The Tribe has a membership of more than three thousand individuals, with over half living on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation.

[2][better source needed] The Ute Indian Tribe operates its own tribal government and oversees approximately 1.3 million acres of trust land which contains significant oil and gas deposits.

[2][better source needed] The Northern Ute tribe, which was moved to the Uintah Ouray Reservation, is composed of a number of bands.

As the United States began to expand, they created treaties, tract descriptions, and executive orders to outline the terms of Native land and mitigate tensions.

Robert MacFeely uses specific language in his appeal to the United States to lead the president to believe that this would be a mutually beneficial agreement.

The United States' military presence makes it easy for them to kill or threaten any Natives, who oppose their rule.

The presence of this military base would act as a way for the United States to control the Uintah people and assert their dominance.

The US government tried to force the Utes to farm, despite the lack of water and unfavorable growing conditions on their reservation.

In exchange, the Bureau of Reclamation agreed to plan and construct the Unitah, Upalco, and Ute Indian Units of the Central Utah Project to provide storage of the Tribe's water.

To compensate the Tribe for the Bureau of Reclamation's failure to meet its 1965 construction obligations, Title V of the Central Utah Project Completion Act (P.L.

[citation needed] The Tribal Business Committee is the governing council of the Tribe and is located in Fort Duchesne, Utah.