COLORADO

COLORADO. Archaeological evidence reveals that humans have lived in the area that is now Colorado for over 10,000 years. In the aftermath of the last ice age, over 6,000 years ago, humans adapted to the main geographical regions of Colorado: the high plains of the east; the Rocky Mountains that cross the state from north to south; and the western plateaus and mesas. Rock paintings, remains of campsites, and other evidence reveal the social complexity of successive cultures of peoples who lived primarily through hunting and foraging, and later, agriculture. By the beginning of the Common Era, groups developed trading networks that skirted the Rocky Mountains south to New Mexico. The Ancestral Pueblans, also known as the Anasazi, built spectacular villages in southwestern Colorado. Mesa Verde, one of the best-known sites, was in habited between 600 and 1200 a.d. By 1500, many Native American groups lived in Colorado. The Ute lived in the mountains and western plains, while the Apache, Navajo, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapaho occupied the eastern plains.

The Spanish claimed Colorado as part of the province of New Mexico, but because it was at the northernmost edge of the empire, the Spanish presence was intermittent until the 1700s. However, the Spanish influence was profound. They brought with them the horse, which Native Americans adopted throughout the 1600s and 1700s, greatly affecting the social and economic base of their societies.

Over the centuries, the Spanish defended their claim to Colorado from the Ute and Comanche, the French, and the Americans. After the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, the U.S. government dispatched expeditions to survey its new territory. In 1805, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike led an expedition into the area and described the mountain now known as Pike's Peak. The Spanish captured Pike in 1806 and did not release him until the following year. In 1819 the U.S. and Spanish governments negotiated an international boundary that ran along the Arkansas River.

Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821. The new government encouraged trade with the United States, and the Santa Fe Trail, from Missouri to New Mexico, became an important route. Trinidad, Colorado, developed on the basis of this trade. In the 1830s and 1840s, the Mexican government gave away land grants in its New Mexico province to elite residents, with the expectation that the grantees would encourage settlement by farmers. One of the first towns the farmers established was San Luis, in present-day Colorado. During the next several decades, Spanish-speaking farmers created towns throughout southern Colorado based on the patterns they had known in New Mexico. These farmers irrigated their crops, a technique that later settlers would adopt.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, trappers became an important presence in the region. These men sold beaver pelts to European and American markets via the New Mexico-Missouri trade route. The trappers traveled along the Rocky Mountains' rivers, lived and worked among Native Americans and Mexicans, and often married into these groups. Native American and Mexican women gave their husbands access to trade networks and social acceptance. In Colorado, settlements such as Bent's Fort, Fort Vasquez, and Fort Lupton became centers for trade and social interaction in this multiethnic enterprise. By the 1840s, however, the trappers had nearly wiped out the beaver. Some trappers became full-time traders and established new settlements, the most famous of which was El Pueblo (present-day Pueblo), which was founded in 1842.

The 1846–1848 war between Mexico and the United States ended in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). This treaty required Mexico to surrender huge portions of its land to the United States; southern Colorado was part of the cession. The United States was slow to organize this territory, and present-day Colorado was variously considered part of Texas and the territories of Utah, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Kansas. The impetus for the organization of the Colorado territory was the discovery of gold.

Gold-Rush Colorado

From the time of the first Spanish explorers, many people hoped to find gold in Colorado, but it was not until 1858 that this hope was realized. The 1859 gold rush brought over 100,000 prospectors, merchants, and speculators to the region. Even after the initial claim dwindled, more discoveries of gold continued to bring settlers to the Rocky Mountains.

The confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek became the headquarters for the rush, by passing the region's older towns. Two groups established towns on either side of Cherry Creek—Auraria and Denver City—each hoping that its town would become the dominant city. Denver won this contest and absorbed Auraria. Denver emerged as the transportation, business, and cultural hub of the region.

The Plains tribes—the Cheyenne and the Arapaho—were alarmed by the flood of settlers traveling through, and building cities on, land they considered theirs. Unlike the fur traders, these settlers had no interest in striking alliances with Native Americans. The tribes did not have a unified response to the settlers. Some, such as the Arapaho chief Little Raven, and the Cheyenne chief Black Kettle, advocated peacefully accommodating the newcomers, while others, especially members of Cheyenne warrior societies, argued for war. In the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty, the Cheyenne and Arapaho agreed to restrict themselves to the land between the South Platte and Arkansas Rivers. Ten years later, the 1861 Fort Wise Treaty forced these groups to cede their claims to the foothills.

