Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation
Indian Reservation
Flag
Boundary of Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation
Tribe	Ute Tribe
Country	United States
State	Utah
Established	1886
Capital	Fort Duchesne
Area
• Total	17,677.0 km2 (6,825.13 sq mi)
Population  (2020)
• Total	25,192
Time zone	MST/MDT
GDP	$2.96 Billion

The Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation (/juːˈɪntə/, /ˈjʊəreɪ/) is a special area of land in northeastern Utah, United States. It is the home of the Ute Indian Tribe. The Ute people call themselves Núuchi-u. This reservation is the largest of three areas where members of the Ute Tribe, a group of Native Americans, live.

About the Uintah and Ouray Reservation

This reservation covers parts of seven different counties in Utah. These counties are Uintah, Duchesne, Wasatch, Grand, Carbon, Utah, and Emery. The total land area is about 6,769 square miles (17,532 square kilometers). Control of this land is shared between individual Ute people, the Ute Indian Tribe, and a group called the Ute Distribution Corporation.

The Ute Tribe owns about 1.2 million acres of surface land. They also own the rights to minerals under 400,000 acres of land. These lands are all within the larger 4-million-acre reservation area. Other parts of the reservation are owned by people who are not Ute. This happened because the tribe lost control of much of their land a long time ago.

In 2000, about 19,182 people lived on the reservation. It is the second-largest Indian reservation in the United States by land area. Only the Navajo Nation is larger. The main offices for the tribe are in Fort Duchesne, which is in Uintah County. The biggest town inside the reservation is Roosevelt. Most people living there are not Native Americans.

How Land Ownership Changed

The Uintah Valley Reservation was created on October 3, 1861. This was done by an order from President Abraham Lincoln. Later, the Uncompahgre Reservation (also called the Ouray Reservation) was created on January 5, 1882, by President Chester A. Arthur. At first, these two reservations were managed separately. But in 1886, the Bureau of Indian Affairs combined them. They became the Uintah and Ouray Agency at Fort Duchesne.

Today, only some of the original four million acres are tribal land. Starting in the 1890s, the U.S. Congress passed laws. These laws said that small pieces of reservation land should be given to individual Native Americans. Any extra land would then be open for others to settle. In August 1905, after land was given to Native peoples, the remaining land was opened. People could claim it for farming or mining.

New towns like Myton and Roosevelt were created. Some land was also taken to become part of the Uinta National Forest. The United States Reclamation Service also took land in Strawberry Valley. They used this land to build the Strawberry Reservoir.

People who were not Native Americans continued to get land within the reservation. This stopped in 1934 when the Indian Reorganization Act was passed. In 1945, any unclaimed lands were given back to the tribe. Because of these changes, the reservation now has different types of land. Some is tribal land, some is owned by private citizens, and some is owned by the government.

In March 1948, an area called the Hill Creek Extension was added to the reservation.

Understanding Legal Rules

Because different people and groups own land on the reservation, legal rules can be tricky. This mix of ownership means that different laws might apply in different places. This can make it hard for police to know who has the right to enforce laws.

The Ute Tribe has had long-standing disagreements with the state and county governments. Since the 1970s, state courts had been trying to judge Ute members for crimes that happened on tribal lands. The tribe took the state to federal court.

In a case called Ute Tribe v. Utah in 1985, a federal court said the tribe had the right to make laws for its members on the reservation. The court also confirmed the reservation's boundaries. The state and counties had argued that the reservation area had become smaller since it was created. But the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear the case, which meant the lower court's decision stood.

However, the state kept trying Ute people in state courts. This went against the earlier ruling. The state Supreme Court then said the reservation boundaries had been reduced. This led to another case, Hagen v. Utah, in 1994. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed that some actions by Congress had made the Uintah Reservation smaller. But it said the other two Ute reservations were not affected.

To fix the confusion from these different court decisions, the federal court looked at Ute Tribe v. Utah again in 1997. The court said that because of the Hagen case, the Uintah Valley Reservation was indeed smaller. This helped to make sure that everyone understood who had legal power in different parts of the reservation.

Even after these rulings, the state and counties continued to try Ute people in state courts for crimes on the reservation. In 2015, the federal court strongly told the state and counties to follow the court's decisions. It advised them to stop trying to change the reservation's boundaries and the tribe's right to govern its people on "Indian country."

Communities in the Area

Many communities are located within the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. These include: