Colorado Territory
The Colorado Territory was a historic territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861 through August 1, 1876. Then the territory became the 38th state named Colorado into the union.
The territory was as a result of Pikes Peak - gold rush set up from 1858 to 1861. This run attracted the first large number of white settlers to the region. The Organic Act , which created the territory, was passed by the US Congress on February 28, 1861, shortly before the outbreak of the American Civil War , and was signed by President James Buchanan on the same day. The borders of the Colorado Territory were identical to those of the later state of Colorado. The establishment of the Territory helped the frozen Union gain control of a mineral-rich area in the Rocky Mountains . The statehood of the territory was immediately expected, but the territorial aspirations were the end of 1865 by a presidential veto Andrew Johnson defeated. During Ulysses S. Grant's tenure , this was a recurring point of contention, on which he finally prevailed against the unwilling US Congress during the Reconstruction .
description
The territory was formed from the Rocky Mountains on both sides of the continental divide and included the area of the Pikes Peak gold rush that had started two years earlier. East of the watershed, the new territory included the western portion of the Kansas Territory , the southwestern portion of the Nebraska Territory, and an uneven stretch of northern New Mexico Territory on the upper reaches of the Rio Grande . To the west of the watershed, the Territory comprised much of the eastern Utah Territory , which was then controlled by the Ute and Shoshone . In contrast, the Eastern Plains were more loosely populated by Cheyenne , Arapaho , Pawnee , Comanche and Kiowa . In 1861, ten days before the territory was established, the Arapaho and Cheyenne agreed with the United States to cede most of their territory in the Plains to white settlers. However, they were allowed to live in their large traditional areas as long as they tolerated the homesteaders near their camps. By the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the Aboriginal people in the High Plains were largely eliminated.
history
The country that ultimately became the Colorado Territory did not come under US jurisdiction until the Mexican-American War in 1848.
Local population
Originally the Cheyenne and Arapaho lived in the Eastern Plains, while the Ute were settled in the Rocky Mountains.
Expeditions
The earliest explorers of European origin to set foot on the area were Spaniards like the conquistador Coronado , although from 1540 to 1542 his expedition only circled the future border of the Colorado Territory to the south and southeast. In 1776 Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante explored southern Colorado in the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition .
Other important expeditions were the expedition from Zebulon Pike between 1806 and 1807 , the journey along the north bank of the Platte River to what is now Longs Peak by Stephen Harriman Long in 1820, the John Charles Frémont expedition between 1845 and 1846 and the Powell Geographic -Expedition of 1869 by John Wesley Powell .
Early settlement, trade and gold prospecting
In 1779, New Mexico's Governor Juan Bautista de Anza fought and defeated the Comanches under Cuerno Verde in southwest Colorado. De Anza later made peace with the Comanches in 1786 and allied with them against the Apaches .
A group of Cherokee crossed the South Platte and Cache-la-Poudre River valleys on their way to California during the California Gold Rush in 1848 . They reported gold discoveries in the South Platte and its tributaries as they passed the Mountains. At that time, in the south, in the San Luis Valley , there were Mexican families who came there as a result of large land grants by the Mexican government.
In the early 18th century there was a fur trade in the upper South Platte River valley , but this area was not always populated. The area was first settled by United States citizens under the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed homesteads to stake claims . Among the first settlers were the fur traders who had once developed the area, including Antoine Janis and other trappers from Fort Laramie , who founded a townsite near Laporte along the Cache la Poudre in 1858 .
After Green Russell and other Georgia residents heard of the gold discoveries in South Platte in 1858, they went there immediately. That same summer they set up camp, Auraria , at the confluence of South Platte and Cherry Creek . They named the camp after a gold prospector camp in Georgia. They returned to Georgia the following winter. At Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River , Russel told William Larimer Jr. , a Kansas land speculator, of the gold discoveries they had made. Larimer quickly saw the profitable opportunity and set out for Auraria. In November 1858 he set his claim on the other side of Cherry Creek across from Auraria and named it " Denver City " in honor of James W. Denver , then governor of the Kansas Territory. Larimer did not intend to mine gold himself. He wanted to expand the new city and therefore sold property to willing miners.
Larimer's plan quickly worked. The following spring, the western Kansas Territory along the South Platte was full of prospectors digging the river floor in what became known as the Colorado Gold Rush. Early arrivals moved quickly upriver into the Mountains, where they sought the main artery. There they established miners' camps at Black Hawk and Central City . A competing group, including William AH Loveland , founded the town of Golden at the foot of the Mountains west of Denver with the intent to supply essential goods to the growing flood of prospectors.
Territorial Claims
The initiative to create territory within today's Colorado borders followed almost immediately. Within a year of the founding of the cities of Denver and Golden, their citizens were demanding territorial status for the recently populated region. The movement came from William Byers , publisher of the Rocky Mountain News , and Larimer, who wanted to become the first territorial governor. In 1859 an informal initiative to establish the Jefferson Territory was launched and submitted to Congress.