On 28 February 1861, the U.S. government organized the Territory of Colorado. (Colorado City and Golden served as the territory's capital, before Denver was declared the capital in 1867.) The territory was immediately thrown into the Civil War (1861–1865). Although the territory's residents included Southern sympathizers, radical and moderate abolitionists, and former slaves, the territory aligned itself with the Union cause. Troops from the Colorado Territory defeated General Henry S. Sibley's Confederates in the 1862 battle of Glorieta Pass, in New Mexico.

Another notorious military action was waged against the Cheyenne and the Arapaho. During 1864, the tensions between the Plains tribes and the settlers steadily escalated. Black Kettle led a group of his Cheyenne and Arapaho followers to their winter camp near Sand Creek, in southeastern Colorado Territory, after having declared his peaceful intentions to the military authorities. An American flag and a white flag flew over the camp, which largely consisted of the elderly, women, and children. The First and Third Colorado Volunteers, under the leader-ship of Colonel John Chivington, attacked this settlement on 29 November 1864. The soldiers killed over 150 people, wounded scores of others, and mutilated the dead. The Sand Creek Massacre began a cycle of violence between whites and Native Americans throughout the territory. In 1867, many of the Cheyenne and Arapaho agreed to the Medicine Lodge Treaty, which required them to relocate to Indian Territory.

Colorado in the Nineteenth Century

Colorado became a state on 1 August 1876. Due to the expansion of the railroads across the plains and into the mountains, and the subsequent increase in economic linkages, the state's population quickly grew. In 1870 there were 40,000 people in the Colorado Territory; by 1880, the population had increased to over 194,000.

Colorado's settlers demanded that the Ute, who occupied most of the western plateaus, cede their land. In 1879, several Northern Ute at the White River Agency rose up against the Indian agent and killed him, along with eleven other white men. Outraged Coloradoans called for the expulsion of the Ute. In March 1881, in Washington, D.C., the federal government concluded a treaty with the Ute that required the tribe's various bands to live in reservations in Utah or Colorado. Prospectors and farmers quickly swarmed into the land vacated by the Ute.

Farming, ranching, and mining formed the pillars of nineteenth-century Colorado's economy. Politicians and business leaders were preoccupied with encouraging economic development and growth. However, the state's economy proved to be vulnerable to violent fluctuations—a boom-and-bust cycle.

Colorado's early farmers grew grains, but by the early twentieth century sugar beets and potatoes had also become important crops. Farmers in western Colorado were known for their fruit orchards. Many farmers had to irrigate their fields, and the reliance on irrigation sparked off arguments between Colorado and its neighbors over water rights that still continue today.

Colorado was home to numerous, often short-lived, agricultural colonies. Some, such as Greeley, had utopian origins. Members of ethnic or religious groups also organized colonies. For example, in 1882 Jewish emigrants from Poland and Russia lived in a colony in Cotopaxi. One of the last colonies was the African American settlement of Dear field, established in 1910–1911.

Livestock ranching was an important sector of the economy. By the 1880s, cattle ranchers had large establishments along the South Platte and Arkansas Rivers. Cattle ranching later spread to western Colorado. From the 1880s to the 1920s, cattle ranchers and sheepherders repeatedly clashed over land in northwest Colorado. Access to public land for grazing also became a longstanding conflict between Colorado and the federal government.

In the nineteenth century, mining was a mainstay of the economy. Some settlements, such as Leadville and Georgetown, developed into full-fledged towns, while scores of mining camps faded when the vein of ore was exhausted. Mining activities altered the land: hills were deforested and many streams became polluted.

Smelting gold, silver, and other metals was an important component of the mining industry. This process gradually moved from the mining towns to large cities such as Pueblo and Denver. Pueblo was also a steel town and the home of Colorado Fuel and Iron, an enormous company that was eventually owned by the industrialist John D. Rockefeller.

Companies developed the coalfields in northern and southern Colorado and established "company towns" for their workers. The coal towns were racially and ethnically diverse. Whites, African Americans, and Hispanics worked alongside immigrants from Asia and central and eastern Europe.

