Everything about Territory Of Colorado totally explained
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For the western film, see Colorado Territory (film).
The
Territory of Colorado was an
organized territory of the
United States of America that existed from
1861-02-28, to
1876-08-01. The boundaries of the territory were identical with those of the current
State of Colorado. The territory was organized in the wake of the
Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1858-1861 which brought the first large concentration of white settlement to the region. The
organic act creating the territory was passed by
Congress and signed by President
James Buchanan on
February 28,
1861, during the secessions by
Southern states that precipitated the
American Civil War. The organization of the territory helped solidify
Union control over a mineral rich area of the
Rocky Mountains. Statehood was regarded as fairly imminent, but territorial ambitions for statehood were thwarted at the end of
1865 by a
veto by President
Andrew Johnson. Statehood for the territory was a recurring issue during the
Ulysses Grant administration, with Grant advocating statehood against a less willing Congress during
Reconstruction. The Colorado Territory ceased to exist when the State of Colorado was admitted to the Union in
1876.
Description of the Colorado Territory
The territory was organized out of lands in the Rockies on both sides of the
continental divide and incorporating the area of the
Pikes Peak gold rush that had begun two years previously. East of the divide, the new territory included the western portion of the
Kansas Territory, as well as much of the southwestern
Nebraska Territory, and an irregular parcel of the northern
New Mexico Territory at the headwaters of the
Rio Grande. On the western side of the divide, the territory included much of the eastern
Utah Territory, all of which was strongly controlled by the
Ute and
Shoshoni. The
Eastern Plains were held much more loosely by the intermixed
Cheyenne and
Arapaho, as well as by the
Pawnee,
Comanche and
Kiowa. In 1861, ten days before the establishment of the territory, the Arapaho and Cheyenne agreed with the U.S. to give up most their areas of the plains to white settlement but were allowed to live in their larger traditional areas, so long as they could tolerate
homesteaders near their camps. By the end of the
American Civil War in
1865, the Native American presence had been largely eliminated from the
High Plains.
History of the Colorado Territory
The land which ultimately became the Colorado Territory had first come under the jurisdiction of the United States under the
1803 Louisiana Purchase and the
1848 Mexican Cession.
Indigenous populations
Originally, the lands that comprised the Colorado Territory were inhabited primarily by the
Cheyenne and
Arapaho on the
Eastern Plains, and the
Ute in the
Rocky Mountains.
Exploration by non-native peoples
The earliest explorers of European extraction to visit the area were
Spanish explorers such as
Coronado, although the Coronado expedition of 1540-42 only skirted 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 notable explorations included the
Pike expedition of 1806-07 by
Zebulon Pike, the journey along the north bank of the Platte River in 1820 by
Stephen H. Long to what came to be called Longs Peak, the
John C. Frémont expedition in 1845-46, and the
Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869 by
John Wesley Powell.
Early settlements, trade, and gold mining
In 1779, Governor
de Anza of New Mexico fought and defeated the Comanches under
Cuerno Verde in southwestern Colorado. In 1786, de Anza made peace with the Comanches, creating an alliance against the Apaches.
A group of
Cherokee crossed the South Platte and
Cache la Poudre River valleys on their way to
California in
1848 during the
California Gold Rush. They reported finding trace amounts of gold in the South Platte and its tributaries as they passed along the mountains. In the south, in the
San Luis Valley, early
Mexican families established themselves in large land grants (later contested by the U.S.) from the Mexican government.
In the early 18th century, the upper
South Platte River valley had been infiltrated by
fur traders, but hadn't been the site of permanent settlement. The first movement of permanent U.S. settlers in the area began with the
Kansas-Nebraska Act of
1854, which allowed
homestead land claims to be filed. Among the first settlers to establish claims were former fur traders who returned to the lands they once trapped, including
Antoine Janis and other trappers from
Fort Laramie who established a townsite near
Laporte along the Cache la Poudre in
1858.
In
1858,
Green Russell and a party of
Georgians, having heard the story of the gold in the South Platte from Cherokee after they returned from California, set out to mine the area they described. That summer they founded a mining camp
Auraria (named for a gold mining camp in Georgia) at the confluence of the South Platte and
Cherry Creek. The Georgians left for their home state the following winter. At
Bent's Fort along the
Arkansas River, Russel told
William Larimer, Jr., a Kansas land speculator, about the
placer gold they'd found. Larimer, realizing the opportunity to capitalize on it, hurried to Auraria. In November 1858, he laid claim to an area across Cherry Creek from Auraria and named it "
Denver City" in honor of
James W. Denver, the current governor of the Kansas Territory. Larimer didn't intend to mine gold himself; he wanted to promote the new town and sell real estate to eager miners.
Larimer's plan to promote his new town worked almost immediately, and by the following spring the western Kansas Territory along the South Platte was swarming with miners digging in river bottoms in what became known as the
Colorado Gold Rush. Early arrivals moved upstream into the mountains quickly, seeking the lode source of the placer gold, and founded mining camps at
Black Hawk and
Central City. A rival group of civic individuals, including
William A.H. Loveland, established the town of
Golden at the base of the mountains west of Denver, with the intention of supplying the increasing tide of miners with necessary goods.
Territorial aspirations
The movement to create a territory within the present boundaries of Colorado followed nearly immediately. Citizens of Denver and Golden pushed for territorial status of the newly settled region within a year of the founding of the towns. The movement was promoted by
William Byers, publisher of the
Rocky Mountain News, and by Larimer, who aspired to be the first territorial governor. In 1859, an informal movement to establish the
Territory of Jefferson was launched, with entreaties sent to the
United States Congress for its official organization.
