The Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation (, ) is located in northeastern

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, United States. It is the homeland of the

Ute Indian Tribe Ute () are the Indigenous people of the Ute tribe and culture among the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. They had lived in sovereignty in the regions of present-day Utah and Colorado in the Southwestern United States for many centuries unt ...

(

Ute dialect Ute Givón, T. ''Ute Reference Grammar''. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011 is a dialect of the Colorado River Numic language, spoken by the Ute people. Speakers primarily live on three reservations: Uintah-Ouray (or Northern Ute) in nort ...

: Núuchi-u), and is the largest of three Indian reservations inhabited by members of the

Ute Tribe Ute () are the Indigenous people of the Ute tribe and culture among the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. They had lived in sovereignty in the regions of present-day Utah and Colorado in the Southwestern United States for many centuries unt ...

of Native Americans.

Description

The reservation lies in parts of seven counties; in descending order of land area they are: Uintah,

Duchesne Duchesne is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Joseph Duchesne (c. 1544–1609), French physician and chemist. Physician-in-ordinary to King Henry IV * André Duchesne (1584–1640), French historian * François Duchesne (1616� ...

, Wasatch,

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Carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon mak ...

, and Emery counties. The total land area is with control of the lands split between Ute Indian Allottees, the

, and the Ute Distribution Corporation. The tribe owns lands that total approximately of surface land and of mineral-owned land within the reservation area. Other parts of the reservation are owned by non-Ute, as the tribe lost control of much of the land during the allotment process. As of the 2000 census, a population of 19,182 persons was recorded as living on the reservation. This is the second-largest Indian reservation in land area in the United States, second to the

Navajo Nation The Navajo Nation ( nv, Naabeehó Bináhásdzo), also known as Navajoland, is a Native American reservation in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah; at roughly , the ...

, but control of the land is split among multiple authorities. Tribal headquarters are in Fort Duchesne, located in

Uintah County, Utah Uintah County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2020 United States Census the population was 35,620. Its county seat and largest city is Vernal. The county was named for the portion of the Ute Indian tribe that lived in th ...

. The largest community within the reservation boundaries is the city of

Roosevelt Roosevelt may refer to: *Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), 26th U.S. president * Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), 32nd U.S. president Businesses and organisations * Roosevelt Hotel (disambiguation) * Roosevelt & Son, a merchant bank * Rooseve ...

. Most of its residents are not Native Americans.

Land ownership and the allotment process

The Uintah Valley Reservation was created on October 3, 1861 by an executive order of President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

. The Uncompahgre Reservation (commonly called the Ouray Reservation) was created on January 5, 1882 by an executive order of President

Chester A. Arthur Chester Alan Arthur (October 5, 1829 – November 18, 1886) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 21st president of the United States from 1881 to 1885. He previously served as the 20th vice president under President James ...

. The two reservations were maintained by separate agencies until 1886, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs merged the administration into the Uintah and Ouray Agency at Fort Duchesne. Of the four million acres in the reservation area, today only a portion is tribal land. Beginning in the 1890s (and continuing for more than a decade),

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

passed a series of laws requiring small parcels of land in the reservation be allotted to individual Natives and any surplus land be opened to the public domain. In August 1905, after allotments had been granted to the Native peoples, the unallotted land in the reservation was opened to homesteading and mineral claims. By means of presidential proclamation, town-sites were created (such as Myton and Roosevelt) and land was taken and absorbed into the

Uinta National Forest Uinta National Forest is a national forest located in north central Utah, USA. It was originally part of the Uinta Forest Reserve, created by Grover Cleveland on 2 February 1897. The name is derived from the Ute word ''Yoov-we-teuh'' which ...

. The

United States Reclamation Service The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

, through the use of eminent domain, acquired the Strawberry Valley for construction of the

Strawberry Reservoir Strawberry Reservoir is a large reservoir in the U.S. state of Utah. It is Utah's most popular fishery, receiving over 1.5 million angling hours annually and is part of the Blue Ribbon Fisheries program. Game fish in the reservoir include sterili ...

