Chipeta, or White Singing Bird in the Ute language (1843 or 1844 – August 1924), was a Native American woman known for the courage and valor she demonstrated in her efforts to mediate peace between Native Americans and whites.  Her diplomatic influence grew as she traveled with her husband Chief Ouray while he negotiated with whites and other Ute leaders for Ute lands. 

She was the only woman of her time invited to sit on the Ute Tribal Council. Chipeta and Chief Ouray led a delegation of Utes to Washington, DC to negotiate a treaty regarding reservation resettlement. Despite the ultimate removal of her people from their homelands, Chipeta committed her life's work to bettering conditions of the Ute people and used her influence to try to achieve peace with the white settlers.  


Chipeta was born a Kiowa (Plains) Apache or Jicarilla Apache in either 1843 or 1844. 


Full-length studio portrait of Chipeta, wife of Ute Chief Ouray, wearing buckskin with fringe, a wide sash, and beaded jewelry. A painted backdrop is behind her.

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Plains to Peaks Collective

Chepetta [sic]

Birth - Chipeta

Ouray, whose name means “Arrow” in the Ute language was a Native American chief of the Tabeguache (Uncompahgre) band of the Ute tribe, then located in western Colorado. Ouray was born in Abiquiú, Nuevo México, now in the state of New Mexico. His father, Guera Murah, also called Salvador, was a Jicarilla Apache adopted into the Ute, and his mother was Uncompahgre Ute.

Sitting portrait of Chief Ouray, Native American Ute leader, he wears braids, hair pipe necklace, shirt, a woven blanket around his waist, a beaded sash, a chain with a medal, and beaded leggings and moccasins. A cane rests against his right leg.

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Earliest portrait of Chief Ouray

Birth - Ouray

The Colorado Gold Rush from 1858 to 1859 brought thousands of newcomers to the Rocky Mountains. Hungry for the gold found on Ute land, the new immigrants began to compete with the Utes for land and resources. The US government moved to protect mining interests by appropriating Ute territory through a series of treaties while trying to convert the Utes to farming and Christianity. This time period arguably marks the beginning of the decline of the Ute people in Colorado.

This hand-colored, loose full plate tintype of an unknown man was taken by an unidentified photographer in 1859. The man is shown with mining implements: a pick, a shovel and a large rock. The title "Gold Rush Argonaut" was given to this work sometime after its creation by an unidentified source.

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Gold Rush Argonaut

Colorado Gold Rush

In 1859, at the age of about 16, Chipeta married Chief Ouray, becoming his second wife. Ouray’s first wife Black Mare had recently died after the birth of their only child, a boy named Queashegut, also known as Pahlone and Coaton. After the Black Mare’s death Chipeta was chosen by the family to help care for Pahlone and the household. Chipeta would become a close advisor and confidant of her husband.



Studio portrait of Native American (Ute) Chief Ouray and his wife Chipeta. Chief Ouray wears braids, a choker necklace, a fringed buckskin shirt with probably beaded details, pants, leather boots, and a woven blanket attached at the waist. Chipeta wears a buckskin dress with fringe at the sleeves and hem, possibly a leather cummerbund, and moccasins.

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Ouray + wife

Chipeta and Ouray Marry

Colorado Territory was established on February 28, 1861. In September 1861, the first Colorado Territorial Assembly met in Denver in a small building on the block that is now Denver’s Larimer Square. Two months later, Colorado City was chosen as the territorial capital. This little town, now a part of Colorado Springs, did not last long as the capital. In the summer of 1862, the territorial legislature designated Golden as the next capital, where it remained for several years. 

View of log cabin with false front that served as the first Colorado Territory Capitol building. There is a bench in front of the door. Painted on building front "Erected in 1859 / Old Capitol Building". Automobiles parked in the background appear to be from the early 1960s.

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[Old Colorado Territory Capitol Building]

Colorado becomes a Territory

Little is known about Chipeta’s childhood. Oral history indicates that Ute Indians came across a massacre site and Chipeta was the sole survivor. She was adopted by a Ute leader and raised in the Utes’ ancestral homelands in the Rocky Mountains and adjacent high plains in present-day Colorado. She learned their traditional ways and became a skilled artisan in beadwork and tanning.