The mining industries were the site of labor conflicts from the 1880s to the 1920s. During the nineteenth century, miners demanded better safety and working conditions, but the state was reluctant to enforce such measures. This situation led to many workers joining unions. Many gold and silver miners joined the Western Federation of Miners, while the United Mine Workers made progress on the coalfields. The strikes were often long and occasionally violent, such as the 1903–1904 strike by gold miners in Cripple Creek. From 1913 to 1914, coal miners striked in southern Colorado for greater health and safety regulations, recognition of their union, and an increase in wages. On 20 April 1914, at Ludlow, the National Guard attacked a tent colony, and the subsequent fire killed two women and eleven children.

Colorado in the Twentieth Century

Colorado began the century as a leader in some national reform movements. In 1893, women in Colorado received the right to vote. The state enacted prohibition of alcohol in 1916, long before the rest of the country. Colorado became home to two national parks at the beginning of the twentieth century. Mesa Verde became a national park in 1906; Rocky Mountain National Park was dedicated in 1915.

World War I (1914–1918) was a stimulus for Colorado's economy. The demand for crops such as sugar beets and wheat, and metals—molybdenum, vanadium, and tungsten— led to an economic boom. The bust came after the war, when prices for metals and agricultural commodities plummeted.

After the war, Colorado politics took a turn to the right. The state was consumed by a "RedScare" over feared Communist and Socialist influence. During the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan emerged as a powerful statewide organization, widely disseminating its hate-based politics. The Klan dominated politics in Denver and held weekly cross burnings. Klan members and sympathizers controlled the lower house of the state legislature. Although the Klan's influence faded somewhat after the mid-1920s, local and state governments took little initiative in protecting the civil rights of political, racial, or ethnic minorities.

Colorado was ill equipped to deal with the economic disaster of the Great Depression. Prices dropped even lower for minerals and agriculture, and between 1933 and 1938, many of the farms of eastern Colorado were stripped bare by the Dust Bowl's winds. Displaced farmers and workers received very little aid from city and state governments that had only minimal provisions for the un-employed and needy. President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs helped fill this gap. For example, one New Deal program, the Works Progress Administration, became one of the state's largest employers, and by 1942 had completed over 5,000 projects in Colorado.

World War II had a wide-ranging impact on Colorado. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt ordered the detention of Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast and in Arizona. A detention camp, Amache, was located in southeast Colorado. However, Colorado's governor resisted demands to intern Japanese American Coloradoans and allowed Japanese Americans from other parts of the country to settle in the state. Many military bases and facilities, such as Camp Hale, home of the Tenth Mountain Division, were located in the state. War industries boomed. Even the mining sector revived with the demand for uranium.

During the Cold War, industries involved in defense, aerospace, and high technology research moved into the state. The federal government also located many facilities in the state, including the new Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs. This inflow of industry, commerce, and population, however, was concentrated among the Front Range cities.

Many of Colorado's oldest economic sectors were in steep decline by the 1970s. Sugar beet processors closed their operations. Mining was greatly diminished and concentrated on coal and molybdenum. In the 1970s, the Exxon Corporation developed facilities in northwest Colorado for processing oil shale into oil. When Exxon abruptly abandoned the project on 2 May 1982, the resulting crash had state wide ramifications.

Since the 1970s, Colorado's service industries have become an increasingly important part of the economy. For example, the tourism and recreation sectors have developed from the spas and campgrounds of the early twentieth century to the ski resort industry, which emerged after World War II.

During the last quarter of the twentieth century, Colorado wrestled with controversial issues, such as desegregation, environmental policy, the size of government, and nuclear energy. The issue of civil rights for African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, and gays and lesbians repeatedly surfaced during this time. Longstanding issues, including water policy, land use, and growth, remain vexing. Colorado's natural beauty and opportunities continue to attract immigrants from around the country and the world. According to the 1990 census, less than half of the population was born in the state. Over 82 percent of Colorado's 4.4 million people live in urban areas, and most of the population is concentrated on the Front Range. As the state enters the twenty-first century, it faces challenges and opportunities that are both grounded in its history and common to all of the United States.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abbot, Carl, Stephen J. Leonard, and David McComb. Colorado: A History of the Centennial State. 3ded. Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1994.

