Interview with Cleal Bradford
October 25, 1987 Blanding, Utah
By Spintz Harrison

Typical Southern Ute women. Probably taken in Towaoc, Colorado at the time of Posey. In an interview with Cleal Bradford, he talks about why some Utes went to Towaoc, Colo. "There was a school in Allen Canyon. I don't know when it was abandoned, but with World War II, things that had been for the Utes were all abandoned and their education thereafter had to be obtained at Towaoc and Ignacio, Colorado. Also, the land had no further development. During the war years and following the war years, the Ute people's livelihood was almost as difficult as it had been prior to getting the land area because their land had not been developed to a point where it could sustain them." (Ute Representation National Archives photo.)

Feelings of the Ute people were very strong. Feelings of some of the community members were also strong, but the majority of the community members wanted to see the Indian people treated fairly, and as a result of this confrontation, the Last Battle [the "Last Indian Uprising"], as it is referred to, the Ute people received allotments of land. These allotments were issued by the government both at Allen Canyon and at White Mesa. In Allen Canyon, Cottonwood, and Hammond Canyon, the Ute people were given scattered 160 pieces of land where they could run a few sheep, goats, and horses. The Forest Service gave the Utes a little grazing area up in the Babylon area of the Elk Mountain for their horses for summertime use only.

Allotting Land Leads to Loss
Regarding the allocation of lands down on White Mesa, even though the allotments were issued as a result of this 1923 skirmish, and many of the Allen Canyon allotments were issued in 1924, it was the 1940's and 1950's before the government got around to issuing the White Mesa patents to the individual Indians to whom they had made a committment.

Although the Indians had lived on the lands prior to 1923 and continued during the years between 1923 and when they received their patents, there have been some of the Ute people who have since turned their allotted land over to the tribe. So the Ute Mountain Tribe currently has ownership of some of the allotted land at White Mesa, Allen Canyon, and Cottonwood. But the thing that occurred through this last battle--this Indian skirmish--was that attention was brought to the fact that the Ute people needed to have some place that they could identify as home. As the Anglo moved into the area, they had taken over the grazing, they had taken over the springs, and the watering places. They made it difficult for the Indians to be able to eke out a living at that point. Even though many did feel kindly toward the Ute people, they were not prone to worry about whether they were still able to survive or whether they had taken away some of the area the Ute people had.

On the other side, we are talking about the fact that the Indian people had lost the land area that they had previously hunted on, been able to raise a few crops and graze their animals. They were having a difficult time making a living or even getting by with the conditions that prevailed at that time. It's also interesting that the ranks of the Ute Indians had swelled somewhat right about that same time. There had been Paiute Indians at Navajo Mountain and at Oljata. Some had lived at Paiute Farms north of Oljata along the San Juan River. Others lived at Paiute Canyon, Paiute Mesa, and out around the Navajo Mountain area intermingling there with the Navajo. The Federal Government had given the Paiutes an Indian Reservation in 1908 that included that land west of 110th parallel south of the San Juan River and north of the Arizona border, but in 1922 they took this reservation back from the Paiute.

Map shows many of the locations that were taken from or given to the Utes in Southeastern Utah.

This occurring, some of the Paiute people had abandoned the Oljata and Paiute Farms area, even though some were given homesteads on Douglas Mesa. When I say homesteads, that would be the Indian land equivalent to homestead. Instead, it is called allotted land for the Indian. Some of the Douglas Mesa, Paiute Farms, and Oljata group, and some of those residents from around Navajo Mountain had come to live with the Ute Indians here at Allen Canyon and on White Mesa, and so the increase in numbers made it even more difficult for them to be able to make a living.

After the Last Battle continued
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Last Updated July 1, 1997 by Janet Wilcox