History of Paiute Indians of Utah

The Utah Paiutes and the federal government signed a treaty in 1865, but it was not ratified by the Senate. The first reservation for the Paiutes was established at Shivwits, near St. George, in 1891. Other small reservations were established by executive order: Indian Peaks in 1915, Koosharem in 1928, and Kanosh in 1929. The Cedar City Paiutes were treated as a scattered band and lived on land owned by the Mormon Church.

A Paiute agency was established in Cedar City in 1927 by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Nevertheless, very little federal help was available for the Paiutes. Paiute women worked as maids, cleaning houses and washing clothes. Paiute men worked as section hands for the railroad, did intermittent labor on farms, and sometimes worked small plots on reservation land.

In 1935 the Shivwits and the Kanosh Paiutes voted to accept the Wheeler-Howard Act. Known as the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) this legislation encouraged tribal self-governance and the protection of Indian land rights. With their new IRA governments, they received more help than before from the federal government. They were given $10,000 loans under the Indian Service Revolving Credit Fund in the 1940s.

During the 1950s the Utah Paiutes became victims of the termination policy of Congress. Although BIA documents clearly recognized that the Paiutes were not ready to survive without the benefits of the trust relationship, Utah Senator Arthur Watkins included them on the list of tribes to be terminated. Without federal tax protection, health and education benefits, or agricultural assistance, the Paiutes were reduced to a miserable existence during the late 1950s and 1960s.