Deutsch, Sarah. No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880–1940. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Jameson, Elizabeth. All That Glitters: Class, Conflict, and Community in Cripple Creek. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.

Taylor, Quintard. In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528–1990. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998.

Ubbelohde, Carl, Maxine Benson, and Duane A. Smith. A Colorado History. 8th ed. Boulder, Colo.: Pruett Publishing Company, 2001.

West, Elliot. The Contested Plains: Indians, Gold seekers, and the Rush to Colorado. Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas, 1998.

Wyckoff, William. Creating Colorado: The Making of a Western American Landscape, 1860–1940. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999.

Modupe G.Labode

Colorado , state, W central United States, one of the Rocky Mt. states. It is bordered by Wyoming (N), Nebraska (N, E), Kansas (E), Oklahoma and New Mexico (S), and Utah (W).

Facts and Figures

Area, 104,247 sq mi (270,000 sq km). Pop. (2000) 4,301,261, a 30.6% increase since the 1990 census. Capital and largest city, Denver. Statehood, Aug. 1, 1876 (38th state). Highest pt., Mt. Elbert, 14,433 ft (4,402 m); lowest pt., Arkansas River, 3,350 ft (1,022 m). Nickname, Centennial State. Motto,Nil Sine Numine [Nothing without Providence]. State bird, lark bunting. State flower, Rocky Mountain columbine. State tree, Colorado blue spruce. Abbr., Colo., CO

Geography

Colorado's eastern expanses are part of the High Plains section of the Great Plains . On their western edge the plains give way to the Rocky Mountains , which run north-south through central Colorado. The mountains are divided into several ranges that make up two generally parallel belts, with the Front Range and a portion of the Sangre de Cristo Mts. on the east and the Park Range, Sawatch Mts., and San Juan Mts. on the west. Mt. Elbert (14,433 ft/4,399 m) is the highest peak in the U.S. Rocky Mts. The mountain ranges are separated by high valleys and basins called parks. These include North Park, Middle Park, South Park, Estes Park, and San Luis Park. The Continental Divide runs north-south along the Rocky Mts. in Colorado.

One of the most scenic states in the country, Colorado has recreational parks including Rocky Mountain National Park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park with its narrow gorge cut by the Gunnison River, Dinosaur National Monument in NW Colorado, and Great Sand Dunes National Monument and Preserve in S central Colorado. Mesa Verde National Park and Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, once home to the Anasazi cliff dwellers , are in the southwestern corner of the state, a beautiful but formidable area of mesas and canyons.

Most of W Colorado is occupied by the Colorado Plateau , where deep canyons have been formed by the action of the Colorado, Gunnison, and other rivers. Colorado has a mean elevation of c.6,800 ft (2,070 m) and has 51 of the 80 peaks in North America over 14,000 ft (4,267 m) high, thus laying claim to the name "top of the world."

A broad timber belt, largely coniferous and mostly within national forest reserves, covers large sections of the mountains. The mighty Colorado River originates in Rocky Mountain National Park, and the headwaters of the North Platte, South Platte, Arkansas, and Rio Grande also gather in Colorado's mountains. The average annual rainfall in Colorado is only 16.6 in. (42.2 cm), but the state has been able to develop otherwise unusable land and ranks high among the states in irrigated acres. The Colorado–Big Thompson project and the Fryingpan-Arkansas project are two major water-diversion systems that carry water by tunnel across the Continental Divide to farms on the plains of E Colorado.

Most of the population lives in cities among the Front Range foothills, principally in Denver , the capital, largest city, and regional metropolis. Other major cities are Colorado Springs , Aurora , Lakewood , and Pueblo .

Economy

Agriculture, especially the raising of cattle and sheep and production of dairy goods, is economically important in the state. Crops include wheat, hay, corn, and sugar beets. Since the 1950s manufacturing has been the major source of income in the state. Food processing is a major industry; others include the manufacture of computer equipment, aerospace products, transportation equipment, and electrical equipment; printing and publishing; and the production of fabricated metals, chemicals, and lumber. Federal facilities including army and air force bases, prisons, and the Denver Mint, as well as regional offices, contribute greatly to the economy. A new $4 billion international airport opened near Denver in Feb., 1995.

