Chapter II: Trails, Mineral Springs, Game, Etc (2)

On the 30th day of April, our reinforcements having joined us,
we gladly resumed our march for Utah, and at about one o'clock
encamped upon the ridge that divides the Arkansas from the
Platte rivers. The day was bright, cheerful, and pleasant, the
atmosphere soft, balmy, and delightful. The fresh grass was
about six inches high. The trees had put forth their new leaves
and all nature conspired in giving evidence that the somber garb
of winter had been cast aside for the more verdant and smiling
attire of spring. Our large herds of animals were turned out
to graze upon the tender and nutritious grass that everywhere
abounded. Our men were enjoying their social jokes and pastimes
after the fatigues of the day's march and everything indicated
contentment and happiness. This pleasant state of things lasted
until near sunset, when the wind suddenly changed into the
north. It turned cold and soon commenced snowing violently,
and continued to increase until it became a frightful winter
tempest, filling the atmosphere with a dense cloud of driving
snow, against which it was utterly impossible to ride or walk.
Soon after the storm set in, one of our herds of three hundred
horses and mules broke furiously away from the herdsmen who
were guarding them, and in spite of their utmost efforts, ran
at full speed directly with the wind for fifty miles before
they stopped. Three of the herdsmen followed them as far as
they were able, but soon became exhausted, bewildered, and lost
on the prairie. One of them succeeded in finding his way back
to camp in a state of great prostration and suffering. One of
the others was found frozen to death in the snow, and the third
was discovered crawling about upon his hands and knees in a
state of temporary delirium, after the tempest subsided. This
terrific storm exceeded in violence and duration anything of
the kind our eldest mountaineer had ever beheld. It continued
with uninterrupted fury for sixty consecutive hours and during
this time it was impossible to move for any distance facing
the wind and snow. One of our employes who went out about
two hundred yards from the camp, set out to return, but was
unable to do so and perished in the attempt. Several antelope
were found frozen upon the prairie after the storm.... At the
termination of this frightful tempest, there was about three
feet of snow upon the ground, but the warm rays of the sun
soon melted it, and after collecting together our stampeded
animals, we again set forward for Utah and on the third day
following, struck the South Platte at its confluence with
Cherry Creek. There was at that time but one white man living
within one hundred and fifty miles of the place, and he was
an Indian trader named Jack Audeby, on the Arkansas.

A year later, after the Pike's Peak mining excitement had started, Marcy issued a handbook for overland expeditions, in which he says, referring to a point at the mouth of Monument Creek, which he calls the forks of the Fontaine qui Bouille:

The road to Cherry Creek here leaves the Fontaine qui Bouille
and bears to the right. There is a large Indian trail which
crosses the main creek and takes a northwesterly course towards
Pike's Peak. By going up this trail about two miles, a mineral
spring will be found which gives the stream its name of "The
Fountain that Boils." This spring, or rather these springs, for
there are two, both of which boil up out of the solid rock,
are among the greatest natural curiosities that I have ever
seen. The water is strongly impregnated with salts, but is
delightful to the taste and somewhat similar to the Congress
water. It will well compensate one for the trouble of visiting
it.

Marcy claims that while waiting at the mouth of Cherry Creek for a ferry-boat to be constructed to take them over the Platte River, which was very high at the time, one of his employees washed a small amount of gold dust from the sands of Cherry Creek. This employee was discharged soon after and went direct to St. Louis, where he told of his discovery, and Marcy claims that this was the beginning of the mining excitement in the Pike's Peak region. This is different from other versions of the event, the most probable of which is that the discovery of gold was first made by the semi-civilized Cherokee Indians on their way to California.

