Last War Trail: The Utes & the Settlement of Colorado
by Robert Emmitt
Saponise Cuch, Chief of the White River Utes, said to Robert Emmitt
in 1948, "I am an old man now, and I am the only one left who remembers
this. I have known that someone would come to tell this story; now you
will write it out, as I have told it to you." Drawing upon historical documents,
transcripts, and letters as well as interviews with Northern Ute elders,
Emmitt describes the tragedy of United States Indian Agent Nathan Meeker's
plan to 'civilise' the Utes, and the resulting military intervention in
which fifty Ute warriors held off the US cavalry and killed Meeker, Major
Thomas Thornburgh, and others. Ute warriors sought only to defend their
families and their way of life, but the price for that defence was forced
removal from Colorado and the loss of over twelve million acres. Written
with the care and precision of a finely crafted novel, "The Last War Trail"
was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize when it was first published in 1954.
Paperback from University Press of Colorado