The Posey War of Nineteen Twenty-Three
Near Blanding, Utah
In February of nineteen twenty-three, a confrontation in Blanding that began with a robbery became what some historians have called the last armed conflict between the United States government and Native Americans in the lower forty-eight states. Others push back on that framing, calling it more accurately a desperate bid for freedom by a small community on the margins of American society. Both readings capture something true.
Two young Ute men robbed a sheep camp at Cahone Mesa, assaulted the owner, slaughtered a calf, and burned a bridge. When San Juan County authorities moved to arrest them, a local leader named Posey, of mixed Paiute and Ute heritage, attempted to help them escape. A posse of ranchers and law enforcement pursued Posey's band through the canyon country south of Blanding.
The consequences fell most heavily on those who had not fled. Seventy-nine Ute and Paiute men, women, and children were taken prisoner and held for a few days in a barbed-wire enclosure in the streets of Blanding. Children were separated from their families and sent to a boarding school in Colorado. Posey himself was badly wounded during the pursuit. He died of his wound while hiding in the canyon country, and the location of his final days was disputed for years afterward.
When it was over, the surviving prisoners were resettled on land allotments. The canyon country stretched in every direction unchanged in most of its contours but transformed in its ownership. Whatever name you give the event, it ended something.
