The Utes Must Go!: American Expansion and the Removal of a People

THIS IS AN OUTSTANDING BOOK. SO IMPORTANT FOR UNDERSTANDING CULTURAL RELATIONSHIPS IN COLORADO AND ELSEWHERE IN NORTH AMERICA. A VERY WELL-DOCUMENTED ACCOUNT OF EFFORTS TO REMOVE THE UTE INDIANS FROM THEIR ABORIGINAL LANDS SO THESE LANDS COULD BE USED BY OTHERS. A REAL VIEW OF THE EXPANSION OF EUROPEANS IN NORTH AMERICA AND THE IMPACT ON NATIVE PEOPLES.

Reading

A fantastic book. You will learn a lot about the mentality of "extermination" that led to the forcing of the Ute Tribe out of Colorado and into Utah. Professor Decker is a great defender of the truth, especially the truth about the injustice served to the Ute Tribe.

This book did a good job describing what went on with the Utes in Colorado. I felt it was unbiased. It read really easily and I learned a ton. Enjoyable read!

This is history with a real story to keep you going. The Utes are not well -known outside the Southwest but this book explains a lot about why the West is the way it is today. A short but fascinating read.

I have read much about The Meeker Massacre, The Battle of Milk Creek, Chief Jack, Chief Douglas, etc., the history of Rawlins, Committee on Indian Affairs report on the Ute Indian Outbreak, etc...and this book was, surprisingly, my least favorite read on the subject. Although the book is loaded with Endnotes (probably due to a fantastic reference library staff - yay them!), I still found myself scribbling "references???" many times in the margins of my book as I read; especially in regards to what seems to be the author's attempt at painting Major Thomas Thornburgh in a negative light. This doesn't seem the case when extensive reading/research is done regarding the commanding officer...based on my experience. Having read much about Major Thomas Tipton Thornburgh, the picture painted in this book does not capture what those he knew him and served alongside him thought of him. It doesn't do his legacy justice.There also seemed several "little details" which are "off"...for example...on page 128 when the author states "Thornburgh hired a guide, Charles Rankin, a Rawlins livery stable owner...." The gentleman's name was Joe Rankin, and he made a ride far more impressive that Paul Revere's to seek help...that story, in of itself, is remarkable. A very minor detail, except Joe Rankin, was a crucial figure in The Battle of Milk Creek. (And Joe Rankin's nephew went on to write about the event in 1935.) There was an additional guide hired along the way by the name of Charles Lowry...so maybe the names were accidentally blended.Bottom Line: This book will give you a strong overview of a very complicated event when people were living the only life they knew. IMO, it pushes a political narrative - which in the long run always weakens the better story. But then again, I'm a person who loves history, not politics.

F. Gaia has said what needs to be said far more eloquently than I can hope to, but I want to give an independent review simply to add another 5 stars to the rating of this remarkable book. Too many Americans view the settlement of the West as John Wayne riding through Monument Valley rescuing distressed maidens in wagon trains from the depredations of red-skinned savages. This book is grounded in actual history: corrupt and greedy politicians and thugs bent on cheating the Native Americans out of the land they had occupied for centuries, signing treaties which they immediately broke,It is of course utopian to suppose that the Native Americans could be permitted to continue to use these lands once the waves of Anglo settlers saw that there was money to be made from them, whether from corrupt agency operations, ranching, creating townships, or mining, but at least we should have the honesty to admit that the official policy of many good Christian folk was nothing short of genocide, as soon as possible. Failure to provide the food or compensation promised under the treaties, preventing the Native Americans from having access to arms and ammunition so that they could hunt, establishing reservations in areas ill-suited to agriculture (the only means of survival once the Native Americans were relocated away from their traditional hunting grounds), invading their reservations with settlements and railroads, curtailing the reservations because no one could control the Anglo invasion, and taking away Native American children to off-reservation schools where they succumbed to the white man's diseases were all effective tools in this destruction of a culture and mass extermination.More than a century has passed since the events described in this book, but Anglo society has still not managed to help the Native Americans establish a viable alternative lifestyle (or even, as a minimum, to pay them the money to which they are entitled). Casinos and hazardous waste dumps are hardly an equal replacement for the long-established culture of this essentially non-violent people (at least, according to contemporary accounts, less violent than the Anglos bent on dispossessing them). In Utah the Utes never seem to be mentioned except as the name of the local university football team; it really is time for this to change.