Bisbee daily review., 1906-11-23
THE UTEss HAVE QUEER CUSTOMS

lon the plains Hitherto, they had en- countered no opposition. but the in Aux of miners disturbed their sover- eign control, and they became aware that the unwelcome palefaces were crowding them from both sides.
 Their resentment took the form of raids and depredations that continued, with few interruptions, throughout the next two decades from 1860 to 1880. The next white men to feel their hos tility were the prospecting and sur
 veying parties that marked the line of the Pacific Railway. And when, in 1866 and 1867, the railroad construc- ton gangs began to build the Union Pacific through the very heart of their native country, the Utes were reused to redoubled activity in resisting the encroachments of power which they seemed to realize would eventually mean their eviction from their homes. The working gangs scattered over the line in small bodies were necessarily harried by the willy redskins, who would bounce upon them from some mountain defile. and, after securing a few scalps, disappear again almost be- fore the troopers who constituted the guard had time to rally to the defen- sive. This sort of warfare continued until 1879, in which year took place the most serious uprising in the Colorado's s frontier history.
 The trouble started in the late sum- mer. when Indian Agent Meeker tried to force the unwilling Ute bucks to stay at home and attend to the harvesting instead of spending their time on pro longed hunting expeditions, on which, it was suspected, grizzlies were not the only game. To strengthen him in enforcing restrictions, Major Thorn burg and a detachment of the Fourth Infantry were ordered to his aid from Fort Steele, Wyo. With the coming of September, affairs reached a crisis. and Major Thornburg was started on a hurried march to the agency. He was destined never to reacn is- His guides were untrustworthy, ard he did not take the necessary precautions, and one evening, while leading his men through a narrow mountain pass, they were met with a destructive fire which their hidden foes poured down upon them from the woolai cliffs on either side. Absolutely helpless in the face of the whitening fire the troops fell back upon their wagon train. Major Thornburg was among those killed In the retreat
 Retiring, with their dead and wounded, to the wagons, the survivors arranged them in a circle and behind this improvised fertilization they held the Utes at bay for several days. until re-enforced by Company D, of the Ninth Cavalry. under Captain Dodge, who had heard from an Indian scout of their predicament and had made forced marches to relieve them. Still, the officers. with the memory of the Little Bib Horn before them, did not deem 1t advisable to advance in the face of unknown numbers of Indians, and remained where they were until their force was augmented by the fur ther re-enforcements a few days later. The combined force then advanced to the agency, only to find that they were several days too late. The charred bodies of Agent Meeker and his assist ants were found in the ruins of the agency buildings. Subsequently,, it was learned that the agency had been attacked and the men massacred as soon as the news of Major Thornburg's s defeat was made known. The women and children had escaped into the sage brush, where they were afterwards captured by the Indians and carried to the village. The head chief of the Utes at this time was the sagacious Ouray, who well understood the fool hardness of resistance to the whites, and always counseled against 1t He at once set the women free and prom ised the government authorities that there should be no recurrence of the outbreak. There never was. and. la ter on, the men who had killed Agent Meeker were delivered to the govern ment and punished. In the following