Following the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the Northern Ute Tribe
began repurchasing alienated reservation lands. In 1948 the federal
government returned some 726,000 acres to the tribe in what is called
the Hill Creek Extension. In a 1986 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court
upheld an Appeals Court ruling granting the Northern Ute Tribe "legal
jurisdiction" over three million acres of alienated reservation lands
-- an important decision for the future of the tribe and the region.
See: Donald Callaway, Joel Janetski, and Omer C. Stewart, "Ute," in Great Basin, edited by Warren L. D'Azevedo, vol. 11 of Handbook of North
American Indians (1986); Fred A. Conetah, A History of the Northern
Ute People (1982); Joseph G. Jorgensen, The Sun Dance Religion: Power
for the Powerless (1972); Kathryn L. MacKay, "The Strawberry Valley
Reclamation Project and the Opening of the Uintah Indian Reservation,"
Utah Historical Quarterly, 50 (Winter 1982); Floyd A. O'Neil, "Reluctant
Suzerainty: The Uintah and Ouray Reservation," Utah Historical Quarterly,
39 (Spring 1971); Floyd A. O'Neil and Kathryn L. MacKay, A History of
the Uintah-Ouray Ute Lands, American West Occasional Papers no. 10 (1979).
David
Rich Lewis