Tourism plays a vital role in Colorado's economy. The state's climate, scenery, historical sites, and extensive recreational facilities bring millions of visitors annually. Numerous resorts in towns such as Vail and Aspen attract visitors year-round as well as during ski season. Besides fine hunting, fishing, and skiing there are many special events held in the state, including arts festivals, rodeos, and fairs.

Gold, the lure to exploration and settlement of Colorado, was the first of many valuable minerals (notably silver and lead) discovered here. Leading minerals today are petroleum, coal, molybdenum, sand and gravel, and uranium. Gold is no longer mined extensively. There are also large coal and oil deposits.

Government, Politics, and Higher Education

Colorado's state government is based on the constitution drawn up in 1876 and since amended. The governor serves for a term of four years. The legislature is made up of a senate with 35 members and a house of representatives with 65 members. Colorado is represented in the U.S. Congress by two senators and six representatives and has eight votes in the electoral college. Democrat Roy Romer, elected governor in 1986 and reelected in 1990 and 1994, was succeeded by Republican Bill Owens, elected in 1998 and reelected in 2002. In 2006 a Democrat, Bill Ritter, won the governorship; John Hickenlooper, also a Democrat, was elected to succeed him in 2010.

Among Colorado's institutions of higher learning are the Univ. of Colorado, at Boulder; the Univ. of Denver, at Denver; Colorado State Univ., at Fort Collins; and the United States Air Force Academy, at Colorado Springs.

History

Early Inhabitants, European Exploration, and U.S. Conquest

Colorado's earliest inhabitants were the Basket Makers , Native Americans who settled in the mesa country before the beginning of the Christian era. Later people known as cliff dwellers inhabited the area, building their pueblos in canyon walls.

The first European to enter the region was probably the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in the 16th cent. Spain subsequently claimed (1706) the territory, although no Spanish settlements were established there. Part of the area was also claimed for France as part of the Louisiana Territory. At the end of the French and Indian Wars (1763), France secretly ceded the Louisiana Territory, including much of Colorado, to Spain. The French regained the whole area in 1800 by the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso concluded with Spain (see San Ildefonso, Treaty of ).

The United States bought the area N of the Arkansas River and E of the Rocky Mts. in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The federal government sent expeditions to Colorado which generated some public interest in the new territory, and they explored routes opened earlier by the famous mountain men , trappers, and fur traders who included William H. Ashley, James Bridger, Jedediah S. Smith, Kit Carson, and the Bent brothers. Bent's Fort, in Colorado, was one of the best-known Western trading posts. Settlement in the area did not begin, however, until the United States acquired the remainder of present-day Colorado from Mexico by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.

Gold, Settlement, and Statehood

In the early 1800s a small farming settlement had been established in the San Luis valley, but most settlers pushing westward across the Great Plains continued on to the more fertile lands of Oregon, Washington, and California. It was the discovery of gold that first brought large numbers of settlers to Colorado. Prospectors led by Green Russell discovered gold in 1858 at Cherry Creek, where part of the city of Denver now stands, and after another strike the following year, the mining boom began.

At the time of the gold rush the area in which the gold fields were located was part of the U.S. Kansas Territory. A group of miners organized the gold fields as Arapahoe co. of Kansas Territory. The region was divided into districts, and miners' and people's courts were set up to provide quick justice. The miners sought separate territorial status in 1859 and formed the illegal Territory of Jefferson, which operated until the bill for territorial status was passed by Congress in 1861. William Gilpin, the first territorial governor, chose the name Colorado [Span.,=red or colored]. Measures proposing statehood for Colorado were introduced in the U.S. Congress in 1864, and again in 1866 and 1867 when they were vetoed by Andrew Johnson. A bill granting Colorado's statehood was finally passed by Congress in 1876.

When the first settlers came to Colorado, the Ute lived in the mountain areas, while the Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa inhabited the Great Plains. Warfare between plains and mountain ethnic groups was continuous. The tribes of the plains combined their forces in 1840 to halt the invasion of their homelands and hunting grounds by settlers, and violence ensued. The warfare finally culminated in the Native Americans' defeat after the Indian Wars (1861–69) and the Buffalo War (1873–74). Colorado's Native Americans now live mainly on the Southern Ute reservation and in the Denver area.