Topographic map of Colorado made in 1873 under the direction of 1st Lieutenant E.H. Ruffer (Chief Engineer, Department of the Missouri). Map shows route taken by the survey, along with camps and astronomical camps. Some content taken from earlier surveys.

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Preliminary map of the surveys in Colorado made on reconnaissance in the Ute country

Adopted - Chipeta

The Brunot Agreement was not a treaty, because treaties are negotiated between the U.S. and sovereign or independent nations. After the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871, indigenous nations were no longer considered sovereign nations. 

In 1872 silver deposits were found in the San Juan Mountains and the government wanted again to negotiate for more land. Felix R. Brunot, Chairman of the Board of Indian Commissioners negotiated the agreement by leveraging the loss of Ouray’s son and Chipeta’s stepson, Coaton. Brunot’s plans to reunite Ouray with his son proved unsuccessful.  

Brunot offered $25,000 per year forever in exchange for the mountains and continued access to the hunting land after it was sold. While many Ute bands were skeptical of Ouray’s negotiations with the U.S., they retained great respect for Chipeta. Ouray, along with Chipeta, and a delegation of Utes carried the agreement to Washington in October 1873, and Congress approved it on April 24, 1874. 


Studio portrait (sitting and standing) of Native American (Ute) and white men and women in Washington, D. C. for the Brunot Treaty signing. Left to right- Back row Washington (Northern Ute), Susan (sister of Chief Ouray), Johnson #2 (Susan's husband), Capt. Jack (leader of Thornberg ambush), John. Middle row: Uriah M. Curtis (First interpreter for Northern Utes), J. B. Thompson (agent at the Denver Ute Agency), Chas Adams (agent of the Los Pinos Agency, 1872-75), Otto Mears. Front row: Guerro (not Ouray's father), Chipeta, Ouray, Piah (Tabeguache Ute chief).

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Chipeta, Ouray, Piah

1873 Brunot Agreement

After the Meeker Incident calls for the Ute’s removal from Colorado began in earnest. Ouray was ordered to deliver twelve Ute men for sentencing in Washington, DC. At the same time, Chipeta was asked by Secretary of Interior Carl Schurz to join her husband at the US Capitol. She testified before a Congressional inquiry into the Meeker Massacre. At the hearing, she took the witness stand and answered, through an interpreter, the 10 questions put to her. The Ute men were acquitted of the charges, but the US government agreed with the popular white sentiment that the Ute Nation should be removed.  

Nine Utes, including Ouray, signed an agreement to move the White River Utes to the Uintah Reservation in northern Utah. The Uncompahgre Utes were removed to a 1.9-million-acre reservation in Utah near the Uintah Reservation. Chipeta was celebrated during her visit to DC with the newspapers dubbing her the “Queen of the Utes.” However, it remained a time of great sadness and stress for her due to her husband's failing health and the impending removal of her people from their ancestral land.


Two Ute Indians in front of tipi in valley with mountain behind.  Horse is tied in background.  Fringed, beaded bag and other belongings are piled to the left of the tipi.  Photo identified on back as "Near Meeker Colo.  Back of Charles Fox Gardiner's home in Meeker, Colo.  Ute camp.  Friends of his - 1884."

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Ute Indians Near Meeker, Colorado

Final Agreement

Sometime during the latter years of her life, Chipeta became almost completely blind due to cataracts. Her brother John McCook, whom she is said to have raised, accompanied her almost everywhere. On August 17, 1924, Chipeta died from chronic gastritis at the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah. She was buried in the traditional way in secret on the reservation. 

On March 15, 1925, she was reinterred on the land she and Ouray had homesteaded outside Montrose, the site of the Ute Indian Museum today. She is celebrated for her love of family and the Utes as well as the courage and valor she demonstrated in her efforts to mediate peace between Native Americans and whites.


Chipeta, a Native American (Ute) woman, poses next to a tepee near Dragon (Uintah County), Utah. She is wearing a dress or skirt under a plaid shawl. An animal skin is on a tree or shrub beside the tepee.