. Land within the reservation continued to be acquired by non-Natives until 1934, when the Indian Reorganization Act ended the process, and in 1945 any unclaimed lands were restored to tribal jurisdiction. The allotment process has thus resulted in a reservation with not only tribal land, but land owned both privately by non-Natives and publicly by a variety of government entities. In March 1948, the area known as the Hill Creek Extension was added to the reservation.

Legal jurisdiction issues

Because of the allotment process, land in the reservation is owned by a variety of private, public, and tribal entities. Law enforcement efforts in the area are complicated by this checkerboard of ownership which results in a variety of different legal jurisdictions. The tribe has had longstanding issues with state and county authorities, who since the 1970s had prosecuted in state court Ute members from within the tribal lands at this reservation and its two other holdings. The tribe filed suit against the state in federal district court. In '' Ute Tribe v. Utah'' (10th Cir. 1985) (en banc), known as ''Ute III,'' the US Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the tribe's legal jurisdiction over its members within the reservations and affirmed the boundaries, against the state and counties' claims that the area of jurisdiction had been reduced since the reservation was established in 1864. The United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The state continued to prosecute Ute within the reservations in state court, in violation of the ruling in Ute III. The state Supreme Court ruled the reservation boundaries had been reduced, and the case was heard by the US Supreme Court, '' Hagen v. Utah,'' 510 U.S. 399, 421-22 (1994). It upheld the Utah Supreme Court in affirming that some congressional actions had diminished the boundaries of the Uintah Reservation, but that the two other reservations were not affected. In an effort to reconcile the cases in light of the Supreme Court's ruling, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed ''Ute Tribe v. Utah'' in 1997.

So in a decision the parties call Ute V, this court elected to recall and modify Ute III's mandate. See ''Ute Indian Tribe v. Utah,'' 114 F.3d 1513, 1527-28 (10th Cir. 1997). Because ''Hagen'' addressed the Uintah Valley Reservation, Ute V deemed that particular portion of Ute tribal lands diminished — and diminished according to the terms ''Hagen'' dictated. So much relief was warranted, this court found, to "reconcile two inconsistent boundary determinations and to provide a uniform allocation of jurisdiction among separate sovereigns. Id. at 1523.

The state and counties continued to prosecute Ute from within the reservation for offenses in state courts. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals called the plaintiffs and defendants together again in 2015. The court rejected the counties' claim to be acting as an arm of the state and entitled to the same immunity. It strongly advised the state and counties to observe the settled nature of this case and to refrain from their tactics to challenge the boundaries of the reservation and jurisdiction of the tribe over its people in "Indian country."

Communities

* Altamont * Altonah * Arcadia *

Avalon Avalon (; la, Insula Avallonis; cy, Ynys Afallon, Ynys Afallach; kw, Enys Avalow; literally meaning "the isle of fruit r appletrees"; also written ''Avallon'' or ''Avilion'' among various other spellings) is a mythical island featured in the ...

* Ballard * Bennett * Bluebell * Bonanza * Boneta * Bridgeland * Cedarview *

Crescent A crescent shape (, ) is a symbol or emblem used to represent the lunar phase in the first quarter (the "sickle moon"), or by extension a symbol representing the Moon itself. In Hinduism, Lord Shiva is often shown wearing a crescent moon on his ...

* Fort Duchesne (tribal headquarters) * Fruitland * Gusher * Hanna * Hayden * Ioka * Lapoint * Leeton * Leota *

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* Mountain Home * Mount Emmons * Myton * Neola * Ouray * Randlett *

* Soldier Creek Estates * Stockmore * Strawberry * Tabiona * Talmage * Tridell * Upalco * Utahn * Whiterocks

References

Uintah and Ouray Reservation and Off-Reservation Trust Land, Utah
United States Census Bureau

External links