USA > Colorado > Arapahoe County > History of the city of Denver, Arapahoe County, and Colorado > Part 19
USA > Colorado > Denver County > Denver > History of the city of Denver, Arapahoe County, and Colorado > Part 19
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" We urged our horses forward and journeyed in the moonlight through the grand mountains, with the dusky Indians talking in low, weird tones among themselves. The little three-year-old, May Price, who was fastened behind me, cried a few times, for she was cold and had had no supper, and her mother was away in Jack's camp; but the child was generally quiet. It was after midnight when we made the second halt, in a deep and sombre cañon, with tremendous mountains tower- ering on every side. Mother was not allowed to come. Douglass kept her with him half a mile further down the canon. Persune had plenty of blankets, which were stolen from the Agency. He spread some for my bed and rolled up one for my pillow, and told me to retire. Then the squaws came and laughed and grinned and gibbered in their grim way. We had reached Douglass' camp of the women who had been sent to the cañon pre- vious to the massacre. Jack's camp, where Mrs. Price was kept, was five or six miles away in an- other canon. When I had laid down on my newly made bed, two squaws, one old and one young, came to the bed and sang and danced fantastically and joyfully at my feet. The other Indians stood around, and when the women reached a certain point of their recital, they all broke into laughter. Toward the end of their song, my captor Persune, gave each of them a newly stolen Government blanket, which they took, and then went away. The strangeness and wild novelty of my position kept me awake until morning, when I fell into a doze and did not open my eyes until the sun was shining over the mountains. The next day, Per- sune went to fight the soldiers, and placed me in charge of his wife, with her three children. That
same day, mother came up to see us, in company with a little Indian. On Wednesday, the next day, Johnson went over to Jack's camp and brought back Mrs. Price and baby to live in his camp. He said he had made it all right with the other Utes. We did not do anything but lie around the various camps and listen to the talk of the squaws whose husbands were away fighting the soldiers. On Wednesday, and on other days, one of Sufansesixits' three squaws put her hand on my shoulder and said : 'Poor little girl, I feel so sorry, for you have not your father, and you are away off with the Utes so far from home.' She cried all the time, and said her own little child had just died, and her heart was sore. When Mrs. Price came into camp, another squaw took her baby, Johnny, into her arms, and said, in Ute, that she felt very sorry for the captives. Next day, the squaws and the few Indians who were there packed up and moved the camp ten or twelve miles into an exceedingly beautiful valley, with high mountains all around it. The grass was two feet high, and a stream of pure, soft water ran through the valley. The water was so cold I could hardly drink it. Every night, the Indians, some of whom had come back from the soldiers, held councils. Mr. Brady had just come up from the Uncompahgre Agency with a message from Chief Ouray for the Indians to stop fighting the soldiers. He had delivered the message, and this was why so many had come back. On Sunday, most of them were in camp, They said they had the soldiers hemmed in in a cañon, and were merely guarding them. Persune came back wearing a pair of blue soldier pantaloons, with yellow stripes on the legs. He took them off and gave them to me for a pillow. His legs were well protected with leggings, and he did not need them. I asked the Indians, before Brady came, where the soldiers were. They replied that they were still in 'that cellar,' meaning the cañon, and the Indians were killing their ponies when they went for water in the night. They said: 'Indians stay on the mountains and see white soldiers. White soldiers
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G 158 7 no see Indians. White soldiers not know how to fight.' One of their favorite amusements was to put on a negro soldier's cap, a short coat and blue pants, and imitate the negroes in speech and walk. I could not help laughing, because they were so accurate in their personations.
