians, they have had free rations so long, and have been flattered and petted so much, that they think themselves lords of all.”

 

Johnson came next to Meeker and complained that the plowing was done on his land, where his ponies grazed. Meeker responded, “The trouble is this, Johnson. You have too many ponies. You had better kill some of them.”

 

Johnson said later that he took Meeker by the shoulder and said it would be better if he were replaced by a new agent. Meeker called in Jack, said he had been attacked, and sent a telegram to Governor Pitkin:

 

I have been assaulted by a leading chief, Johnson, forced out of my own house, an injured badly. It is now revealed that Johnson originated all the trouble. … His son shot at the plowman, and the opposition to plowing is wide. Plowing stops; life of self, family, and employees not safe; want protection immediately; have asked Governor Pitkin to confer with General Pope.

 

By September 21, a force of about 200 soldiers, cavalry, and mounted infantry, was on the way to the White River agency. Jack rode out to meet them, insisted that stories of burning of forests and cabins were not true. “What are you coming for?” he asked. “We do not want to fight with the soldiers. We have the same father over us. We do not want to fight them.”

 

As in all tense human interactions, rumors flew and were believed. Younger members of the tribe heard they might be sent to the Indian Territory. Some said, according to Brown, that “the soldiers were bringing a wagon-load of handcuffs and shackles and ropes and that several bad Utes would be hanged and others taken prisoner.” Jack met with Meeker again and asked him to send a message to the troops and ask them to halt. He went to his lodge and put up the American flag to indicate how he felt.

 

Colorow went out to meet the troops and it was agreed they would halt at the edge of the Ute reservation. After he left, the commander of the force called his officers together and it was agreed they would have to move closer to the White River Agency, or their path might be blocked at the Coal Creek Canyon. So, they moved closer, to Milk River, than had been agreed.

 

Jack and a number of warriors went out to meet the Army advance. So did Colorow, with several dozen of his men. Neither side seemed anxious to start a fight, but both deployed their fighters, just in case. Jack and another Ute went out to talk to the soldiers, and Lt. Samuel Cherry stepped forward for his side, when a single rifle shot broke the silence. “While we were still some distance apart, between the skirmish lines,” Jack later explained, “a shot was fired. I don’t know from which side, and in a second so many shots were fired, that I knew I could not stop the fight, although I swung my hat to my men and shouted, ‘Don’t fire; we only want to talk’; but they understood me to be encouraging them to fight.”

 

“Each of the three white women was raped.”

Soon after, the Utes attacked the whites at White River, with results Mrs. Meeker reports. The “delicacy” of the matter might have made it impossible for her to admit at the time, but Brown says that as the Utes fled with their captives into the mountains, “each of the three white women was raped.”

 

That is, Mrs. Meeker, Josephine Meeker, and Mrs. Price.

 

Ouray did what he could to convince his people to lay down their arms. But by this point, Colorado leaders were calling for citizens to rise up and “wipe out the red devils.” Eastern papers sent reporters to find out what was going on. Governor Pitkin released a statement, saying that he could easily raise 25,000 men for the defense of his state. As for the Utes, he announced, “unless removed by the government, they must necessarily be exterminated.” In fact, the state would pay for the fight, and still make a profit, he said. “The advantages that would accrue from the throwing open of 12,000,000 acres of land to miners and settlers would more than compensate all the expenses incurred.”

 

The Utes realized they could not win the fight and surrendered their white captives. They were accused of ambushing the troops at Milk River, which Brown says they did not, and of massacring Meeker and his employees, which Brown says they did. Jack and Colorow were later cleared of any crimes, since they and their warriors were involved in a fair fight and had performed only acts of war. Douglas and his men were judged as murderers, but no witness could tell who fired the shots. Mrs. Meeker testified in secret hearings that Douglas had raped her, and he was hustled off to prison at Fort Leavenworth.

*

 

In 1880, Chief Ouray and the rest of his people were driven out of Colorado and onto a reservation in Utah – on land the Mormons did not want.

 

As for treaties with the U.S. government, Ouray once complained, “The agreement an Indian makes to a United States treaty is like the agreement a buffalo makes with his hunters when pierced with arrows. All he can do is lie down and give in.”