History of Women in Utah

Utah is home to a large population of Native Americans, with an estimated 60,000 individuals representing more than 50 Tribal Nations currently residing in the state today.  There are 8 federally recognized Tribal Nations within the current state boarders,  Northwestern Band of Shoshone Nation, Confederated Tribes of Goshute, Skull Valley Band of Goshute, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah and Navajo Nation. ^[1]  As each nation as its own traditions, culture, and religious practices, it would be impossible to represent all of them on a single webpage. To learn in more detail, please visit the sites listed in the Resources page as well as the following:

Links to every Tribal Nation's within Utah website published by Utah Division of Indian Affairs

Ute Mountain Tribe (slightly over the boarder in Colorado)

Southern Ute Tribe (slightly over the boarder in Colorado)

Hopi Tribe (Arizona)

We know that Native Americans have lived in North America for millennia (initial settlement is estimated approximately 10,000 BCE), but due to a tradition of oral history, we have a different type of recorded history then there is in Western Europe. However, there is still some physical examples of material culture created by ancient Tribal Nations, including the pictographs and petroglyphs seen throughout Utah. ^[2]

Within the tribes there as a wide range of cultures, some communities were more sedentary, building dwellings into cliff faces, whereas others were nomadic and followed the migration of prey.  From 1200-1400 CE there was a large environmental shift which led to the tribes relying on agriculture to suffer. ^[2]

During this time the Shoshonean speaking peoples evolved into four groups: The Northern Shoshone, Goshute or Western Shoshone, Southern Paiute, and the Ute peoples.  The Goshute people moved to western Utah which was inadequate for farming and thus became hunter-gatherers living in small family bands. The Southern Paiute lived in southwestern Utah and used a combination of agriculture and hunting-gathering. ^[2]

The Ute people dominated the Great Basin during this time, commanding from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and northern New Mexico to central Utah.  They quickly adapted to the introduction of the horse by Spanish traders in the 18th century, using them in raids augmenting their hunting-gathering efforts. ^[2]

It is estimated that the first Europeans reached present-day Utah in 1765 when Spanish explorers “claimed” the land. During this time the only contact Native Americans had with Europeans was occasional explorers, trappers, and trader. ^[2]

This was very different to the 60,000 LDS pioneers who arrived within two decades with plans to establish a colony and live there permanently. During the settlement period relations between the settlers and Native Americans were tense as the settlers began to displace and take needed resources.  The Ute people approached the situation as they had with enemy tribes for centuries previous and began raiding the settler’s camp.  In response Brigham Young ordered the launch of the Walker War (1853-54) ^[3] .

The settlers attempted to persuade Ute people to change life-styles, instead of being a nomadic people following the seasons and food, establish farms and permanent houses. Unfortunately, these farms did very poorly and the communities who attempted the endeavor were almost destroyed.^[2]   In 1861 President Abraham Lincoln set aside the Uintah Valley Indian Reservation for the Utah Ute people (after the land was examaned by Mormon settlers and they rejected it due to the land's poor resources). ^[4]

The Native Americans resisted being removed from their lands in Provo, Spanish Fork, and Sanpete for the desolate land of Uintah Valley, instead ralleying behind their leader Black Hawk.  This resulted in the Black Hawk War of 1863-1868 which, as a result of a lack of supplies and being outnumbered, resulted in a defeat for the Ute people. ^[4][5]

In 1881, the U.S. government forced the White River Utes from Colorado to the Uintah Reservation, and the following year they created the Ouray Reservation next to it, later consolidating them. ^[2]

In a series of treaties with the Shoshone, Bannock, and Goshute in 1863 and with the Ute and Southern Paiute in 1865, the federal government moved to extinguish Indian land claims in Utah and to confine all Indians on reservations. The Goshutes refused to leave their lands for either the Fort Hall or Uintah reservations. They lived on in the west desert until granted a reservation in the 1910s. ^[2]

In 1897 and 1904 the Indian Bureau allotted the Uintah and Ouray reservations, aimed at breaking up Indian reservations into individual farms for tribal members and opening the rest for public sale. Tribal land holdings fell from nearly four million acres to 360,000 acres, and individual sale of Indian allotments further reduced Northern Ute lands. ^[2] By 1930 Native Americans had lost more than 80% of their lands nationwide. ^[4]

