For six weeks, nearly 80 people were trapped in a cage, sleeping in tents and hastily constructed hogans. Only meager meals were provided, and the captors sometimes tossed food over the fence.

Like the infamous Japanese American prison camps during World War II, the only crime my relatives committed was belonging to a group of people that the white majority deemed a threat. There was no due process for Japanese Americans or for the Utes.

But while Japanese American incarceration sites, including the Topaz Camp near Delta, Utah, have memorials to the victims, there are no plaques or interpretive displays in Blanding acknowledging the suffering my ancestors endured.

In fact, the events that led up to their imprisonment are best known by misleading names like the “Posey War” and the “Last Indian Uprising.” My ancestor, William Posey, was a leader in the Anikanuche Band who continued traditional hunting across the vast Canyonlands and Bears Ears region into the 1920s, long after many other Indigenous people had been forced onto reservations.

On March 19, 1923, two Ute men were convicted for the alleged raiding of a shepherd’s camp. After an altercation with the San Juan County sheriff, the two men fled and joined their families.

They escaped over Comb Ridge into what is now Bears Ears National Monument. A posse of 50 armed white settlers pursued the Ute people on horseback and in a Model-T Ford. County commissioners also requested an airplane equipped with WWI bombs for use in the chase. Before a plane arrived, the posse found the families, forced them into trucks at gunpoint, then transported them to the barbed-wire stockade in Blanding.

I tell this story because the jailing of Ute people 101 years ago had devastating consequences for my community and healing is necessary even today.

Two Ute men were murdered, including Posey. Ute children were among those shipped to Indian Boarding Schools, separating families and cutting off traditional teachings. As a condition of release, prisoners in the camp had to sign allotment papers for small parcels of land that relinquished their claims to the large Ute reservation that had once been proposed for nearly all of San Juan County.

These events were tragic but they were not a “war” or an “uprising.” Like the Long Walk of the Diné people in 1864, or the Trail of Tears that began in the 1830s, my Anikanuche ancestors were subjected to brutal settler violence in Utah, which had no similarities to a war fought between two nations’ militaries.

Despite these injustices, my people carry on what we call a Legacy of Resilience, and last year the Ute Mountain Ute community of White Mesa began telling our side of the story for the first time.

I was selected to direct the 100 Years of Silence project, and I’ve been working with elders, historians and artists to facilitate healing. We’ve hosted many meetings to listen to community members talk about this history. Seven local artists produced pieces now on display at The Leonardo Museum of Creativity and Innovation in Salt Lake City until May 28. On March 23, we hosted a public launch for the project with presentations from 18 Ute Tribal members.

Throughout the process, I’ve been inspired by the courage and wisdom of my community. Our collective effort aims to end a century of silence to usher in an era of recognition and empowerment for all sides.

As the 101st anniversary of the Anikanuche incarceration drew to a close last month, we hoped Utahns would begin to acknowledge the events of 1923. We ask that those awful weeks no longer be referred to as the “Posey War,” a term based on misinformation that spread as the events unfolded. The 100 Years of Silence project is currently seeking input from the White Mesa community to rename this series of traumatic events.

Perhaps one day, a memorial could be installed on the site of the incarceration camp that is near the historic bank building that still stands in Blanding. As the Ute scholar Forrest Cuch reminded us at the anniversary, healing cannot occur until the truth is known and accepted.

Shaun Ketchum Jr is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring conversation about the West. He directs the 100 Years of Silence project and is a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

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Howell, 52, says Savory’s methods, which require moving cattle quickly from pasture to pasture, enable him to keep adding thousands more animals as the ground recovers. He says the method is so efficient he can even foresee leasing out irrigation water that he doesn’t need.

If all this sounds unbelievable, Howell, who is ranch manager for Eli Feldman in Ridgway, Colorado, understands the skepticism. But he says the ranch speaks for itself.

Western States Ranches is huge, a 213,000-acre spread that’s a mix of 3,000 acres of irrigated bottom land in Delta and Montrose counties, plus 210,000 acres of mostly leased federal rangeland that sprawls from western Colorado to eastern Utah. There’s forested, high elevation range, but half of the ranch is semi-arid. Rainfall can be a scant 10 inches per year.

The herd is also large at 3,300 head, with 1,800 pregnant cows. What makes Savory’s approach effective, Howell says, is speed: In a day or two, cows eat fresh grass and weeds, then move on to new pasture before an enclosed pasture is damaged. Ten cowhands make the process work by moving miles of electric fencing, even though they’re traditionally loath to get off their horses. Feldman found Howell by consulting the Savory Institute, where Howell’s wife, Daniella Ibarra-Howell, is director.

The man and the money behind this enterprise is Eli Feldman, whose Conscience Bay Company is mostly staked by lifelong friends, the Laufer family of Stony Brook, New York.

East Coast money and Western know-how might seem an odd combo, but Howell studies the land with total concentration. He says his rule of thumb is to make a grazing plan and then rip it up as changing conditions dictate.

Howell has made dry, overgrazed range bloom before. Using Savory methods, he boosted the number of cattle on his former family ranch on Blue Mesa in Western Colorado. He went from 150 cows to 450, while also attracting herds of elk.

But if demand management gets going — the controversial plan of leasing water temporarily and voluntarily to fulfill downstream obligations – Feldman and Howell are on board. Feldman asked Trout Unlimited to administer a demand management study on part of his ranch that lies in Eckert, Colorado, where ground is irrigated only until July 1.

Howell derides programs that encourage leasing water for full seasons. “It’s going to be seen as socially untenable for ranchers in the upper basin to be over-irrigating hay fields when downstream users are running out of water.”

Because Feldman is an outsider with a formidable operation, he says he’s been a target since the ranch got going in 2018. Shortly afterward, he recalls, a Delta County commissioner poked him in the chest with a finger, saying, “I’ve got my eye on you.”

Feldman figures he’s been cast as a water speculator. “But when a ranch was auctioned off recently,” he says, “we passed on the irrigated land (with senior water rights) and purchased the herd and grazing permits only.”

For both Feldman and Howell, one of their goals is to restore grass on ground that’s been ranched “old-school.” By that they mean trampled creek beds where cows for generations wallowed away the summers.

Howell says he has all sorts of tricks to get lazy cows moving. Artificial watering holes are scattered across dry range, while gullied creeks are fenced off and left to recover. The payoff is growing grass-fed, certified organic beef, and Howell says it commands a 15-20% premium over cattle grown for the commodity market.

Despite the ranch’s sprawl, it seems a lean operation. Howell manages it halftime from a small tent, which also doubles as his sleeping quarters. His cowhands are equipped with little besides horses, trailers and portable electric fence. Still, Howell has his share of environmental critics. The Center for Biological Diversity charges that grazing any cattle on marginal land leads to degraded water and spurs desertification.

Howell shrugs off the charge. “These native rangelandsevolved with hooved animals,” he says. “To say they are not meant to be grazed is total BS. They were meant to be grazed — but as nature intended.”

Dave Marston is the publisher of Writers on the Range, a nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West.

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