The Utes in Allen Canyon (continued)

By Steve Slade

White Man in Allen Canyon

A waterfall at upper Allen Canyon.  Lower Allen Canyon was homeland to the Utes where they stayed during the Posey War. (Janet Wilcox photo.)

Most of the recent developments in Allen Canyon are because of the white man's influence. The U.S. government took the land in Allen Canyon from the Utes without their consent. This land was given to the Utes in the Treaty of 1868. (Bronson.) In 1923, Mancos Jim stood before the U.S. government officials and made his plea that the Utes be given back some land in Allen Canyon. He told them that they couldn't leave there because their ancestors had lived and died there and that their wives and children were buried there. (Bronson.) When the U.S. government did give back their land, they didn't give it as a reservation, they gave individual allotments to each family. The Ute tribe later came in and bought up most of the land. The Utes lived on the ground allotted to them in tents and shade houses. Shade houses were just poles set up with a roof on them to block out the sun but with no walls so the wind could blow through and keep them cool. (Acton)

E.Z. Black, who was the original surveyor who set up the allotments for the Utes in Allen Canyon, taught the Utes how to raise large gardens with more variety and his wife taught them how to sew. His wife was also a midwife and delivered a lot of Utes babies and taught the Utes how to take care of them. In recent years, since the early 1920's, there has been some farming and water development in Allen Canyon.

Mancos Jim asked the U.S. government to build a schoolhouse in Allen Canyon so their kids could get an education, which the government did. E.Z. Black also ran a sort of trading post there in the early part of the century. The government soon started taking the Ute children into town to a boarding school, however. When the government started bringing the Ute children into town to the boarding school, the Utes wanted to be near their children so they moved in near Westwater Canyon. Then the government decided to give the Indians some more land near town but the Indians decided that they wanted it down on White Mesa, which was another traditional camping site of the Utes. (Bronson)

The Indians have been involved with Allen Canyon for many generations and will probably be there for many more generations.

Steve Slade wrote this research paper when he was a junior at San Juan High School in 1992.