"On Sunday, they made a pile of sage brush as large as a washstand, and put soldier's clothes and a hat on the pile. Then they danced a war dance aud sang as they waltzed around it. They were in their hest clothes, with plumes and for dancing- caps made of skunk-skins and grizzly-bear skins, with ornaments of eagle-feathers. Two or three began the dance; others joined until a ring as large as a house was formed. There were some squaws, and all had knives. They charged upon the pile of coats with their knives, and pretended that they would burn the brush. They became almost iusane with frenzy and excitement. The dance lasted from 2 o'clock until sundown. Then they took the coats and all went home. On Sunday night, Jack came and made a big speech ; also Johnson. They said more troops were com- ing, and they recited what Brady had brought from Chief Ouray. They were in great commo- tion, and did not know what to do. They talked all night, and next morning they struck half their tents aud then put them up again. Part were for going away, part for staying. Jack's men were all day coming into camp. They left on Tuesday for Grand River, and we had a long ride. The caval- cade was fully two miles long. The wind blew a hurricane, and the dust was so thick we could not sce ten feet back in the line, and I could write my name on my face in the dust. Most of the Indians had no breakfast, and we traveled all day without dinner or water. Mother had neither sad- die nor stirrups-merely a few thicknesses of can- vas strapped on the horse's back, while the young chiefs pranced around on good saddles. She did not reach Grand River until after dark, and the ride, for an invalid and aged woman, was long and distressing. The camp that night was in the sage brush.
" On the morning of Wednesday, we moved five miles down the river. A part of the Agency herd was driven along with the procession, and a beef was killed this day. As I was requested to cook most of the time, and make the bread, I did not suffer from the filth of ordinary Indian fare. While at this camp, Persune absented himself three or four days, and brought in three fine horses and a lot of lead, which he made into bul- lets. Johnson also had a sack of powder. The chief amusement of the Indians was running bul- lets. No whites are admitted to the tents while the Utes sing their medicine songs over the sick, but I, being considered one of the family, was allowed to remain. When their child was sick they asked me to sing, which I did. The medi- cine-man kneels close to the sufferer, with his back to the spectators, while he sings in a series of high-keyed grunts, gradually reaching a lower and more solemn tone. The family join, aud at inter- vals he howls so loudly that one can hear him a mile; then his voice dies away and only a gur- gling sound is heard, as if his throat were full of water. The child lies nearly stripped. The doc- tor presses his lips against the breast of the sufferer and repeats the gurgling sound. He sings a few minutes more and then all turn around and smoke and laugh and talk. Sometimes the ceremony is repeated all night. I assisted at two of these medicine festivals. Mrs. Price's children became expert at singing Ute songs, and sang to each other on the journey home. The sick-bed cere- monies were strange and weird, and more interest- ing than anything I saw in all my captivity of twenty-three days.
" We stayed on Grand River until Saturday. The mountains were very high, and the Indians were on the peaks with glasses watching the sol- diers. They said they could look down upon the site of the Agency. Saturday morning, the pro- gramme was for twenty Utes to go back to White River, scout around in the mountains and watch the soldiers; but just as they were about to depart, there was a terrible commotion, for some of the
Jord Bowles
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scouts on the mountains had discovered the troops ten or fifteen miles south of the Agency, advancing toward our camp. The Indians ran in every direc- tion. The horses became excited, and, for a time, hardly a pony could be approached. Johnson flies into a passion when there is danger. This time, his horses kicked and confusion was supreme. Mr. Johnson siezed a whip and laid it over the shoul- ders of his youngest squaw, named Coose. He pulled her hair and renewed the lash. Then he returned to assist his other wife pack, and the colts ran and kicked. While Mrs. Price and my- self were watching the scene, a young buck came up with a gun and threatened to shoot us. We told him to shoot away. Mrs. Price requested him to shoot her in the forehead. He said we were no good squaws, because we would not scare. We did not move until noon. We traveled till nightfall, and camped on the Grand River in a nice, grassy place, under the trees by the water. The next day was Sunday, and we moved twenty- five miles south, but mother and Mrs. Price did not come up for three or four days again. We camped on the Grand River, under trees. Rain set in and continued two days and three nights. I did not suffer, for I was in camp ; but mother and Mrs. Price, who were kept on the road, got soaked each day. Johnson, who had Mrs. Price, went beyond us, and all the other Indians behind camped with Johnson.
" Friday, Johnson talked with Douglass. IIe took mother to his tent. Johnson's oldest wife is a sister of Chief Ouray, and he was kinder than the others, while his wife cried over the captives and made the children shoes. Cohae beat his wife with a club and pulled her hair. I departed, leav- ing her to pack up. He was an Uncompahgre Ute, and Ouray will not let him return to hisband. The Indians said they would stay at this camp, and, if the soldiers advanced, they would get them in a cañon and kill them all. They said that neither the soldiers nor the horses understood the country.
" The Utes were now nearly to the Uncom- pahgre district, and could not retreat much further.
