Nathan Cook Meeker (July 12, 1817 – September 30, 1879) was a 19th-century American journalist, homesteader, entrepreneur, and Indian agent for the federal government.

In 1880, the United States Congress passed punitive legislation to remove the Ute from Colorado to Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in present-day Utah, and take away most of the land guaranteed them by treaty.

Arvilla taught kindergarten and Nathan was a teacher, historian, auditor, librarian, secretary, and poet laureate.

[1] The Trumbull Phalanx colony failed due to financial and health issues in the fall of 1847.

He was asked to help found the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute by the Disciples of Christ, but he was furious when his claim was held up because he sold whiskey.

[1] Meeker wrote articles, often about sociology, that were published by the Cleveland Plaindealer and reprinted by Horace Greeley in the New-York Tribune.

He was present at and reported on the battle at Fort Donelson,[1] among other journalists such as Junius Henri Browne and Charles Carleton Coffin.

[4] Meeker became made an agricultural journalist and editor at the end of the war for the New-York Tribune.

He advertised for applicants to move to the South Platte River basin, in what was intended as a cooperative venture for people of "high moral standards" and temperance.

[2] In 1868, six bands of the Utes signed a treaty with the United States ceding the lands in the eastern part of their range and being granted a reservation of 16,500,000 acres (67,000 km2) (25,781 square miles) comprising most of the western one-third of Colorado.

According to Article 2 of the Treaty, the lands on the reservation were "set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians.

[10] In 1878, Meeker was appointed to the salaried position of United States (US) Indian agent at the White River Reservation by Henry M. Teller, the Governor of Colorado.

The U.S. government at the time had the objective of assimilating Indians by converting them to Christianity, forcing them to become sedentary farmers, educate their children in boarding schools, and adopt other "civilized" customs.

Meeker demanded the Utes accede to his wishes, withheld rations and annuities to force their compliance, and wrote newspaper articles condemning their resistance.

Meeker wired for military assistance, after he had been assaulted by an Indian, driven from his home, and severely injured.

Meeker requested that Thornburgh halt his advance outside the reservation and proceed to the White River Agency with only five soldiers.

Two of the women taken captive were Meeker's his wife Arvilla and daughter Josephine, just graduated from college and working as a teacher and physician.