Nicaagat
Nicaagat | |
---|---|
Born | c. 1840 |
Died | ca. April 29, 1882 |
Other names | Ute Jack, Captain Jack, Chief Jack |
Occupation | Ute chief |
Nicaagat (leaves becoming green,
He went to Washington, D.C. to speak before Congress following the battle to defend his actions.[2]
As a boy, Nicaagat was orphaned and then sold to a Mormon family. He was educated at a school with white children and attended church with the family. He lived with the family a number of years and ran away after being threatened to be whipped. He traveled to Colorado and joined with the White River Utes when he married a young woman from the tribe. He became a leader to the younger men and was a scout for General George Crook during the Sioux Wars of 1876 and 1877.
Background
Nicaagat was a Ute chief of Colorado. The Utes were nomadic people who ranged across their extensive hunting grounds for large and small game in family groups. Bands of family groups met with other Utes during the year for religious and traditional ceremonies, like the Bear Dance.[5] They gathered foods—like berries, roots, nuts—and fished. They lived in tipis and wickiups. In the 1800s traders and miners encroached on their land, followed by settlers. They exposed the Utes to disease, like smallpox.[5]
Informal and formal measures were used to negotiate with whites, which ultimately resulted in the loss of Ute land and establishment of the Ouray and Uintah reservations. Now, there are three Ute bands: Uintah of Utah, and Uncompaghre and White River Utes (Nüpartka) of Colorado. The White River and Uncompahgre Utes lived on a Colorado reservation under the Treaty of 1868.[5][6] In Colorado in the 1870s, Ute tribal land had covered 12 million acres west of the Continental Divide and included land in the south around Ignacio and Durango, centered around Milk Creek and Meeker, and in the north including Aspen.[4]
Early life
Born in 1840,
He met his wife in the spring, at his first annual Bear Dance since his escape. His wife chose him and her parents agreed with the match.[1][10] He became a member of the White River Utes,[4][10] and a leader among the young men.[11]
Nicaagat went with Ouray and other chiefs to Washington, D.C. in January 1868. The purpose of the visit was to sign a treaty that would define the territorial borders of the Ute people.[12]
Having learned to speak English fluently, he served as a scout for General George Crook in 1876 and 1877. Crook fought the Sioux,[4] enemies of the Ute people.[13] Nicaagat saw first-hand what could happen when the military entered a Native American reservation.[12]
Meeker Massacre
Nathan Meeker, an Indian agent, was appointed to the White River Indian Agency in 1878. Meeker fought against Utes traditional ways of life. He did not like that they used pasture land for race horses. He ordered the Utes to take up farming, using their race horses to plow fields.[5] Tensions rose between the Utes and Meekers. Ute leaders, including Ouray, his wife Chipeta, Nicaagat, Colorow, Black Hawk and others tried to resolve problems between the United States government and the Utes.[5]
Nicaagat returned to the Ute reservation and found it absurd that Meeker intended to turn brave hunting Utes into gardeners who took the orders from an Indian agent.
Nicaagat and other warriors met Thornburg at Fortification Creek, and again at Peck's Trading Post near present-day Craig, Colorado to assess Thornburgh's motives.[11] Nicaagat also conveyed that they did not want the soldiers to cross into the reservation.[11][14] To do so would be to go against the Ute's treaty with Governor Pitkin. Nicaagat suggested that a group of five soldiers and five Utes go to the Indian agency together to meet with Meeker. Thornburg discussed the compromise with his scouts, who recommended him to be wary of the Utes, that the suggestion could be a ruse. Thornburgh did not believe that the Utes were dangerous, based upon history with them, but he decided to follow his original order, which was to send his full force onto the reservation.[15] Thornburgh to Nicaagat that he needed to assess the situation before he would develop a plan.[11]
Nicaagat left the army encampment
When the military crossed Milk Creek onto the Ute reservation, it was seen as an invasion and an act of war.
General Hatch held a commission to study the Meeker Massacre and Battle of Milk Creek. He determined that no Utes would be tried for the battle against the United States military, but those involved in the killing or kidnapping of people from the Indian Agency would need to be brought in. Colorow and Nicaagat were selected to bring Quinkent and others in for a trial outside of Colorado. Nicaagat would never forgiven by the Utes, so he with his wife and children left the reservation.[1][b]
Later years, death, and legacy
Nicaagat went to live on a Shoshone reservation in Wyoming. Seven men from the cavalry came to find him, saying that he was off the reservation.[4] The Indian Agency had asked for his arrest, which was made on April 29, 1882, near Fort Washakie, Wyoming. Soon after, he escaped and entered a nearby tipi. He found a carbine and killed a soldier of the third cavalry, Sergeant Richard Casey.[17] He was shot in the arm. The tipi that he ran into was fired upon by soldiers with a howitzer and he was killed.[4]
His portrait was made by Joseph Lee Hershel in the 1930s. It is in the collection of the History Colorado Center.[18]
Notes
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-679-43508-2.
- ^ a b c "Buffalo Soldiers". National Museum of African American History and Culture. Retrieved 2022-01-01.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-313-38126-3.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Vagneur, Tony (May 4, 2018). "Tony Vagneur: Captain Jack's demise ugly lesson in horrors of Manifest Destiny". Retrieved 2022-01-01.
- ^ a b c d e f "Northern Ute People (Uintah and Ouray Reservation)". coloradoencyclopedia.org. August 20, 2015. Retrieved 2022-01-01.
- ^ a b Emmitt 1954, p. 15.
- ^ "Nicaagat (Captain Jack) 1840-1882". WorldCat Identies.
- ^ a b c ""Redeeming" the Indian: The Enslavement of Indian Children in New Mexico and Utah". issuu. Retrieved 2022-01-01.
- ^ Emmitt 1954, pp. 39–40.
- ^ a b Emmitt 1954, p. 40.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "The Last Major Indian Uprising: The Meeker Massacre and the Battle of Milk Creek". www.meekercolorado.com. Retrieved 2022-01-01.
- ^ a b c Gulliford, Andrew. "The Last Trail War by Robert Emmitt: Introduction" (PDF). University Press of Colorado. pp. 3, 9. Retrieved 2022-01-01.
- ^ Emmitt 1954, p. 14.
- ^ a b "Meeker Incident". Museums of Western Colorado. September 29, 2020. Retrieved 2022-01-01.
- ^ Marsh 1982, pp. 92–93.
- ^ a b Marsh 1982, p. 93.
- ^ "A Bad Indian: Nicaagat". The Las Vegas Gazette. May 2, 1882. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-01-01.
- ^ "Captain Jack". National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2022-01-01.
Bibliography
- Emmitt, Robert (1954). The last war trail; the Utes and the settlement of Colorado. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press.
- Marsh, Charles S. (Charles Seabrooke) (1982). People of the shining mountains : the Utes of Colorado. Boulder, Colo. : Pruett Pub. Co. ISBN 978-0-87108-620-4.