Brunot Agreement Rescinded

After more than 150 years courting appeals and petitioning higher powers the Blue Sky People have won an unprecedented legal battle which effectively negates the Brunot Treaty and returning some 3.5 million acres of land to its rightful owners. The questionable agreement, signed in 1873 under blatantly false pretense, called for the removal of all Utes from the area of mines, which included all of the San Juans, most of the foothills and everything else that wasn’t tied down..

     Even though a previous Treaty (1868) guaranteed that the land “would be theirs forever” the newer entente, hatched by newcomers such as Governor Frederick Pitkin, called for the expulsion of the seven Ute bands to reservations along the New Mexico and Utah borders.

     At the time the Utes did not understand what the government had done. It had been their understanding during negotiations that they would give up land on which the mines were actually located, not all the land that contained mines. The situation was further clouded by a government decree recognizing Ouray (of the Uncompahgre Band) as chief of all Colorado Utes. This designation allegedly helped grease the smooth transfer of lands to white settlers.

     “If Ouray was chief of the Utes then my ass chews gum,” said one Ute sheep herder living near Ignacio. “He was never elected to anything. I was all a giant hoax to grab our land, which we feel cannot be owned in the first place.”

     During the last few days of hearings, Supreme Quart justices apologized to the Blue Sky People for “unparalleled grievances, rampant violence and methodical racism”. Saying that the land in question was stolen they declared all treaties starting with the Calhoun Treaty of 1850 to be null and void.

     “We can’t give these native peoples back their culture, their murdered families or their way of life but we can damn sure give them back their land.

     In keeping with the ruling, the town of Ouray will be renamed Colorow and the city of Gunnison to Tomichi. Colorow was a real chief and Gunnison had been named after early white explorer John Gunnison, a man of questionable moral fiber.

     “Tomichi sounds better,” continued the herder.

     “We expect it will take about 100 years for the land to return to its more natural state,” explained one Ute councilman from what was once called Cortez, and will now be named Weeminuche City.

     The white folks currently residing on the effected acreage will have until Friday to vacate the premises or be forcibly moved to reservations in the desert.

– Kashmir Horseshoe