Government contracting in 1874

The United States government made treaties with American Indian nations to gain their cooperation – and their land. In return, the government agreed to give the Indians basic food and supplies. Indian Agents were responsible for delivering the goods. The Agent made a public notice of the opportunity for private individuals or businesses to sell something to the government.
          On October 1, 1874, the Colorado Weekly Chieftain (Pueblo) ran a notice from Agent Henry F. Bond at the Los Pinos Ute Agency requesting two proposals (bids) to supply: 

       Proposal #1                         Proposal #2

110,000 pounds flour              30 rifles
150,000 pounds beef          2,000 pounds lead
      600 pounds soda            700 pounds powder
     500 pounds soap              50,000 caps
   5,000 pounds bacon        5,000 cartridges
      5,000 pounds salt

          Bond specified flour “of the quality known as XX, subject to inspection, and to be put up in 100 pound sacks of strong material.” The order would be delivered half in November and half the following June. Bond specified beef as “steers between the ages of three and seven years, to be free of disease and to weigh not less than 900 pounds each.” The meat would be delivered on-the-hoof the following June.
          Bond would open the bids at the new Delmonico House in Denver at 10:00 am on October 13, 1874. At that time he would look at samples of goods to be supplied “as far as is practicable.” (No one needed to bring along a steer.)
          Letters from two responsible people “vouching for the ability and good faith” of the bidder were required with each proposal. A successful bidder was required to “post a bond with good sureties in the penal sum of double the amount of the bid.” A bond is a guarantee. Sureties agree to pay the amount of the bond if the bidder fails to deliver as promised. A good suretie might be a banker or other business person.
          A government contracting officer today uses the same basic process.

Lincoln’s Secretary in Colorado

John G. Nicolay on left with President Lincoln and John Hay taken November 8, 1863 by Alexander Gardner in his Washington studio. Image from the Library of Congress collection.

President Abraham Lincoln sent his secretary, John G. Nicolay,  as his personal representative to the 1863 treaty council with the Utes at Conejos, Colorado Territory. Nicolay arrived in September and spent a month touring the Territory. He arrived at Conejos on  October 1, 1863 to lead the team of government representatives that included Territorial Governor John L. Evans, Dr. Michael Stech, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for New Mexico, plus Indian Agents Simeon Whiteley and Lafayette Head.
          Fifteen hundred Tabeguache Utes (Ouray’s band) turned out for the treaty council. Only three Mouache chiefs and one Capote chief attended. The Weeminuche and the northern Ute bands did not participate. A treaty was concluded on October 7, 1863. It was primarily an agreement with the estimated 4,000 Tabeguache Utes, who gave up their lands east of the Continental Divide.
          After the agreement was made, Nicolay presented silver peace medals bearing President Lincoln’s image to seven chiefs, including Ouray. These were men Nicolay counted as most cooperative.
          The treaty Nicolay negotiated was ratified, with amendments, by the U.S. Senate on March 25, 1864, and accepted by the Utes on October 8, 1864.

          Arnold Schwarzenegger was the voice of Lincoln’s Bavarian-born secretary, John G. Nicolay, in the 1992 ABC documentary Lincoln (Richard Zoglin, “Trying To Hype History,” TIME, December 28, 1992).
          Helen Nicolay wrote a biography of her father: Lincoln’s Secretary (Longmans, Green and Co. 1949; reprinted Greenwood Press, 1971).

Counting Indians

The 1860 census of Colorado Territory did not count Indians. The 1863 Report of the U.S. Secretary of Interior estimated 9,800 Utes in Colorado Territory. Based on reports from Indian Agents there were about 500 Muache, 800 Capote, 2,000 Weeminuche, 2500 Grand River (Northern Utes) and 4,000 Tabeguache.

           American Indians were first counted as a separate group in the 1860 U.S. census but only if they “paid taxes” or lived among white settlers. In the 1890 Census, Indians living in American Indian Territory and on American Indian reservations were also counted. It was not until the 1940 Census that ALL Indians were counted as part of the U.S. population. Source: Measuring America The Decennial Census from 1790 to 2000

Unexpected Finds

     While digging through old Indian Agent correspondence in the National Archives, I found a letter with a famous signature – N.C. Wyeth. On September 4, 1904 he wrote from Wilmington, Delaware to the “Government Agent of the Ute Indian Reservation.” Wyeth stated his purpose:

To come directly to the point – I am an illustrator - and intensely interested in the “Indian.” I desire this fall to take a trip to your reservation for the purpose of pictureing or “writing up” any of the dances, feasts, or sports that may take place this fall.

     I made a photocopy of the letter and contacted the curator of the N.C. Wyeth museum. She confirmed that Wyeth did make a trip west that fall and set up a studio in Denver for a period of time. We found no evidence that he did any sketching on the Ute reservation.
     The experience reminds me that in research it pays to look carefully at every document available.

Let’s Ride!

At age eight, I decided to become a cowgirl like Dale Evans. I watched her on television every Saturday morning. Riding a pale horse named Buttermilk, my heroine joined her famous husband, Roy Rogers, in new adventures every week. In my official Dale Evans outfit (a fake cowhide skirt and vest with hat and gunbelt), I rode my imaginary horse to adventure in my Southern Indiana backyard.

Of course, I grew up to realize those shows were only stories and the West was no longer the wild, untamed place of Saturday morning serials. Still, I packed up and moved to Colorado the day after college graduation. I found a job in Denver and began to read Colorado history. That is where I first heard of Chipeta, a Ute Indian woman born in 1844 when the American Southwest was still Mexican Territory.

One morning in the summer of 1995, I sat up in bed and said, “I’m going to write a biography of Chipeta.” Like Dale Evans, Chipeta was known because of a famous husband, Chief Ouray of the Utes. I wanted to discover the woman herself, the woman who was so special that streets, parks, schools, and natural landmarks in Colorado and surrounding states bear her name. My search took eight years and many hundreds of miles. The result was Chipeta: Queen of the Utes (Western Reflections Publishing, 2003; P. David Smith co-author). In the fall of 2008, Filter Press released Chipeta: Ute Peacemaker, a biography for children in the Now You Know Bio series.   

In this blog I plan to share research experiences and tidbits from my Chipeta files (which continue to grow). I hope to host other writers for discussions of research and writing. So, come on along for the ride – and leave your trail of comments.