Poverty, unemployment, underdevelopment, and health problems plagued most reservations, and Native Americans became ever more dependent on the federal government. For the most part individuals who live on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation have better current conditions than many other Native Tribes due in large part to the amount of oil and gas found on their land and are the second largest Reservation in the US. ^[4]

At the end of the 19th century the US government established the Indian Boarding School Policy, in the hopes of "Kill the Indian, Save the Man".  There were more than 526 government funded (often church run) schools, which Native children were forced to attend, often hundreds of miles away from their home.  In these schools children as young as 5 weren't allowed to wear their traditional clothing, speak their language, or practice their religion.  If the children were found to be breaking any of these rules they were often beaten. ^[6] Almost 50% of the children sent to Albuquerque in the mid-1880s died. ^[7] Utah was home to several of these schools, the last of which was Intermountain Indian School which closed in 1984. ^[8]

US policy relating to Native Americans made a radical swing in the 1950s when Utah Senator Arthur V. Watkins, chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Subcommittee, promoted passage of an act to terminate all federal responsibility toward Indian tribes. To set an example, Watkins pushed for termination of Utah Indian groups, including the Shivwits, Kanosh, Koorsharem, and Indian Peaks Paiutes, as well as the Skull Valley and Washakie Shoshone. Following termination, these groups rapidly lost control of what little land they had. ^[2]

In 1954, following a long-standing internal dispute, the Northern Ute tribe accepted the termination of mixed-blood Utes who became known as the Affiliated Ute Citizens.  This decision led to an estimated 500 individuals who couldn't prove they were more than 50% Ute losing all status as members of their Tribe.^[2][7]

In recent decades Tribal Nations have contended with multi-national corporations regarding mining and gas rights on Tribal land.  One of the most notable was the fight for the Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) Project which would have used the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation to build a large temporary nuclear waste dump. ^[9] MRS planned to have 40,000 tons of commercial high-level radioactive waste at this site in Skull Valley. This amount of radioactive waste is about 80% of the total commercial nuclear fuel used by the end of 2004.  In the end the project was defeated, thanks in large part to Margene Bullcreek. ^[10]

At the moment the Marriott Library is working with members of local Tribal Nations in order to ensure all of our collections are in alignment with cultural needs and privacy concerns, repatriating when possible.  For this reason many of our collections concerning Native Americans are currently under review and not available, we hope that when this process is concluded you will return and learn more about the original people of Utah!

^[1]  Native American History and Tribal Culture in Utah. (n.d.). Www.visitutah.com. https://www.visitutah.com/things-to-do/history-culture/tribal-cultures

^[2]  Lewis, D. Native Americans in Utah. (1994). History to Go. https://historytogo.utah.gov/native-americans/

‌^[3]  Alexander, T. The Walker War. (n.d.). History to Go. https://historytogo.utah.gov/walker-war/

^[4]  O'Neil, F. Utah’s First People: The Utes, Paiutes, and Goshutes. (n.d.). History to Go. https://historytogo.utah.gov/first-peoples/

^[5]  Peterson, J. Utah History Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Www.uen.org. https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/b/BLACK_HAWK_WAR.shtml

‌^[6] The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. (2019). US Indian Boarding School History. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition; The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. https://boardingschoolhealing.org/education/us-indian-boarding-school-history/

^[7] Bakken, G. M., & Kindell, Alexandra. (2006). Encyclopedia of immigration and migration in the American West.

^[8] Utah State University. (n.d.). Intermountain Indian School [Review of Intermountain Indian School]. Digital Collections: Intermountain Indian School; ContentDM. Retrieved 2025, from https://digital.lib.usu.edu/digital/collection/IndSchool

^[9] Dau, S. (n.d.). Margene Bullcreek, Skull Valley Goshute Anti-Nuclear Activist [Review of Margene Bullcreek, Skull Valley Goshute Anti-Nuclear Activist]. Utah Women’s History ; Better Days. Retrieved 2025, from https://utahwomenshistory.org/the-women/margene-bullcreek-skull-valley-goshute-anti-nuclear-activist/

^[10] Global Atlas of Environmental Justice. (2025). Ej Atlas. Ejatlas.org. https://ejatlas.org/conflict/radioactive-waste-on-skull-valley-goshute-indian-reservation-usa

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