In 1821, Mexico gained independence from Spain, thereby changing trade relationships and interactions between the Spanish and the Utes. Earlier, with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the French sold their landholdings within Ute territory to the United States. Between 1821 and 1848, the majority of Ute lands were under Mexican rule, with a small area under dispute between Mexico and the Republic of Texas from 1836 to 1845. With the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Ute territory became entirely under the jurisdiction of the United States. (© and Courtesy of Ute Ethnographic and Ethnobotanical Research in the Bonita Peak Mining District, in-text citations removed)

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ended the Mexican American War (1846-48), with Mexico ceding 55% of its territory
The Ute Peoples had never ceded their tribal homelands to Spain, Mexico, or the United States at that time
*Courtesy of Docs Teach*

1836 Map created by Lieutenant Steen, United States Dragoons, Courtesy of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln — 1836 Map created by Lieutenant Steen, United States Dragoons
*Courtesy of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln*

In the early nineteenth century, the Cheyenne and Arapaho expanded their range into areas of Colorado that had traditionally been Ute territory, causing the Utes to retract into a smaller region. By the mid-nineteenth century, Ute control over their aboriginal territory was reduced and extended from around the Uintah Mountains and Yampa River on the north to the San Juan River on the south and from Sevier Lake on the west to the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains on the east. (© and Courtesy of Ute Ethnographic and Ethnobotanical Research in the Bonita Peak Mining District, in-text citations removed)

While trade was previously prohibited or at least extremely limited between Spanish colonists in northern New Mexico and Native Americans and Americans, after Mexican revolutionaries overthrew Spain in 1821, trade patterns changed significantly. The new Republic of Mexico opened the province to trade. William Becknell of Missouri was the first on scene, but it didn’t take long for other American and European fur traders to travel west to Santa Fe, instituting the Santa Fe Trail. This well-traveled route would forever alter social, economic, and political relations in the region.