Chief Ignacio

He led the band through many difficult years in the late nineteenth century, when they were being encroached on by European-American settlers.

Although the Weeminuche had not participated in that violence, white settlers wanted to push all the Utes away from their areas.

This was another step in assimilating the Native Americans to European-American ways, based on individual landholdings.

In 1895 the Southern Utes voted on the issue, narrowly passing a measure for allotment.

[1] Refusing to have their land broken up, Chief Ignacio and the Weeminuche people moved to the western part of the Southern Ute Reservation in 1896.