in the Territory, but it is to be hoped that this important question thus brought to their attention will be taken up by them for discussion and serious consideration.
THE WHITE RIVER UTES.
The history of the outbreak on the White River Ute Reservation in Western Colorado is given at length in the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The Utes are one of the very few tribes of Indians who still find on and around their reservations game enough to enable them to live on hunting or to make hunting a profitable business. This is one of the reasons why they are less inclined to engage in occupations which require real work. On the borders of the Ute Reservation there are trading establishments carried on by white men who have made it their business to advise the Utes against going to work and encouraged them to devote themselves exclusively to the pursuit of hunting as of old, so that these traders might have the benefit of profitable traffic in skins with them for which they paid the Indians in various goods, arms, cartridges, and whisky. These traders being outside of the reservation the officers of the Indian service had no control over them, and as they attracted the Indians to their establishments by all sorts of allurements they made it extremely difficult to the agents to keep the Indians in proper discipline. The Indians therefore strayed off on all possible occasions, and deeming it prudent to spare the game on the reservation they extended their hunting excursions over the adjacent country, especially North and Middle Park, to the annoyance of the settlers. They also, in some instances, set fire to the grass and timber for the purpose of driving the game, and hence the devastation of several timber districts in Western Colorado may be ascribed to them. I have, however, many reports before me which show that a majority of the forest fires in Colorado are not attributable to the Indians but to white hunters, explorers and tourists who are almost uniformly in the habit of carelessly leaving their camp-fires burning when they go from one place to another.
The hunting expeditions of the Indians in North and Middle Parks led to frequent complaints on the part of settlers, and for more than two years a correspondence has been going on between this department and the military authorities about the practicability of locating a military post in the neighborhood of the White River Reservation for the purpose of preventing the excursions of the Indians beyond their borders. This correspondence led to no result, General Pope insisting that it would be better to remove all the bands of the Ute tribe to a consolidated reservation farther to the south, while General Sheridan expressed the opinion that an attempt to remove the Utes from their old hunting grounds, especially without their consent, would inevitably result in an Indian war. Both agreed, however, that they had not troops enough at their disposal to establish a new post near the White River Reservation. The complaints of the settlers, of the governor of Colorado, as well as
