![]() The Goshutes, who had always been extremely skilled and efficient in their use of wild plants, took up farming as early as the 1860s. Tensions between the Goshutes and federal authorities frequently resulted, although the conflicts were generally civil and peaceable. The creation of reservations ensured the Goshutes ownership of some of their traditional homeland, but the reservations also brought Indian agents and federal employees with the mission of reordering Goshute life along a white model. The Skull Valley Reservation was created in 1912, and the Deep Creek Reservation was formed in 1914. Between 18 they undertook efforts to remove the Goshutes to the Uintah Basin, Idaho, Nevada, and Oklahoma, but when these attempts failed, the Goshutes received reservation land in their native Utah. ![]() The Goshute did not cede any of their territory in the treaty, but federal officials were intent on removing the Indians. Attacks on the Pony Express and Overland Stage, which ran through traditional Goshute territory, resulted in an 1863 treaty between the Goshutes and the federal government to allow peaceful travel through Goshute country. Mormons responded by raiding Goshute encampments to retrieve stolen goods, sometimes resulting in Indian casualties.įederal authorities established a government farm at Deep Creek for the Goshutes in 1859, but the project was abandoned by the next year. Facing competition for scarce natural resources, the Goshute responded by raiding Mormon settlements and stealing livestock. Mormon settlement also displaced nearby Ute Indians, who, after 1854, were forced from their homeland around Utah Lake and began encroaching on Goshute territory. Permanent settlements encroached upon Goshute lands and resources, upsetting the careful ecological balance the Indians had cultivated. Major white settlement began in the 1850s with the arrival of the Mormons. They were the frequent victims of slave raids between 18. While they encountered few whites, the Goshute were not unaffected by Spanish settlement of New Mexico. The harsh desert conditions provided an effective barrier against white encroachment until the middle of the nineteenth century, although the Goshutes did encounter transient trappers, emigrants, and slave traders in their territory before that period. The Goshute have both benefited and suffered from their desert isolation. Goshute bands chose a local wise man to lead them, but he had limited political power. For the most part the Goshute lived in extended family units, but larger groups would sometimes come together to hunt. They harvested and cultivated seeds from many of these species. They knew and used at least eighty-one species of vegetables. As highly efficient hunters and gatherers, they maintained the fragile balance of the desert, providing for their needs without destroying the limited resources of their arid homeland. ![]() The Goshute people occupied some of the most arid land in North America and exemplified the Great Basin desert way of life. The word Goshute (Gosuite) is derived from the native word Kutsipiuti (Gutsipiuti), which means “desert people,” and the name is fitting. Scientists argue that the Goshute Indians migrated along with other Numic-speaking peoples from the Death Valley region of California to the Great Basin, probably around one thousand years ago. According to the Goshutes, their people have always lived in the desert region southwest of the Great Salt Lake.
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