Fireside Chats are Free to the public thanks to funding from the
Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association.
www.tmvoa.org
"Growing up Ute"
O. Roland McCook, descendant of Chipeta and Chief Ouray, to present at Fireside Chat
As a young boy, O. Roland McCook was taught to have a soul and a heart; to carry his history; and to use only the ingredients and resources needed. He was taught what it meant to be of “The People.”
10,000 years ago, bands of hunter-gatherers, who called themselves the Nuchu, or “The People,” ranged over 150,000 square miles in the southwestern mountain wilderness of present day Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. They called these mountains the Shining Mountains.
In 1873, despite diplomatic efforts by the legendary and peaceful Chipeta and her husband Chief Ouray, the Nuchu – by then known as Utes by those in pursuit of their mineral rich land – were misled into relinquishing four million acres of land in return for an annual Federal payment of $25,000. The U.S. government, however, was slow to meet the obligations set forth in the Brunot Treaty. As reported in an 1876 edition of the New York Times: “this was not an extortionate price. The country is fully worth every cent of the money…but though the treaty was signed more than two years ago and the San Juan country is swarming with miners, the Indians have not received a dollar of the purchase money in any way or shape.”
Ute bands from the Telluride region were driven first north and then westward onto reservation land; now Fort Duchesne, Utah. By 1881, the Utes were completely gone from their Shining Mountains. The San Juans became home to some of the most prosperous Colorado mines.
It wasn’t until McCook was a teenager, nearly 100 years later, living on his family ranch in Fort Duchesne, that he came to understand his connection to the revered Ute chief that U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes called "the most intellectual man I've ever conversed with.”
That lineage to Chipeta and Chief Ouray may have served to help McCook manage those teenage years when it’s often uncool to be different.
“Those are tough times for us,” says McCook about prejudices from kids at school. “People can look down upon you.” Ultimately it was his ability to communicate with others and an open mind that allowed him to conquer stereotypes and to have many friends: both white and Ute. Those attributes continue to propel McCook.
“I still hold today the values that my father instilled in me: to honor your family, your mother and father and to value life. That is what the creator gave to us,” he says.
McCook’s studies and curiosity have shaped his life, a scholar of Ute tribal history, he says, “I have learned much about the broader scope of my people, the rest of white society and of our differences.”
On Thursday, McCook will share his story: “Growing up Ute,” at the Telluride Historical Museum’s Fireside Chat. 5:30p.m. at the fire pit in Mountain Village.
A Northern Ute tribal member, McCook is a member of the Uncompahgre or Tabeguache Band of the Ute Indian Tribe of Uintah and Ouray Reservation. McCook speaks fluent Ute, a language that foregoes a goodbye in favor of puni kav tsum adtha: Until I see you again.
For more information about the free Fireside Chat, visit the museum online or call 728-3344x2.
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