Chief Ignacio

Chief Ignacio c. 1904Chief Ignacio ( – 1913) was a chief of the Weeminuche band of the Ute tribe of American Indians, also called the Southern Utes, located in present-day Colorado north of the San Juan River.

Ignacio led the band through many difficult years in the late nineteenth century, when they were being encroached on by European-American settlers. In January 1880, Chief Ignacio was part of the Ute delegation that traveled to Washington, DC to testify before the US Congress about the 1879 Meeker Massacre and the Ute uprising among the northern Utes on the White River. Although the Weeminuche had not participated in that violence, white settlers wanted to push all the Utes away from their areas. The Utes tried to negotiate for peace, but later that year Congress passed legislation forcing the Utes into reservations. Unlike the Northern and Central bands of Utes, who were forced to reservations in Utah, the Weeminuche and two other Southern bands managed to stay in Colorado.

Together with the Muache and Capote Utes, the Weeminuche occupied the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in southern Colorado and named their capital Ignacio in the chief's honor.

Refusing to have their land broken up, Ignacio and the Weeminuche people moved to the western part of the Southern Ute Reservation in 1896. Their descendants have occupied the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation with headquarters at Navajo Springs. Later, they moved their capital to Towaoc. The Ute Mountain Ute are one of three federally recognized tribes of the Ute people.