The stage was set for trouble in spring 1878 when new agent Nathan C. Meeker arrived at the White River Indian Agency on the Ute Reservation. The Utes had seen agents come and go without bringing any great change, but Meeker intended to convert them to Christianity and a farming lifestyle. His efforts to alter their society drove the White River Utes to war. In The Last War Trail, Robert Emmitt details the conflict that followed, the Meeker Massacre and the Ute War of 1879.
From White River Ute chief Saponise Cuch, a young warrior at the time, Emmitt heard the story of the Utes...