Colorado Experience: The Original Coloradans

Elders, brothers, sisters thank you for teaching history as our people lived it. My Ute culture and heritage has saved my life.

western CO is my favorite part of the state...hope to get back soon for a visit and I will keep this lesson of the Ute with me. have visited the Ute Indian Museum in Montrose, CO which i highly recommend!

As an educator, I had the privilege of teaching and working with students from the Uintah and Ouray reservation and surrounding areas for 20 years. I learned a great deal about their culture, but I must admit, as a white man looking in, I doubt I will ever fully understand their perspective. But I try and am grateful for videos like this that help. One Ute woman called me “whispering breeze” because of my calm demeanor. That still means a lot to me.

I am loving these videos about the Colorado experience. Not being a native, but I have fallen in love with the state. So much so that I want to learn as much about the region as I can. These videos are helping a lot.

Was born and raised in SWestern Colorado, spending most of my life above treeline in the hign country of the San Juan mountains. I have a deep appreciation, respect and admiration for the Ute Indians, the Wuche. Beautiful people.

I find it upsetting all of the people who pity natives. Don’t pity us. We are strong and survived a long journey from human origins in africa across the deserts, tundras, and mountains and kept going. We survived smallpox which killed 98% of all natives. We don’t need pity, we need respect. (Getting our land back would be nice though but such is life) Yá’át’ééh diné of YouTube

The Earth is my mother who made me from the soil and clay The sky is my father who gives me the sun to light the day My brother is the fire who cooks my food and lights the night. My sister is the water that cleanses me and provides us life.

As a non-Native American but a person born and raised in Colorado, I find this topic quite intriguing.

The same thing happened in South Louisiana, the French language is all but gone. So very sad 😓

You will still thrive on this land, and you will expand your borders as never before when the healer returns.

I climb all over Colorados mountains today, and i always think of and respect the Ute people who signature is still there. This is not an easy place to live, and how they survived here is amazing.

I feel you Brother!

Very informative video! Thanks for posting it. I vividly recall living in the old Ute territory, along the Front Range in Colorado Springs, on a high place overlooking the city and with a good prospect of the Spanish Peaks some 100 miles to the south, where the Ute would journey by foot to hunt in late summer. How privileged I feel to have lived where this special Native American tribe called their home and native land. Sad to hear about their eviction and relocation to reservations in the west and south-west of Colorado, and in Utah. I think it is a noble idea to preserve as much of Ute culture and language as is possible, since that is their connection to their glorious past. Looking forward to more videos like this one.

What a wonderful life. Thank you for sharing

here i am, an ignorant 20 something millenial, watching this from a different state - who searched for 'colorado history' because lately i've been interested in moving there because of tech, weed, size, mountains & climate and i've realized there is a lot more to colorado than tech, weed, size, mountains & climate. Having taken my own state's history course once in the past - and not remembering every nook and cranny of tales i heard (not sure if i even used that expression right) i've come to conclusion I lack a lot of knowledge and i've been closed minded lately. The power of the internet is amazing.

We too here in Ireland’ our language was forbidden 🚫 to Speak ‘ and our way of life too ‘ today

Not a word of such a rich, deep history in any K-12 curriculum. Or beyond. Deafening silence and an assault to collective memory.

Thankyou for this video

=) utes are awesome people.  if you go to southwest colorado, schedule a visit to their tribal park near Towaoc.

I loved this,thanks so for sharing ❤