Decline and Diversification

While Colorado was seeking to establish a government and engaged in conflict with Native Americans, the state's mining boom was in sharp decline. The surface gold had been extracted in the middle 1860s, and mining areas became, and in many cases remain, studded with ghost towns—machinery abandoned and shacks deserted. Other towns, such as Central City with its famous opera house dating from the city's days of opulence, managed to stay alive.

The completion (1870) of a railroad link from Denver to the Union Pacific in Cheyenne, Wyo., and later railroad construction helped to stimulate the extension of farming and the growth of huge cattle ranches as well as to encourage an influx of settlers. Between 1870 and 1880 population increased almost fivefold. Denver briefly became the largest receiving market for sheep, and a smelting industry was established.

In the 1870s the discovery of silver-bearing lead carbonite ore at Leadville started a new mining boom. Prosperity was short-lived, however, for in the 1890s, despite a rich silver strike at Creede and the discovery of the state's richest gold field at Cripple Creek, Colorado suffered a depression. In 1893 the U.S. government stopped buying silver in order to restore confidence in the nation's currency, which had been placed on the gold standard in 1873. The silver market subsequently collapsed, dealing a severe blow to Colorado's economy.

Labor conflicts, disputes over railway franchises, and warfare between sheep and cattle interests also plagued the state at the turn of the century. Many of labor's battles in this period were fought in the mines of Colorado, and the lawlessness and ruthlessness that prevailed among both employers and miners were reminiscent of the early days of the mining camps. When the silver market broke, Colorado turned politically to fusion Populist-Democratic leaders advocating a return to bimetallism. The free-silver movement, however, was unsuccessful, and by 1910, with the improvement of national economic conditions, Colorado settled down to a predominantly agricultural economy.

The Twentieth Century

Large national parks, established in the early 1900s, have provided a continuing source of revenue; tourism has grown steadily. During World War I the price of silver soared again and the economy prospered. The stock-market crash of 1929 and the droughts of 1935 and 1937 brought hardships, but the economy recovered again during World War II, when the state's foods, minerals, and metal products were important to the war effort.

In the mid-1960s Colorado experienced a large influx of new residents and rapid urban growth and development, especially along a strip (c.150 mi/240 km long) centered on Denver and stretching from Fort Collins and Greeley in the north to Pueblo in the south. This growth, combined with the area's high altitude, caused pollution problems, most notably smog. The discovery and exploitation of oil created a boom in the 1970s, which collapsed in the early 1980s. Diversifying industry, swelling in-migration and accompanying construction, and tourism and recreation have since enabled Colorado to rebound, and between 1990 and 2000 it had the third largest percentage of growth of any state in the union.

Bibliography

See P. Eberhart, Guide to the Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps (1959); C. Bancroft, Colorful Colorado: Its Dramatic History (1959); P. F. Dorset, The New Eldorado: The Story of Colorado's Gold and Silver Rushes (1970); L. R. Hafen, Colorado: The Story of a Western Commonwealth (1970); C. Abbott, Colorado: A History of the Centennial State (1982); M. Griffiths and L. Rubright, Colorado: A Geography (1983); G. Lawson, Colorado (1990).

Colorado

ETHNONYMS: Tatchila, Tsáchela, Tsatchela, Zatchila

The 1,025 to 1,800 Colorado Indians live in the western lowlands of Ecuador, chiefly in Pichincha Province and especially in Santo Domingo de los Colorados. They speak a language belonging to the Chibchan Family. The Colorado call themselves the "Tsatchela," a name originating from their practice of dyeing their hair red with an extract of achiote (Bixa orellana). In 1900 the Colorado numbered 3,000, but their population has since declined. Pichincha Province has been heavily settled by Whites, and the Colorado often work for the newcomers as laborers on their plantations.

The Colorado traditionally made their living through subsistence horticulture, although many now raise cattle, and others are wage laborers in towns and cities. The Ecuadoran government has created reservations for the Colorado, on which mestizos are forbidden to settle.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Colorado had adopted the plantain and made it their staple crop, each family owning thousands of trees. They planted yams, peppers, and cacao near their houses, whereas maize, rice, manioc, sugarcane, pineapples, citrus fruits, and medicinal and fish-poison plants are grown in more distant fields. The Colorado use traps, nets, hooks, and especially the poison barbasco to kill fish. They traditionally hunted with blowguns, using clay pellets rather than darts, but by the mid-twentieth century shotguns had replaced blowguns. Deer, monkeys, and agoutis are the most commonly sought game. In addition, the Colorado raise pigs, chickens, guinea pigs, and dogs. Men and women share the labor involved in the cultivation, harvest, and transportation of products to market. Men clear fields, hunt, fish, and weave nets; women cook, care for the children and domestic animals, and weave cotton goods.

