Last Indian Summer

Three years after the Little Bighorn massacre, the American Indian Wars ended with the capitulation of the large plains tribes. The Colorado Utes were scattered in four relatively small bands under the titular leadership of Ouray, an enlightened and educated Apache adopted by the Utes. The Utes had lived a secluded, bucolic existence in the Rocky Mountains until the discovery of gold and silver after the Civil War. Two ensuing treaties shrank and fragmented their reservations and disrupted their nomadic lifestyle. The appointment of an idealistic and obdurate Indian agent, Nathan Meeker, steeped in the acquisitive philosophy of Manifest Destiny, served as the fuse for an imminent explosion.
On Monday, September 29, 1879, the Northern Utes simultaneously massacred all the white male inhabitants of the White River Agency, captured three women and two children and ambushed a hundred-man US cavalry detachment under the command of
Major T. T. Thornburgh. A five-day siege ensued ultimately resulting in a Ute defeat, the women’s rescue and the forced displacement of the Utes from Colorado. Last Indian Summer tells the compelling story of that historic siege and the larger-than-life characters who saw it all happen.