We Can Learn From Our Honored History.The Fourth of July is a symbolic date in history and time where we celebrate our freedom and the blessings of living and loving our country.
Everywhere I go I see the nation coming back to life, highways are jam-packed with traffic, restaurants are full of people laughing once again.
Coors field full of baseball fans and the Broncos are able to have fans back at the upcoming football games. It is a time to celebrate that the fear of COVID-19 is fading while not completely gone, the fear has faded.
We have all lived through a historic pandemic that we will remember for the rest of our lives. God forbid that we have another.
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My July 4th memories date back to my ranching days where we would finish the ranch work to always attend the “Range Call” rodeo in Meeker. My father and his five brothers participated in this nearby rodeo; roping and riding bucking horses for decades as young cowboys.
By July the cattle were rounded up and put in high country summer pastures. We would give the cowponies a rest and start the haying operations after the rodeo weekend. The rodeo was a family tradition and the brothers and families joined in the weekend.
Meeker staged an evening performance of the last Indian battle in Colorado known as the “Meeker Massacre.” Indian agent Nathan Meeker was killed by the Utes after attempting to make them farmers. Elliot Roosevelt narrated the program held at the Rio Blanco fairgrounds during the evening performance.
The uprising led to the Utes being removed from the area and placed on a reservation in Utah; never to return to their White River homeland. They are honored today and highly respected as the original owners of the White River country now part of Routt National Forest. While the white men took the Indian lands, it is interesting to note that no Indians were enslaved into involuntary servitude. Slave traders brought the captured Africans to America.
The Pilgrims were among many early settlers in the new world where Indians provided food for the newcomers. Colonists learned to plant corn from the resident Indians.
As the French and British stirred up trouble, battles erupted across the frontier over ownership of this vast new land.
The Civil War brought an end to slavery with an estimated 700,000 deaths in a war between the states, sometimes brother against brother. The new frontier extended westward rapidly. Gold had been discovered in California in 1849, followed by major gold and silver discoveries in Colorado in Cripple Creek and Central City.
Early day fur trappers evolved into early day homesteaders. The vast cattle empires extending across eastern Colorado slowly were carved apart by barbwire fences by government homesteaders seeking private land ownership. Homesteaders “proved up” on their 160 acres of land having to live, fence and farm for three years to obtain a deed. In time most of these homesteaders failed for lack of water, grass and the Colorado’s harsh dry climate.
Mining was the catalyst for the growth of Denver. The state capital was once considered to be in Leadville and Golden.
Today, Colorado citizens have survived the pandemic and it makes us feel good about our state and nation. It’s time to get back to work, fill the classrooms with students, be proud of the accomplishments of “the greatest generation” and push back against those who hate our country, attempt to rewrite history and defame our honored founders.
We cannot rewrite history, but we can learn from it.