Excerpt:
The Indian “war” of 1915 began when a San Juan County Ute, named Tse-ne-gat (meaning Crybaby, or One Who Cries a Lot), was charged with the murder of a Mexican sheepherder in Colorado. When Tse-ne-gat refused to voluntarily surrender to authorities in Utah, a rowdy and allegedly drunken civilian posse was sent to track him down. The posse was assembled in Colorado under the command of a U.S. Marshal.
The Colorado posse surrounded an Indian camp near the town of Bluff, Utah, in the early morning hours of February 20, 1915, and quickly got into a shootout with Tse-ne-gat and some of his Ute and Paiute relatives. A posse member was killed and two others wounded. One of the Indians was armed with a very modern 30-06 rifle and it took a while for the white guys to learn to fully appreciate the range and capabilities of the weapon. But the posse did a little better against the non-combatants in the Indian camp. According to newspapers, “a squaw and two
papooses” were killed in the ambush and two “old warriors” were captured. Tse-ne-gat and asmall group of armed and dangerous Indians escaped to the south toward Navajo Mountain. The Indian camp was burned…
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