COLORADO HISTORY THE EXPLORERS

Which Native American groups lived in this region during the period of exploration?

UTE  Little is known of their early culture  Lived in extended family groups (not larger tribes)  Much respect for the older people in their family  Traded with other Indian Tribes & the Spanish  THE HORSE: Ute’s traded their children for horses  What would the horse help them to accomplish?

Changes  Know families were coming together in larger groups  Worked together  Also much conflict  Began to adopt some traditions/customs of the Plains Indians

Important events affecting the “ownership” of Colorado

“PreColumbian”  before Columbus Native Americans lived in Colorado (before 1492)

 Colonial claims in the early 1700s

France claims “Louisiana”, then loses it to Spanish, then regains it, then sells land between Mississippi & Rockies to US (1803)

Mexico wins independence from Spain --- former Spanish lands are now Mexican (including parts of Colorado)

Mexican American War 1848

 Mexico's cession of Alta California and Nuevo México and its recognition of U.S. sovereignty over all of Texas north of the Rio Grande formalized the addition of 1.2 million mi of territory to the United States.  In return the United States agreed to pay $15 million and assumed the claims of its citizens against Mexico.  A final territorial adjustment between Mexico and the United States was made by the Gadsen Purchase in 1853.

CONCLUSION OF THE EXPLORERS  These explorers had done little more than chart the rivers and provide basic geographic information  It was left to the mountain men to be the true explorers of the Rocky Mountain frontier