Nuche people, or Utes, grow into a regional power between the 17th and 19th centuries, centered on the present states of Colorado, Utah, and northern New Mexico. They alternate war with and trade with the Spanish Empire and later the Mexican state, and exert power from the Colorado plains to south central Utah and beyond. They are able to entirely resist Spanish colonial pressures and to exist outside other European powers’ spheres.

“We have lived in this country many years. In this land our grandfathers and our fathers and our families are buried. Our wives and children have lived and died here long before any white men came. In the old times, we had plenty of game and were not hungry, but now the game has gone. Whether it has died or whether the white men have driven it out, I do not know.”

March 20 found the Utes who had evaded imprisonment running from a posse of about fifty white men. Women and children with herds of goats and ponies led the retreat as Ute men took a defensive posture. They moved eastward from Butler Wash where they had camped. It was on Comb Ridge where Bill Young shot and killed Joe Bishop’s Little Boy. Posey, perhaps wounded, was separated from the other Utes who retreated to the mesa west of the comb. The posse camped at Frank Karnell’s ranch at the mouth of Arch Canyon. Tying white pieces of cloth on trees signaled the Utes desire for peace. They surrendered at the head of Dry Wash on the threat that if they did not the settlers would “kill them all.” The prisoners were marched down Dry Wash into Comb Wash. Trucks then transported them to Blanding via Bluff.