Southern Ute Indian Agency (Colorado)

The Southern Ute Agency is a currently operating agency. Its supervising office in the Bureau of Indian Affairs is the Albuquerque Area Office.

Indian Tribes Associated With This Agency
Capote, Wiminuche, and Moache Utes

History
The Southern Ute Agency was established in 1877 to serve the Capote, Wiminuche, and Moache bands of Ute Indians who had been attached to the Abiquiu and Cimarron Agencies in New Mexico. Located in southwestern Colorado, it also served the Jicarilla Apache from 1887 to 1891. The Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Agencies were consolidated into the Consolidated Ute Agency, 1 September 1922. It was subsequently made independent and now operates as such.

The agency was under the jurisdiction of the Colorado Superindency.

Agents and Appointment Dates
Francis H. Weaver April 10, 1877 and Henry Page January 29, 1879

Records
Agencies and subagencies were created as administrative offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and its predecessors. Their purpose was (and is) to manage Indian affairs with the tribes, to enforce policies, and to assist in maintaining the peace. The names and location of these agencies may have changed, but their purpose remained basically the same. Many of the records of genealogical value (for the tribe and tribal members) were created by and maintained by the agencies.

Reports of Inspection of the Field Jurisdictions of the Office of Indian Affairs, 1873-1900 have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of Microcopy Number M1070. The reports for Southern Ute Agency, 1880-1900, are on roll 51 of that Microcopy set. Copies are available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the Family History Library and its family history centers (their ).

Annual Indian Census Rolls were taken at this agency for 1885-1895, and from 1897 thru 1923. These rolls have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of their Microcopy Number M595, rolls 543-545. Copies of these records are also available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the Family History Library and its family history centers (their ). These census rolls are also available online at Ancestry.com's subscription web site.

The 1900 federal census included population schedules for the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in Colorado. The Indians residing on this reservation in 1900 were under the jurisdiction of the Southern Ute Agency and are listed on Indian Population Schedules as District 155, Southern Ute Reservation, in La Plata County, Colorado and as District 155, Southern Ute Reservation, in Montezuma County, Colorado.

Microfilm copies of...Narrative and Statistical Reports... for the Southern Ute Agency, 1907-1922, are included in National Archives Microcopy M1011, roll 143, available in the National Archives system and in the collections of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and their family history centers (their ).