Colorow made a big speech, and advised the Indi- ans to go no further south. We were then removed one day's ride to Plateau Creek, a cattle stream running south out of Grand River. Eight miles more travel on two other days brought us to the camping-ground where Gen. Adams found us. It was near to Plateau Creek, but high up and not far from the snowy range.
" On Monday night, an Uncompahgre Ute came and said that the next day Gen. Adams, whom they called Washington, was coming after the cap- tives. I felt very glad and told the Indian that I was ready to go. Next day, about 11 o'clock, while I was sewing in Persune's tent, his boy, about twelve, came in, picked up a buffalo robe and wanted me to go to bed. I told him I was Dot sleepy. Then a squaw came and hung a blan- ket before the door, and spread both hands to keep the blanket down so I could not push it away; but I looked over the top and saw Gen. Adams and party outside, on horses. The squaw's movements attracted their attention and they came up close. I pushed the squaw aside and walked out to meet them. They asked my name and dis- mounted, and said they had come to take us back. I showed them the tent where mother and Mrs. Price were stopping, and the General went down, but they were not in, for, meanwhile, Johnson had gone to where they were washing, on Plateau Creek, and told them that a council was to be held and that they must not come up till it was over. Dinner was sent to the ladies and they were or- dered to stay there. About 4 o'clock, when the council ended, Gen. Adams ordered them to be brought to him, which was done, and once more' we were together in the hands of friends.
" Gen. Adams started at once for White River, and we went to Chief Johnson's and stayed all night.
"The next morning we left for Uncompahgre, in charge of Capt. Cline and Mr. Sherman. The Captain had served as a scout on the Potomac, and Mr. Sherman is chief clerk at Los Pinos Agency. To these gentlemen we were indebted for a safe
O
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Y and rapid journey to Chief Ouray's house, on Uncompahgre River, near Los Pinos. We rode on ponies, forty miles the first day, and reached Capt. Cline's wagon, on a small tributary of the Grand. Here we took the buckboard wagon. Traveled next day to the Gunnison River, and the next and last day of fear we traveled forty miles, and reached the house of good Chief Ouray about sundown. Here Inspector Pollock and my brother Ralph met me, and I was happy enough. Chief Ouray and his noble wife did everything possible to make us comfortable. We found carpets on the floor and curtains on the windows, lamps on the tables and stoves in the rooms, with fires burning. We were given a whole house, and after supper we went to bed and slept without much fear, though mother was still haunted by the terrors she had passed through. Mrs. Ouray shed tears over us as she bade us good-bye. Then we took the mail wagons and stages for home. Three days and one night of constant travel over two ranges of snowy mountains, where the road was 11,000 feet above the sea, brought us to the beau- tiful park of San Luis. We crossed the Rio Grande River at daylight, for the last time, and, a moment later, the stage and its four horses dashed up a street and we stopped before a hotel with green blinds, and the driver shouted ' Alamosa.'
" The moon was shining brightly, and Mt. Blanca, the highest peak in Colorado, stood out grandly from the four great ranges that sur- rounded the park. Mother could hardly stand. She had to be lifted from the coach; but when she caught sight of the cars of the Rio Grande Railroad, and when she saw the telegraph poles, her eyes brightened, and she exclaimed, 'Now I feel safe.""
Mrs. Meeker and Mrs. Price also published state- ments of their individual experiences, but, in the main, they corresponded with the foregoing, except that both bore testimony tothe coolness and unflinch- ing courage of Miss Meeker in the presence of every danger, even in the awful ordeal through which they passed at the Agency on the day of the
massacre, and subsequently when the "brave" Chief Douglass pointed his gun at her head and flourished his scalping-knife in her face. Douglass had sent a magniloquent message to Chief Ouray that the women and children were " safe" under his protection, also that the papers and money of Mr. Meeker had been turned over to Mrs. Meeker. When the truth became known, it appeared that Douglass was not only guilty of persecuting the prisoners but actually had stolen Mrs. Meeker's little store of money ! Wily old Ouray knew that such petty meanness would be quoted against his tribe, and demanded that the money be returned, but it was not handed over until some time after- ward. It is generally believed that Ouray, failing to recover the money from Douglass, paid it out of his own pocket and represented that it came from Douglass.