What was known as the old Cherokee trail came up the Arkansas River to a point about twelve miles below the mouth of the Fontaine qui Bouille. From that place it ran in a northwesterly direction across the hills, striking that creek about eight or ten miles above its mouth; thence up the valley of the Fontaine to a point near the present town of Fountain; turning northerly by the way of Jimmy's Camp to the head of Cherry Creek, and down Cherry Creek to its mouth, where Denver now stands. From this place, after running northerly along the base of the mountains for a considerable distance, it struck across the mountains through Bridger's Pass, and then turned westerly along the usual traveled road to California. This trail was used by the first gold-seeking parties which came to the present State of Colorado in 1858. The first of these parties arrived at Cherry Creek only about two months after Marcy left. The second party followed a week or two later, and the third party, of which Anthony Bott, of Colorado City, was a member, was close behind it. Members of this third party explored the region around where Colorado City now stands, and later, with some others, returned and laid out the town.

In 1859, occurred the memorable visit of Horace Greeley to the Pike's Peak region. He arrived in Denver, June 16th, having come by the Smoky Hill route. Writing from Denver, he says, among other things:

I have been passing, meeting, observing, and trying to converse
with Indians, almost ever since I crossed the Missouri River.
Eastern Kansas is checkered with their reservations,—Delaware,
Kaw, Ottawa, Osage, Kickapoo, Potawatamie, while the buffalo
range and all this side belong to, and are parceled among
the Cheyennes, the Arapahoes, and the Apaches, or perhaps
among the two former only, as Indian boundaries are not well
defined. At all events, we have met or passed bands of these
three tribes, with occasional visitors from the Sioux on the
north, and the Comanches on the south, all these tribes having
for the present a good understanding. The Utes who inhabit the
mountains are stronger and braver than any one of the three
tribes first named, though hardly a match for them all, are at
war with them. The Arapahoe Chief, Left Hand, assures me that
his people were always at war with the Utes; at least he has no
recollection, no tradition, of a time when they were at peace.
Some two or three hundred lodges of Arapahoes are encamped in
and about this log city, calculating that the presence of the
whites will afford some protection to their wives and children
against a Ute onslaught, while the braves are off on any of
their fighting—that is stealing—expeditions. An equal or
larger body of Utes are camped in the mountains some forty or
fifty miles west, and the Arapahoe warriors recently returned in
triumph from a war party on which they managed to steal about
one hundred horses from the Utes, but were obliged to kill
most of them in their rapid flight so that they only brought
home forty more than they took away. They are going out again
in a day or two, and have been for some days practicing secret
incantations and public observances with reference thereto.
Last midnight they were to have had a great war dance and to
have left on the warpath to-day, but their men sent out after
their horses reported that they saw three Utes on the plain,
which was regarded as premonitory of an attack, and the braves
stood to their arms all night and were very anxious for white
aid in case of the Ute foray on their lodges here in Denver.
Such an attack seems very improbable and I presume the three
Utes who caused all this uproar were simply scouts or spies
on the watch for just such marauding surprise parties as our
Arapahoe neighbors are constantly meditating. I do not see
why they need to take even this trouble. There are points on
the mountain range west of this city, where a watchman with
sharp eyes and a good glass could command the entire plain
for fifty miles north, south, and east of him, and might
hence give intelligence of any Arapahoe raid at least a day
before a brave entered the mountains; for though it is true
that Indians on the warpath travel or ride mainly by night, I
find that the Arapahoes do this only after they have entered
on what they consider disputed or dangerous ground; that they
start from their lodges in open day and only advance under
cover of darkness after they are within the shadows of the
mountains. Hence the Utes, who are confessedly the stronger,
might ambush and destroy any Arapahoe force that should venture
into their Rocky Mountain recesses, by the help of a good
spy-glass and a little "white forecast"; but the Indians are
children. Their arts, wars, treaties, alliances, habitations,
crafts, properties, commerce, comforts, all belong to the
very lowest and rudest ages of human existence. Any band of
schoolboys from ten to fifteen years of age are quite as capable
of ruling their appetites, devising and upholding a public
policy, constituting and conducting a state or community, as
the average Indian tribe.