Congress did not wait long to approve the request, which was spurred in part by the promise of vast natural resources in the region. The Territory was officially organized by a law of Congress on February 28, 1861 from former parts of the Kansas, Nebraska, Utah and New Mexico Territories. Actually, after the Dred Scott Decision of 1857, slavery was allowed in the territory, but the question became irrelevant due to the impending American Civil War and the majority stance in favor of the Union in the territory. The name "Colorado" was chosen for the territory. It was previously proposed in 1850 by US Senator Henry S. Foote for a state that was to be created in present-day California south of degree 35 ° 45 '. To the dismay of the citizens of Denver, Golden became the territorial capital, a circumstance that was later corrected in Denver's favor as Golden spending increased.
Civil War Years
During the American Civil War, the influx of new prospectors into the territory decreased sharply, with many heading east to fight. The people who stayed in the Colorado Territory formed two volunteer regiments and a vigilante group. Although apparently stationed on the outer edge of the theater of war, the Colorado regiments found themselves in a crucial position after the Confederate invasion of New Mexico Territory by General Henry Sibley with his troops from Texas in 1862 . Sibley's New Mexico campaign was intended as the prelude to an invasion of the Colorado Territory north of Fort Laramie to disrupt the supply lines between California and the rest of the Union . The Colorado regiments, led by General Edward Canby and Colonel John M. Chivington , defeated Sibley's forces at the Battle of Glorieta Pass and thwarted Confederate planning.
Colorado War
In the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851, the United States promised the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes control of the Eastern Plains between the North Platte River and Arkansas Rivers east of the Rocky Mountains, which corresponded to the Colorado area. From the 1860s onwards, as a result of the Colorado Gold Rush and the uncontrolled expansion of the homesteaders west into Indian territory, relations between the United States and Native Americans deteriorated. On February 18, 1861, some Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs declared in the Treaty of Fort Wise that they would cede to white settlers most of the land that had been given to their tribes ten years earlier, leaving only a fragment of the original reservation that stretched between the rivers Arkansas and Sand Creek located.
A good number of their tribal brothers rejected the contract. They stated that the chiefs were not authorized or bribed to sign it. As a result, they ignored the treaty and waged war against the growing tide of white invaders into their hunting grounds. Tensions arose when Colorado Territory Governor John Evans created a vigilante group out of returning volunteer regiments in 1862 and took a tough line against Indians accused of theft. After a few minor incidents, which later became known as the Colorado War , in November 1864 a force of 800 Colorado vigilantes attacked a Cheyenne and Arapaho camp near Sand Creek, where they between 150 and 200 people, after a heavy binge Indians murdered, mostly older men, women and children. The Sand Creek Massacre led to an official investigation by the United States Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War in March and April 1865 . In their report dated May 4, 1865, the Congress Joint Committee described the actions of Colonel John Chivington and his volunteers as disgusting, vile, brutal, and cowardly. It's hard to believe these were humans. They brought shame on the uniforms of US soldiers and officers. The Commission can neither ignore nor tolerate such acts of inhumanity and barbarism, which are listed in the testimony, but the Committee does not want to specify them in its report.
However, no court has held anyone responsible for the massacre accountable, and the continuation of the Colorado War resulted in the displacement of the last of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Kiowa and Comanches from the Colorado Territory to Oklahoma .
The road to statehood
After the end of the American Civil War, claims for statehood revived; the US Congress passed the law in late 1865, but President Andrew Johnson vetoed it. The territory's admission to the Union was delayed for the next eleven years. President Grant advocated statehood for the territory in 1870, but Congress did not pass a law this time either.
In the meantime, the lack of railways in the territory made itself felt. By the late 1860s, many Denver citizens had sold their businesses and moved north into the Dakota Territory to the parishes of Laramie and Cheyenne , where the first transcontinental railroad ran. Facing the possible extinction of the city and being pushed into the background by the new cities in the north, the citizens of Denver pooled their capital and built the Denver Pacific Railroad north to Cheyenne to connect Denver to the rail network. The Kansas Pacific Railway to Denver was completed two months later. This move secured Denver's status as a future regional metropolis. The territory was finally incorporated into the Union in 1876.
Capitals of the territory
In the course of its existence, the Colorado Territory has had three capital cities:
- Colorado City (1861-62)
- Golden City (1862-67)
- Denver City (1867-76)
List of governors
| Surname | Term of office | Political party |
|---|---|---|
| William Gilpin | 1861-1862 | republican |
| John Evans | 1862-1865 | republican |
| Alexander Cummings | 1865-1867 | republican |
| Alexander Cameron Hunt | 1867-1869 | republican |
| Edward Moody McCook | 1869-1873 | republican |
| Samuel Hitt Elbert | 1873-1874 | republican |
| Edward Moody McCook | 1874-1875 | republican |
| John Long Routt | 1875-1876 | republican |
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ An Act to provide a temporary Government for the Territory of Colorado (PDF; 17 kB). 36th US Congress, February 26, 1861. Retrieved December 27, 2006
- ↑ United States Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 1865 (testimonies and report) . University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service. Retrieved March 19, 2008.