The 1884 Deseret News report, written in the typically florid and unflattering language of the era, gave a somewhat biased view of relations between Indians and white set-tlers in eastern Utah as the century waned.
Although Davis did deal primarily with one band of peaceable Ute Indians, confrontations between ethnic groups in eastern Utah eventually led to the establishment of two forts and an interesting chapter in the post-Civil War involvement of black soldiers in America's frontier military.In a Utah Historical Quarterly article, University of Utah history professor Ronald G. Coleman writes about the "buffalo soldiers" of Fort Duchesne. The nickname probably was coined by Indians, who thought the blacks' hair resembled the wooly manes of buffalo.
Thomas G. Alexander and Leonard J. Arrington, in another Historical Quarterly article on military forts in Utah, set the scene for the arrival of U.S. troops in the Uinta Basin.
As early as 1885-86, intertribal warfare had broken out, and white newspapers reported Un-compahgres "shooting one another with that pleasing freedom so characteristic of the noble red man."
In September 1879, roaming bands of Uncompahgre and White River Utes, frustrated at
having their access to traditional hunting grounds in Colorado usurped by whites, vented their frustrations in several clashes with white settlers. Uintah Indian agent Nathan C. Meeker, who had been unsuccessful in trying to convert the Utes to an agricultural lifestyle, measured the unrest and asked for help from the military.
Major Thomas T. Thornburgh and 200 cavalry troops marched from Fort Fred Steele in Wyoming to give Meeker protection, but White River Utes ambushed Thornburgh's troops and killed the major and several of his men. Meeker and seven of his employees also were killed and several white women and children taken captive.
Alarmed, Congress quickly authorized two forts (although it consistently failed over the life of the forts to provide the expected amount of money to finance them), one to be named after Thornburgh, and a second near the confluence of the Duchesne and Uintah rivers. In French, Duchesne means "of the, or at the, dog."
Maj. F.W. Benteen, the man who was credited with "saving what was left" of George Custer's ill-fated troops after the Little Big Horn debacle, was assigned to head the Fort Duchesne post. He led four companies of infantry and the 9th Cavalry, a unit of black soldiers. They served in the Basin for about 12 years before being sent to the Philippine Islands during the Spanish American War. The buffalo soldiers gave Uintah County the second largest black population in Utah for that time.
As the fort was manned, a few white men who hoped to capitalize on conflict between the Indians and the soldiers told the natives the army was coming to kill their chiefs, arrest others and give their lands to settlers. Acting on the rumors, Indians from several of the Ute bands sent their women and children to the mountains for protection and prepared for war, Cole-man writes.
Warned by less militant Indians, special agent Eugene E. White called for a council. He assured the Indians that the soldiers would only interfere in their lives if they failed to abide by agreements. Subtly, he reminded them of another Indian, Geronimo, who had been removed from his people when he failed to conform and sent off to Florida where he "probably was plagued by mosquitoes and alligators." The Utes capitulated and agreed to live amiably. "If the soldiers want to sit down on the reservation, all right - just so they do not try to hurt us without cause or take our country away from us."
But when the Indians learned that some of the soldiers assigned to Fort Duchesne were blacks, a delegation of five fast-riding Utes hurried after the departing White, shouting excitedly:
"Buffalo soldiers! Buffalo soldiers! Coming. Maybe so tomorrow. . . . Don't let them come. We can't stand it. It's bad, very bad. . . . Injun heap no like him," Coleman says, extracting from a history written by one of the reservation agents.
White was finally able to soothe the Indian leaders by assuring them that the leaders of the soldiers were white (although two black West Point graduates eventually served as leaders at the Uintah fort) and that the black soldiers would conduct themselves honorably. But relationships between blacks and Indians were never cordial.
After an initial period of push-and-pull, the presence of the forts was accepted and life settled back into routine. White and black soldiers apparently lived together without particular problems, although prejudice was apparent in some of the reports submitted by fort leaders.
After serving 30 years and ready for retirement, Benteen said, "it was not proper to remain with a race of troops that I could take no interest in and this on account of their low-down rascally character."
The two West Point-trained black officers who served in Utah were among three who graduated from the academy shortly after the Civil War. Twenty three had originally been appointed, and only 12 passed the exam, while the others dropped out before completing the course.
Foods served the two groups at Fort Duchesne reflected ethnic differences, but soldiers of both races coped with leaky roofs and mosquito-infested rivers where they were expected to bathe. "Lack of bath tubs, lack of conveniences for warming water . . . and lack of privacy makes bathing uncomfortable, so it is frequently neglected," the post surgeon reported.
No one escaped persistent winds that blew sand through the cracks of their modest homes, and they all shivered as temperatures dropped to as low as minus 20 in the winter or baked as they hovered around 90 to 100 degrees in the summer. Black and white were reported to "sleep and fight the festive bed bug together."
Despite the harsh conditions, the camp surgeon reported generally good health among the men.
Several of the buffalo soldiers brought their wives to camp, where the women supplemented the family income by taking in washing.
But among non-military fort residents, few had the ingenuity of Wong Sing, a Chinese entrepreneur who established a bare-bones laundry on the banks of the Uintah River and over time added a mercantile and restaurant. He learned the Ute language and served the Indians, earning the ire of several white businessmen who couldn't compete. They had him kicked off the reservation, but the Indians refused to trade with the white merchants. When the white traders' establishments were burned down under mysterious circumstances, Wong Sing built a new store just off the reservation that was still in operation after the fort closed in 1901 and on into the 1920s.
Friction between the races was most likely to erupt on "the strip," a line of saloons, gambling dens and brothels outside the fort. One such altercation ended in the shooting deaths of a black and a white. Soldiers were thereafter posted on the bridge to keep the army men away from the strip, but some, bent on pleasure, merely swam the river instead.
Besides the usual military routine and occasional calls to resolve Indian problems, the Fort Du-chesne soldiers were assigned to cut timber and operate a quarry and kiln. They helped to improve the road between Fort Duchesne and Price to facilitate supply hauling.
In one instance, a group of "sooners" who had been misled into thinking reservation land was going to be up for grabs found to their disappointment that it wasn't so. Some decided to dig in anyway, and the soldiers were sent to evict them. Twenty men under Capt. M. W. Day confronted about 300 would-be settlers. Day was able to convince most of them that the whole thing had been a mistake, but about a dozen stubborn squatters were arrested and taken to the fort.
One "made-for-the-movies" incident occurred when rumors began to circulate that outlaws from Robbers Roost (the hideout of such notables as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) were going to hold up agents carrying $30,000 in Indian subsidy money headed for the reservation. Sightings of several of the Robbers Roost gang in the area of Price and Helper fueled the rumors.
A Captain Wright and Troop F were dispatched to the Price railroad depot, and another detachment was sent from Price to defend the Helper depot. Anxious 9th Calvary troops met the train at Helper and kept an eye peeled for any suspicious goings-on. They then hurried to Price, where 40 armed soldiers were posted to guard the railroad platform.
The soldiers formed an escort for Indian agent G.A. Cornish, who arrived at Fort Duchesne without incident and with all the cash.
In March 1901, the 192 buffalo soldiers and their two black officers then assigned to Fort Duchesne were sent via San Francisco to the Philippines to take part in the Spanish-American War. The eight remaining blacks left the post in July of that year, ending the buffalo soldier era.