The two tribes with reservations in Colorado could gain free access to state parks, under a bill moving through the legislature. But the proposal has been met with frustration from members of other tribes with historic roots in the state.
The bipartisan bill passed its first committee unanimously earlier this week.
Leaders from the state’s two federally recognized tribes, the Southern Ute and the Ute Mountain Ute, were on hand to testify in support of the policy.
“We are the original stewards of these mountains,” said Chairman Manuel Heart of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.
Heart said letting members use their tribal IDs to enter the parks would give them easier access to their aboriginal lands. Under the proposal Colorado Parks and Wildlife would absorb the roughly $40,000 annual cost, based on an estimated 1,770 tribal members who currently purchase state park passes each year.
Marvin Pinnecoose, the Vice Chairman of the Southern Indian Tribe, also testified in support of the proposal and said it is critical that tribal youth and elders can visit traditional areas within the parks to ensure that their cultural practices are carried forward.
“We are the definition of in-state residents,” said Pinnecoose. “We have ancestral and cultural ties to most of the land within Colorado, including many of the lands now designated as state parks, and have served as stewards of these lands.”
He said it makes sense to apply the law to the two Ute tribes as both are located within Colorado and have special governmental relationships with the state.
“This is a relationship that no other tribe in this country has with this state,” he said, noting that Colorado lawmakers passed a resolution last year recognizing the Ute people as the oldest continuous residents of the area known as Colorado.
However, the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee also heard from people whose ancestors had been forced out of Colorado, arguing that not including more tribes in the bill is a devastating and insulting failure to acknowledge that history of displacement.
“We need to remain connected to our culture,” said Lewis TallBull, who comes from the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people. “They took everything from us..”
He said in order to have healing from policies like the government-orchestrated starvation of Plains tribes, tribal members need to remain connected to this land.
Rick Williams, who is Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne, agrees that the bill should not be limited to just tribes with a physical reservation in Colorado.
“What this means to me today is if I go down to Roxboro Park, I have to pay to practice my religion and (visit) my sacred site. If I wanted to have a pipe ceremony down there, I have to pay. That's not right,” said Williams.
Williams also referenced the Sand Creek Massacre, one of the most infamous incidents of violence against Native Americans in the history of the West.
“One of the worst genocides that ever happened in America happened in the Eastern Plains of Colorado,” he said. “That's why you have no reservations here. That's why, in the homeland of the people, you're ignoring us.”
More than 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, mostly women, children and the elderly, were killed at Sand Creek in an unprovoked attack by the American military, as part of a campaign across the region to suppress Indigenous people and cultures.
For his part, Pinnecoose with the Southern Ute said he strongly believes the free access should not be broadened. Instead, he said, he hopes the bill can serve as an inspiration for other tribes to seek similar relationships with the states that overlap with their reservations.
“We would never approach other reservations or other states to say we want to be a part of what they're going through,” said Pinnecoose.
Teddy McCullough, a citizen of the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians in California and a descendant of the White Earth nation, pushed back against that position.
“That sounds a lot like ‘go back to where you came from.’ What isn't acknowledged is that this is where they came from. This is their ancestral land too,” said McCullough.
McCullough’s tribes don’t have ties to Colorado but he testified at the hearing in support of expanding the bill to those tribes that do.
The bill’s sponsors acknowledged the limited scope of the proposal but said it’s still an important first step.
“This is as far as we can go this year given our budgetary constraints,” said Republican Rep. Rick Taggart of Grand Junction, who also sits on the Joint Budget Committee, which is currently trying to find more than a billion dollars in savings to balance state spending. “
That said, we strive to continue to build relationships and continue discussions related to how the state can support further Indian indigenous communities with ancestral lands and sacred spaces throughout the state of Colorado.”
For some lawmakers the final vote was difficult.
“It's just really disappointing to have the tensions from the broader community, especially with our history of harm that we've had here in Colorado,” said Democratic Rep. Elizabeth Velasco of Glenwood Springs, whose district is 60 percent public lands and contains several State Parks.
Democratic Rep. Matthew Martinez represents the San Luis Valley and said he’d like to add an amendment to make sure the conversations brought forward in the hearing continue.
“It is a fine needle to thread with this and we want to be respectful to all of those communities that are here, both our federally recognized tribes and those that aren't,” said Martinez. “They all have ties to this land and we have to make sure that we're respectful of that.”