When Miss Meeker told the story of her cap- tivity to the people of Denver, she introduced some facts and incidents not noted in her New York Herald narrative. She was particularly happy in her description of Indian habits and cus- toms, upon which topic she enlarged considerably. She also gave an interesting account of a visit paid to her in. secret by a Uintah Ute, whom she de- scribed as being a remarkably bright and intelligent savage, and almost gentlemanly in his demeanor- quite a romantic savage, indeed. He did not, how- ever, make any effort or promise to secure her release, further than that he volunteered to carry, and did carry, a message from her to the Agent of the Uintahs. He asked her many questions about the outbreak, the massacre, her captivity, her treat- ment by the Indians, and, with the skill of a first- class criminal lawyer, elicited all the information she had upon these various subjects. He was law- yer-like, too, in his own reticence and non-commit- talism. He simply listened. After hearing her story, he went off, agrecing to return in the morn- ing for the letter which he was to carry to the Agency.
Miss Meeker was not supplied with writing mate- rials, and the suspicious Indians refused to let her
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have such as they happened to possess, which were, in fact, rather infinitesimal. Finally, Susan, wife of Chief Johnson and sister of Ouray, afterward to become famous under her new sobriquet of "God bless Susan," whose kindness to the captives was a bright oasis in the desert of their misery, managed to secure the stub of an old lead pencil for Miss Meeker, and the latter found a scrap of paper, upon which she wrote the following message:
GRAND RIVER (forty to fifty miles from Agency), October 10, 1879. To the Uintah Agent :
I send this by one of your Indians. If you get it, do all in your power to liberate us as soon as possible. I do not think they will let us go of their own accord. You will do me a great service to inform Mary Meeker, at Greeley, Colorado, that we are well, and may get home some time. Yours, etc.
JOSEPHINE MEEKER, U. S. Indian Agent's daughter.
The gentle Douglass proved to be an angel of very variable temper. When drunk, he was vapor- ous and insulting; but after a debauch, he was a whining and insipid savage. At such times, he
would bemoan his unhappy fate, and blame Father Meeker for bringing on the Agency troubles. The loss of his Agency supplies seemed to weigh upon him heavily, and frequently he would repeat : " Douglass heap poor Indian now."
Brady, the white messenger sent by Ouray with orders to the White River Utes to stop fighting, was not permitted to see the captives at all, or to communicate with them. « Miss Meeker heard of his arrival, and asked to see him, but was told that he was " heap too much hurry" to make any calls of state or ceremony.
Taken altogether, the captivity of the Meekers and Mrs. Price has no redeeming feature, save the fact that they were ultimately released, and their release, as already shown, was not the willing act of their captors, but a sort of military necessity, whereby it was hoped not only to check the ad- vance of the troops, but also to pave the way for a peaceable solution of the pending difficulty. The horrors of their captivity were dreadful enough, even without the crowning horror which they so narrowly escaped.
CHAPTER VIII.
UTE ATROCITIES IN COLORADO.
TN the early days of Colorado's history, the Utes were not particularly troublesome. It is re- lated that a small force of United States soldiers, under command of Maj. Ormsby, once had an engagement previous to 1860, with a band of Utes near Pike's Peak, and that the soldiers were victo- rious. Fort Garland, in Costilla County, was built for the purpose of protecting the country against any outbreak of the Utes. Quite a num- ber of them went to war early in the sixties, but old Kit Carson, being in command there, succeeded in pacifying them without bloodshed. Since then, the Utes have been moderately peaceable as a whole, though they have always been more or less troublesome, especially in small bands and as
individuals. In fact, there scarcely has been a time since the first settlement of Colorado when they have not been an annoyance. The greater share of trouble has, however, been due to the southern bands of the tribe, while the White River Utes have been, upon the whole, peaceably inclined. Colorow and Piah and their bands have proven exceptions, but they did not for years cause serious trouble until in 1878.
The Utes cannot make complaint against the whites with the force usually brought to bear on the subject by the aborigines. They have not been persecuted by settlers. In fact, the white settlers have been an actual protection to the Utes. When the white people came into this country,
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the Utes and the Plains Indians, the Cheyennes and the Arapahoes, were deadly enemies, and the Plains Indians were generally considered the supe- riors of the Utes as Indian fighters. The whites were compelled, for their own protection, to rid the country of the Arapahoes and Cheyennes, and in doing so they also relieved the Utes. Hence the latter tribe owe the whites a real debt of gratitude.
The Utes have never made any attack upon large parties of whites except once. It was in 1872 that a party of eleven white men, under the leadership of John Le Fevre, ventured into North Park prospecting. One day, a majority of the party went out to kill game enough to eat, and, while out, very unexpectedly ran upon a band of fifty Utes, under the leadership of the infamous old renegade Colorow. The party were met face to face by the Indians, who seemed to have planned the meeting.
"Here! dam! you shoot my antelope."
"Oh, no! Only one to cat."
" Yes, you do; you heap dam lie."
The whites insisted that they were not unneces- sarily butchering the antelope. But Colorow said that if the whites were not out of the park the next day he would scalp all of them. There was one sick man with them. Colorow said he could have twenty sleeps and then he must go. Le Fevre and one man took the hint and left. None of the others were seen again. But eight skele- tous were found in the locality in which they had been left, a few years afterward; and some time after this discovery another pile of bones accounted for the ninth. A note pinned on the door of the cabin in which the sick man had been confined, completed the story. He stated that Colorow had been about a great deal; that he had threatened to kill all hauds, and that he, the writer, never ex- pected to see the land of the white man. There is no doubt in the minds of any of the old inhabi- tants of North or Middle Park but what Colorow killed the nine men who were following the legitimate pursuit of prospecting in a country near the Ute country, but to which they had no earthly
claim. Many other small parties have been threatened just as this was, and doubtless would have met with the same horrible fate had they not concluded that prudence was the better part of valor, and left at his command. There is no use in disguising the fact, the Indians are a drawback to the State, and people who venture out upon our frontier, whether they cross the line or not, are in danger. It has been but a little over two years since, in La Plata County, the southern half of the tribe were making demonstrations which, if the culprits had been white men, would have entitled them to a term in the penitentiary, or to have their bodies swinging in the air. It was nothing for a lone white man to be stopped and threatened. In 1875, a man was killed in cold blood in South Park.
There are few Colorado people that do not remember the fate of poor Joe McLane. Joe was decoyed off and murdered by a band of Utes, near Cheyenne Wells, over a hundred miles east of Denver, and three or four hundred miles from the Ute reservation, showing that people are not safe in any part of the State when those Indians are about. This same band, under the leadership of Shevenau, Washington, Piah and Colorow, fled to Middle Park, where they continued their devilish work by robbing and threatening, which was only cut short when one of the Indians had a bullet put through his body. In their flight, they deliber- erately stopped on the road and shot an inoffensive, quiet old man named Elliott, who had for years lived a next-door neighbor to them, and who had never done a single act to provoke them. The whole State was alarmed, and the military was called out. The result was great fear among the frontier settlers, a fortnight's campaign in the mountains, and heavy expenses. This occurred in August, 1878-one year ago.
The following meager outline of crimes recently published, will bear repetition here:
Killing of three miners in North Park in 1860. Murder of G. P. Marksberry near Florissant, El Paso Co., Colo., 1874.
Barker
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Murder of " Old Man " Elliott on Grand River, near Hot Sulphur Springs, 1878.
Burning of house and blacksmith-shop belong- ing to W. N. Byers, at Hot Sulphur Springs, Grand Co., Colo., 1875.
Burning of Frank Marshal's house, corral and fence at " Marston Tourrs," Egeria Park, 1875.
Burning of Richard Weber's house at foot of Gore Range, 1875.
Burning of houses, corral and fence belonging to John Jay and Asa L. Fly, on Bear River, Colorado, 1875.
Burning of John Tow's house on Bear River, 1875.
Burning of W. Springer's house, corral and fences on Bear River, 1875.
Burning of D. G. Whiting's house, stable, cor- ral, fences and hay, on Bear River, 1876.
Burning of T. H. Iles' hay, on Bear River, 1876.
Burning of G. C. Smart's cabin on Bear River, 1879.
Burning of houses and hay belonging to A. H. Smart and J. B. Thompson, on Bear River, 1879.
Destruction of pine timher in and about North, Middle and Egeria Parks, 1879. Estimated value, $10,000,000.
Destruction of 100,000 acres of grass in the parks and on Bear and Snake Rivers.
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