A crime spree by two Ute youths in 1923 escalated into a mob of settlers bent on suppressing the nearby Ute and Paiute populations in what is now Utah. The conflict led to the deaths of two Paiute men, including William Posey, a leader who was vilified in the press for his resistance to oppressive settler tactics. The ‘posse’ formed to retaliate against the tribes imprisoned dozens of Ute citizens in a makeshift stockade. The action, sometimes called the “Posey War” or the “Last Indian Uprising,” forever changed the tribes’ access to their land and ushered in a time of forced attendance in boarding schools for Ute children. A new exhibition in Salt Lake City, Utah recounts the Posey War a century later.
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