1874 Report of Special Commissioners J. W. Powell and G. W. Ingalls on the Condition of the Ute Indians of Utah
Report of Special Commissioners J. W. Powell and G. W. Ingalls on the Condition of the Ute, Pai-Ute, Go-si Ute, and Shoshone Indians, and Report Concerning Claims of Settlers in the Mo-a-pa Valley (1873)
Authors: John Wesley Powell and George W. Ingalls
Issued by: United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior
Date: 1873 (published 1874)
This official United States government report presents the findings of a federal commission tasked with investigating the condition of several Indigenous nations in the Intermountain West who, at the time, lived largely outside formal reservation systems. The report examines the Ute Indians of Utah; the Pai-Utes of Utah, northern Arizona, southern Nevada, and southeastern California; the Go-si Utes of Utah and Nevada; the Northwestern Shoshones of Idaho and Utah; and the Western Shoshones of Nevada.
Powell and Ingalls conducted field investigations in 1873 to assess social, economic, and political conditions amid escalating tensions between Native communities and Euro-American settlers. The report provides detailed observations of Indigenous subsistence practices, patterns of movement, leadership structures, and relationships with neighboring settler populations. It emphasizes the climate of fear and instability in frontier regions, noting that settler anxieties over potential hostilities were often exaggerated, while Native communities experienced persistent insecurity due to encroachment, violence, and uncertainty regarding federal policy.
A central focus of the report is the feasibility and consequences of relocating Indigenous groups to reservations. The commissioners evaluate the adequacy of existing agencies, the availability of agricultural land and resources, and the broader implications of enforced settlement for peoples whose economies depended on mobility. Their recommendations reflect contemporary federal approaches to Indian administration while also revealing internal tensions within nineteenth-century reform discourse.
The volume concludes with a separate report addressing land claims by settlers in the Mo-a-pa Valley of southeastern Nevada, linking Indigenous policy directly to regional disputes over land ownership and settlement. As a primary source, this document is essential for understanding United States Indian policy in the 1870s and provides valuable insight into federal perceptions of Indigenous peoples, territorial expansion, and the implementation of the reservation system in the Great Basin and Rocky Mountain regions.