Congress didn't wait long in granting the request of the citizens, partly encouraged by the promise of vast mineral wealth in the region. The territory was officially organized by Act of Congress on
February 28,
1861, out of lands previously part of the Kansas,
Nebraska,
Utah, and
New Mexico territories. Technically the territory was open to slavery under the
Dred Scott Decision of
1857, but the question was rendered moot by the impending
American Civil War and the majority pro-Union sentiment in the territory. The name "Colorado" was chosen for the territory. It had been previously suggested in
1850 by Senator
Henry S. Foote as a name for a state to have been created out of present-day California south of 35° 45'. To the dismay of Denverites, the town of Golden became the territorial capital, a situation that was rectified to the advantage of Denver as it grew at the expense of Golden.
Civil War years
During the
Civil War, the tide of new miners into the territory slowed to a trickle, and many left for the East to fight. The Coloradoans who stayed formed two volunteer regiments, as well as home guard. Although seemingly stationed at the periphery of the war theaters, the Colorado regiments found themselves in a crucial position in
1862 after the
Confederate invasion of the
New Mexico Territory by
General Henry Sibley and a force of
Texans. Sibley's
New Mexico campaign was intended as a prelude to an invasion of the Colorado Territory northward to
Fort Laramie, cutting the supply lines between California and the rest of the
Union. The Coloradoans, led by
General Edward Canby and
John M. Chivington, defeated Sibley's force at the
Battle of Glorieta Pass, thwarting the Confederate strategy.
Colorado War between the U.S. and the Indians of Cheyenne and Arapaho
In 1851, by the
Treaty of Fort Laramie, the
United States promised the
Cheyenne and
Arapaho tribes control, in the Colorado area, of the Eastern Plains between
North Platte River and
Arkansas River eastward from the
Rocky Mountains. By the 1860s, as a result of the
Colorado Gold Rush and
homesteaders encroaching westward into Indian terrain, relations between U.S. Americans and the
Native American people deteriorated. On February 18, 1861, in the
Treaty of Fort Wise, several chiefs of Cheyenne and Arapaho agreed with U.S. representatives to cede most of the lands, ten years earlier designated to their tribes, for white settlement, keeping only a fragment of the original
reserve, located between Arkansas River and
Sand Creek.
A good part of their co-nationals repudiated the treaty, declared the chiefs not empowered to sign, or bribed to sign, ignored the agreement, and became even more belligerent over the ‘whites’ encroaching on their hunting grounds. Tensions mounted when Colorado territorial governor
John Evans in 1862 created a home guard of regiments of Colorado Volunteers returning from the
Civil War and took a hard line against Indians accused of theft. After several minor incidents in what would later become to be designated as the
Colorado War, in November 1864 a force of 800 troops of the Colorado home guard, after heavy drinking, attacked an encampment of Cheyenne and Arapaho at
Sand Creek, murdering between 150 and 200 Indians, mostly elderly men, women and children. This
Sand Creek Massacre or 'Massacre of Cheyenne Indians'
lead to official hearings by the
United States Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War in March and April 1865. After the hearings, the Congress Joint Committee in their report on May 4, 1865, described the actions of Colonel
John Chivington and his Volunteers as ‘foul, dastardly, brutal, cowardly’ and:
Nevertheless, justice was never served on those responsible for the massacre; and nonetheless, the continuation of this Colorado War lead to expulsion of the last Arapaho, Cheyenne,
Kiowa and
Comanche out of Colorado Territory into
Oklahoma.
The movement for statehood
Following the end of the American Civil War, a movement was made for statehood, and the United State Congress passed the Admission Act for the territory in late
1865, but it was vetoed by
President Andrew Johnson. For the next eleven years, the movement for territorial admission was stalled, with several close calls.
President Grant advocated statehood for the territory in
1870, but Congress didn't act.
In the meantime, the territory found itself threatened by lack of
railroads. By the late
1860s, many in Denver had sold their businesses and moved northward to the
Dakota Territory communities of
Laramie and
Cheyenne, which had sprung up along the
transcontinental railroad. Faced with the possible dwindling of the town and its eclipse by the new towns to the north, Denverites pooled their capital and built the
Denver Pacific Railroad northward to Cheyenne to bring the rail network to Denver. The
Kansas Pacific Railway was completed to Denver two months later. The move cemented the role of Denver as the future regional metropolis. The territory was finally admitted to the Union in 1876.
Territorial Capitals
Three of Colorado's earliest communities had the honor of serving as capital of Colorado Territory:
Governmental Buildings
For much if not all of its existence the Colorado Territorial government didn't actually own its houses of government, instead renting available buildings for governmental purposes. Today two buildings which served the Territorial government remain: the historic log building in Colorado City, and the
Loveland Block in downtown Golden (housing the complete legislature, Territorial Library and possibly Supreme Court from 1866-67 with library remaining to 1868). Others which served include the original Loveland Building (1859-1933, 1107 Washington Avenue in Golden, housing the Territorial House from 1862-66); the Overland Hotel (1859-1910, 1117 Washington Avenue in Golden, housing the Territorial Council from 1862-66); and the Territorial Executive Building (unknown dates, approximately 14th and Arapahoe Streets in Golden, housing the executive branch of the government from 1866-67).
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