Nathan Meeker

Who was Nathan Meeker?

Nathanial C. Meeker was a 19th-century United States journalist, homesteading entrepreneur, and Indian agent for the federal government. He is noted for his founding in 1870 of the Union Colony, a cooperative agricultural colony in present-day Greeley, Colorado. In 1878 he was appointed US Agent at the White River Indian Agency in western Colorado, and was killed by Utes the next year in what became known as the Meeker Massacre, part of the Ute War. His wife and adult daughter were taken captive for about three weeks. In 1880 the US Congress passed punitive legislation to remove the Utes from Colorado to reservations in present-day Utah, and take away some land formerly guaranteed them.