I have learned to appreciate better than hitherto, and to make
more allowance for the dislike, aversion, and contempt wherewith
Indians are usually regarded by their white neighbors, and
have been since the days of the Puritans. It needs but little
familiarity with the actual, palpable aborigines, to convince
anyone that the poetical Indian—the Indian of Cooper and
Longfellow—is only visible to the poet's eye.

The Utes seldom visited Colorado City and the region round about in the early days, except in the winter, which was the only time they could do so with a fair degree of safety. A majority of the tribe had been on friendly terms with the English-speaking people from the time of their earliest contact with that race. It is true that straggling bands of Utes occasionally committed acts of depredation, and such bands on one or two occasions killed white people, but these acts were not approved by the majority of the tribe.

One of these exceptions occurred on Christmas day, 1854, at Fort Napesta, on the present site of the city of Pueblo. It is said that the men who occupied the fort were celebrating the day with the liquid that both cheers and inebriates, and in the midst of their jollity, a band of wandering Utes came by and was invited to join in the revelry. The Indians, nothing loath, partook of the white man's Taos lightning, the product of a distillery at Taos, New Mexico, and the natural consequence was an attack upon the whites which resulted in all the latter being killed.

In 1866, a small band of Utes began a raid upon the settlers on Huerfano Creek, but when the news reached Ouray, the head chief of the tribe, he sent runners out at once to warn the settlers and then went to the scene of action with a band of his faithful warriors. He soon afterwards took the hostile Indians prisoners and compelled them to go to Fort Garland and remain there, in this manner quickly ending the trouble. Ouray was always the friend of the whites, and is entitled to the very greatest credit for the able manner in which he held the Utes under control up to the time of his death, in 1881.

Ouray was born at Taos, New Mexico, in 1833. His father was a Tabeguache Ute and his mother a Jicarilla Apache. His boyhood was passed among the better class of Mexicans, chiefly as a herder of sheep. He learned Spanish and always preferred it to his native tongue. When eighteen years of age, he joined the band of Utes of which his father was leader, then located in southwestern Colorado. From that time until about 1860, he led the life of a wild Indian, passing his time hunting in the mountains and on the plains, varied by an occasional battle with the hereditary enemies of his people, the Kiowas, Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes of the plains, in which he acquired the reputation of a courageous and skillful warrior. In 1859, he chose a wife, named Chipeta, from among the Tabaguache maidens, to whom he was always devotedly attached, and who bore him a son. This child was captured by the Cheyennes in 1863, they having surprised a hunting camp of Utes under Ouray's command, near the present site of Fort Lupton on the Platte River. The boy was never recovered and, indeed, was never heard of afterwards.

In person Ouray was of the almost invariably short stature which distinguishes his people from those of the plains tribes. He stood about five feet seven inches high and in his later years became quite portly. His head was strikingly large and well-shaped, his features were regular, bearing an expression of dignity in repose, but lighting up pleasantly in conversation. In his ordinary bearing his manner was courtly and gentle, and he was extremely fond of meeting and conversing with cultivated white men, with whom he was a genial companion, compelling their respect and favor by the broad enlightenment of his views. In his habits he was a model, never using tobacco, abhorring whiskey, and taking only a sip of wine when in company with those who were indulging, and then merely as a matter of courtesy to them. He never swore nor used obscene language, was a firm believer in the Christian religion, and about two years before his death united himself with the Methodist Church.

When in active command of his men, his word was law, and disobedience meant death. In the summer of 1874 at Bijou, while returning from Denver to their camp in the south, one of his men decided to build a fire and started to cut some wood for that purpose within the enclosure of a white settler. Ouray, discovering his intention, ordered him back, reminding him that they must not trespass upon the property of the white man. The obstinate Ute replied that he must have firewood and that he would cut it anyway. Ouray answered that if he did, he would kill him, whereat the other observed that two could play at that game. Instantly both started for their guns, reaching them at about the same time, but Ouray was quicker than his adversary and shot him. On another occasion he shot and broke the arm of Johnson, a member of his tribe, who afterwards caused much of the trouble at the White River Agency. Johnson was given to gambling, horse-racing, lying, and trickery of all kinds. In the present case, he had stolen some horses from white men, and refused to return them when commanded to do so, thereby, in Ouray's opinion, bringing disgrace upon the Ute nation, for which he had to be punished.

In the foregoing, I have quoted freely from General Frank Hall's History of Colorado. General Hall had unusual opportunities for knowing Ouray and of his dealings with the whites.

It was through the prompt and decisive action of Ouray that the leaders of the massacre of Meeker and others at the White River Agency, in 1879, were surrendered to the authorities for punishment. The early settlers of Colorado owe to Ouray a debt of gratitude, and a monument to his memory should at some time be erected by the people of this State. Ouray frequently came to Colorado City in the early days, and sometimes his visits were of considerable duration.

In the winter of 1865-1866, a large body of Ute Indians camped for several months on the south side of the Fountain, opposite Colorado City. On departing in the spring, they abandoned a squaw who had broken a leg, leaving her in a rudely constructed tent, or tepee. Had not the women of Colorado City taken her in charge she would have starved. After the Indians left, she was moved into a log cabin in Colorado City and provided with all she needed until her death, which occurred a few months later. The Utes seemed to think nothing of this heartless act, and even the abandoned squaw did not seem to resent it. It was a very common occurrence for the Indians of most of the tribes to abandon the aged and disabled, as in moving around, they did not wish to be burdened with those who were incapable of taking care of themselves.

In the winter of 1866-1867, a thousand or more Utes camped for several months below Manitou, between the Balanced Rock and the Fountain. Game was very scarce in this region during that winter and the Indians suffered for want of food. Finally, they reached such a strait that their chiefs made a demand upon the citizens of Colorado City for twenty sacks of flour, and intimated that unless it was produced forthwith, they would be compelled to march into town and take it by force. The citizens, realizing their utter helplessness in the matter, obtained the flour without delay and turned it over to the Indians. This was the only time in all the early period that Colorado City suffered from the presence of the Utes.

Chaveno and Colorow were the principal chiefs of this band. Chaveno was an Indian of a good deal of intelligence. When visiting the whites he always went about dressed in an army officer's uniform of dark blue which had been given him by an officer at Fort Garland. Chaveno was always strutting around, and seemed very proud of himself in his uniform, of which he took the greatest possible care. In the matter of dress, Colorow was the reverse. He seemed to have no liking whatever for the white man's costume. His physique was like that of Ouray, short, but of powerful build. He had been a noted warrior in his early days and delighted in telling of his exploits in the various battles with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes in which he had taken part. Colorow was treacherous by nature and his friendship for the whites was not always to be depended upon.

In the winter of 1874-1875, Ouray, with a band of six hundred Utes, camped at Florissant for several months. One day a Mr. Marksberry, living on Tarryall Creek, rode up to the Post Office at Florissant, tied his horse, and went into the building. The pony attracted the attention of an Indian named Antelope, who claimed the animal as his own; he slipped off the saddle and bridle, and, jumping on the pony's back, rode away. Marksberry and a friend, being determined to recover the pony, followed the band to their camp in Beaver Park, south of Pike's Peak. Marksberry found his pony with the Indian herd, caught it, and was turning away, when Antelope, hidden behind a tree, shot and instantly killed him. Chief Ouray, always ready to "travel the white man's road," gave up Antelope to justice. Upon trial of the case in the courts of Arapahoe County, some months later, he was acquitted.

The Utes, by treaties made in March, 1868, April, 1874, and March, 1880, ceded to the general government all the lands claimed by them within the boundaries of the present State of Colorado, except a small reservation retained for their own use in the southwestern part of the State.