White River Utes

White River Utes are a Native American band, made of two earlier bands, the Yampa from the Yampa River Valley and the Parianuche Utes[1] who lived along the Grand Valley in Colorado and Utah.

[1][2] The Yampa (Yapudttka, Yampadttka, Yamparka, Yamparika)[citation needed] lived in the Yampa River Valley area and north of White River of the present-day state of Colorado[1][2] near the Parianuche who lived to the south.

[3] The White River Utes were pressured to give up their hunter-gatherer lifestyle and take up farming in 1879.

This was pressed upon them by an Indian agent, Nathan Meeker, through a number of means, destruction of Ute ponies, starvation, and sending for the military.

This ultimately led to the White River Utes being moved to the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah.

The Milk Creek Canyon disaster - death of the gallant Major Thornburgh, of the Fourth United States Infantry, while heading a charge of his men against a band of hostile Ute Indians in their ambuscade, 1879.