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Last picture of Chipeta

Chipeta’s Death

At age 5, Ouray's only son and Chipeta’s stepson, Queashegut, also called Cotoan by his cousin, was kidnapped while the family was at a hunting camp near Fort Lupton. The group was attacked by 300 Sioux warriors and Queashegut left the tepee where he sought shelter with Chipeta to follow Ute warriors. He was captured or traded to the Arapaho. Ouray and Chipeta searched for their son for years but their efforts were unsuccessful during that time. 

Black and white photograph of Cotoan, son of Ouray.

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Portrait (Front) of Man, Son of Chief Ouray?

Son is kidnapped

With this Act, Congress stopped recognizing indigenous people as belonging to independent nations, instead declaring them all to be wards of the government. With the passage of this Act, all former treaties ceased, declaring that "no Indian nation or tribe" would be recognized as an "independent nation, tribe, or power” with whom the U.S. could enter into a treaty.

A Native American (Ute) girl stands near a tepee at the Los Pinos Indian Reservation in Saguache County, Colorado. Brush wickiups and tripods are nearby.

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Ute teepee Los Pinos Agency

Indian Appropriations Act

The Meeker incident, a Ute uprising at the White River Indian Agency on the Ute Reservation in present-day Rio Blanco County, occurred between September 29 and October 5, 1879. Members of a band of Utes attacked the Indian Agency on their reservation, killing the Indian Agent Nathan Meeker and his 10 male employees and taking five women and children as hostages. Tensions had been rising for months while Meeker had been attempting to convert the Utes to Christianity and farming, thereby preventing them from following their nomadic culture. 

The US cavalry arrived on October 5, ending the violence at nearby Milk Creek. Chipeta along with her husband Chief Ouray helped negotiate the release of the women and children who had been taken hostage. The captives were brought to Chipeta and Ouray's home after their release. One hostage, Flora Ellen Price, later recounted that “Mrs. Ouray wept for our hardships and her motherly face, dusky but beautiful, with sweetness and compassion, was wet with tears. We left her crying.” 


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Flora Ellen Price

Meeker Incident (White River War) of 1879

In August 1880 Ouray traveled to the Ignacio Indian Agency office in the hopes that Southern Ute leader Ignacio would sign the recent agreement. Few Southern Utes wanted to abide by the agreement and Ouray feared that a violent forced removal would soon begin.  

Ouray's health had been declining for a few years due to Bright’s disease, a kidney ailment associated with high blood pressure. He fell ill while on the Southern Ute reservation and died on August 24, 1880. Shortly after his death the Gunnison News reported, “This must be regarded as a calamity at this time. He was the friend of the whites, and contributed largely to the peace that was happily preserved. He has been laboring hard for the past month to induce the Utes to sign the treaty, and in this service he laid down his life.” Ouray was buried in a secret location reportedly near Ignacio, Colorado. 

Chipeta mourned the loss of her husband by cutting her hair short, and she kept it cut short for the rest of her life. In September 1881, the US government forcibly removed the Utes to Utah. In 1925, forty five years after his death, Ouray's remains were re-interred in a full ceremony led by Southern Ute Chief Sapiah or Buckskin Charley and Chipeta’s brother John McCook in the Ute Cemetery near Ignacio, just across the Los Piños River from the place where he died.


John McCook, brother in law to Ouray, stands pointing skyward as another Native American Ute man stands solemnly nearby at the reburial ceremony of Chief Ouray near Montrose, Colorado. The casket is behind the men under a canvas cover decorated with a wreath and an American flag.

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Indians, Ute - Ouray reburial

Chief Ouray’s Death

In 1868, Ouray was among a delegation to negotiate a treaty that would result in the removal of the Utes from the San Luis Valley and created a massive reservation on the Western Slope for all Colorado Utes. This reservation, served by an Indian Agencies at White River and near Montrose, included a school, blacksmith shop, sawmill, and warehouse. 

Even though they lost land in the negotiations, Ouray hoped that having a government presence would mean that their lands would be protected. The treaty promised that the Indian Agencies would deliver food and supplies to the Utes, as well as farming equipment and animals for each family. The treaty was signed by 47 Ute chiefs.

Chipeta often accompanied Ouray on his negotiations trips to the other Ute leaders. She spoke to the women and helped convince them of the benefits of U.S. treaties. At the time, few women anywhere in North America had as much of a voice in political affairs as Chipeta. Ultimately the US government failed to fulfill the treaty’s obligations.


Triptych portraits of the Ute Delegation's visit to Washington, D.C. in 1868, photographed by the Mathew Brady Studio (1844-1894). Portrait includes eight Ute members and nine Indian agents, from left to right: Ankatosh, Piah (Ute chief, Grand River band), Suriap (Ute chief, Yampah band), Uriah M. Curtis (interpreter), George M. Chilcott (Colorado Territory congressional delegate), Sowwachwiche, Col. Albert Boone (grandson of Daniel Boone), Alexander C. Hunt (governor of Colorado Territory), Nicaagat (Ute chief, Yampah band), Hiram P. Bennett (first delegate to Congress from Colorado), Lafayette Head (Indian agent), Guero, Daniel Cheeseman Oaks (Indian Agent), Ouray (Chief), Edward H. Kellogg (Indian bureau employee), Severo (Chief of the Caputa), and William G. Godfrey.

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Ute Delegation, 1868

Treaty of 1868

Chipeta continued to be an influential person among the Utes for the next four decades. She was well respected and even celebrated among both the Utes and the whites. She was known for her kindness and generosity, despite having little herself, and continued to advocate for Native American rights. She was allowed by Ute council chiefs to attend meetings, when all other women were banned, and she was allowed among white society in places from which all other Native Americans were banned.

Not surprisingly, the federal government never fully compensated Chipeta according to the final agreement. Instead they gave her a two room house on the White River without any furniture. The house was in a location where there could be no irrigation so Chipeta was forced to rely on rations given to her by government officials. Even though she was given a house, she lived her life as a traditional elder - living in a teepee, wearing traditional garments and living alongside other traditional Ute peoples in her community. 

Typed and inked text on back of photographic print, crossed out in pencil, reads: "This picture was taken by Thomas M. McKee, Montrose, Colo., of Chipeta some time before her death at Dragon, Utah, in front of her tepee. The little girl at side was Jimmy McCook's daughter, a grand niece of Chipeta and grand-daughter of her brother, Chief McCook." Penciled text reads: "Chipeta and her grandniece, Georgia McCook, taken at her camp near Dragon, Utah in 1918 by Thomas M. McKee

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Chipeta and grand-niece, Dragon, Utah, 1918

Life on the Reservation

The Conejos Treaty, an agreement between the US government and the Tabeguache band of the Ute tribe, reduced Ute lands to 50% of what they had been. They lost lands east of the Continental Divide that included healing waters at Manitou Springs and the sacred land on Pikes Peak. The Utes were led to believe that they would retain the western one third of the state of Colorado. 

Only the Tabeguache were willing to attend the negotiations in any significant number.  As such, Ouray was part of the delegation and served as translator in a meeting with the new Territorial Governor John Evans, after which he traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with President Abraham Lincoln. Ouray and Chipeta saw the treaty as a way to ease tension between the Utes and white immigrants that occupied Ute lands.  After the treaty negotiations, the US government considered Ouray the de facto leader of all Utes, even though he was not recognized as such by Colorado’s other Ute bands.

	
Top of five images on page 244 of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, December 6, 1879, titled "Colorado. - The Late Ute Outbreak and Massacre at the White River Agency. - From sketches by Lieutenant C.A.H. McCauley, Third U.S. Cavalry. - See Page 238."  Image shows layout of buildings, identified as "Residence of Ouray, Chief of the Tabequache Utes, and Head-Man of the Ute Nation."  Buildings and objects are marked by letters, and identified below the image: (A) Residence. (B) Store-houses. (C) Dwelling and Mess Houses of Mexican Employes. (D) Underground Store rooms for Vegetables. (E) Carriage presented by Governor McCook. (F) Farm and Freight Wagons."

Standards for Chipeta: Native American Rights Advocate and Diplomat

College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework