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History of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation, Utah
Taken from the Utah History Encyclopedia. (Links Added)
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In 1881, following a uprising of Colorado Utes, the federal government forcibly removed members of the Yamparka and Parianuc bands (known as the White River Utes) to the Uintah Reservation. The peaceful Taviwac (Uncompahgre Utes), led by Chief Ouray, could not escape removal, but managed to obtain their own reservation in 1882 -- the 1,912,320 acre Ouray Reservation, situated on the Tavaputs Plateau, immediately south of the Uintah Reservation. The two reservations maintained separate agencies at Whiterocks and Ouray until the Bureau of Indian Affairs merged their administration in 1886. The Indian agency was moved from Whiterocks to Fort Duchesne after the military post closed in 1912.

In 1888 Congress removed a triangular "strip" of 7,004 acres containing valuable Gilsonite deposits from the eastern end of the Uintah Reservation, and in 1897 mining interests influenced Congress to begin allotment of the Ouray Reservation. In 1904, Congress approved 80-acre individual allotments for the Uintah and White River Utes of the Uintah Reservation. The Uintah-Ouray Reservation shrank from nearly four million acres in 1882 to a jointly owned 250,000-acre grazing reserve and 1,283 individual allotments totaling 103,265 acres by 1909. In 1905 the federal government withdrew over 1,100,000 acres for the Uinta National Forest and 56,000 acres in 1909 for the Strawberry Valley Reclamation project, throwing the remaining reservation land open for public sale. Sales of individual allotments further reduced Northern Ute holdings.


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