Colorado families live in houses surrounded by their fields and often by forest; each house is thus separated by some distance from others and there is no village. Households have a high degree of economic self-sufficiency. Colorado houses, whick lack walls, consist of palm-leaf thatched roofs held up by posts.

Colorado children are greatly indulged. When a boy reaches 10 to 12 years of age, his nose is pierced in a ritual by a shaman, and he then begins to paint his body in an adult fashion. Boys marry sometime after puberty, but girls marry almost immediately thereafter. A deceased Colorado individual is dressed in his or her best clothing and is waked for a day by relatives, who weep, drink, and play special games in order to remain awake and to repel spirits that cause disease. The corpse is buried underneath the floor of the house, with a string around its neck connected to the roof to aid the soul in leaving. After the burial, the house is abandoned.

Colorado religion has undergone three major influences: traditional, Highland Quechua, and Catholic. Catholicism has become the most visible influence (the Colorado observe Catholic ritual and ceremony), but traditional beliefs concerning the supernatural and the creation myth endure. Shamans cure by removing the effects of witchcraft.

Bibliography

Elliot, Elisabeth (1975). These Strange Ashes. New York: Harper & Row.

Karsten, Rafael (1924). "The Colorado Indians of Western Ecuador." Ymer (Stockholm) 44(2): 137-152.

Moore, Bruce R. (1979). El cambio cultural entre los colorado de Santo Domingo. Quito: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.

Santiana, Antonio (1951). The Colorado Indians (Tsatchila). Quito: Imprenta de la Universidad.

Von Hagen, Victor W. (1939). "The Tsátchela Indians of Western Ecuador." Indian Notes and Monographs (Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation). Miscellaneous Series, no. 51. 79 pp.

COLORADO

Boulder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Colorado Springs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Denver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Fort Collins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

The State in Brief

Nickname: Centennial State

Motto: Nil sine numine (Nothing without providence)

Flower: Rocky Mountain columbine

Bird: Lark bunting

Area: 104,093 square miles (2000; U.S. rank: 8th)

Elevation: Ranges from 3,350 feet to 14,433 feet above sea level

Climate: Dry and sunny, with a wide daily and seasonal variation in temperature and with alpine conditions in the high mountains

Admitted to Union: August 1, 1876

Capital: Denver

Head Official: Governor Bill Owens (R) (until 2007)

Population

1980: 2,890,000

1990: 3,377,000

2000: 4,302,015

2004 estimate: 4,601,403

Percent change, 1990–2000: 30.6%

U.S. rank in 2004: 22nd

Percent of residents born in state: 41.1% (2000)

Density: 41.5 people per square mile (2000)

2002 FBI Crime Index Total: 195,936

Racial and Ethnic Characteristics (2000)

White: 3,560,005

Black or African American: 165,063

American Indian and Alaska Native: 44,241

Asian: 95,213

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander: 4,621

Hispanic or Latino (may be of any race): 735,601

Other: 309,931

Age Characteristics (2000)

Population under 5 years old: 297,505

Population 5 to 19 years old: 927,163

Percent of population 65 years and over: 9.7%

Median age: 34.3 years (2000)

Vital Statistics

Total number of births (2003): 69,341

Total number of deaths (2003): 29,462 (infant deaths, 416)

AIDS cases reported through 2003: 3,675

Economy

Major industries: Services, manufacturing, communications, transportation, agriculture

Unemployment rate: 4.8% (January 2005)

Per capita income: $34,510 (2003; U.S. rank: 8th)

Median household income: $50,224 (3-year average, 2001-2003)

Percentage of persons below poverty level: 9.4% (3-year average, 2001-2003)

Income tax rate: 4.63%

Sales tax rate: 2.9%

Colorado , river, c.550 mi (885 km) long, rising from tributaries in the Andes and flowing SE across S central Argentina to the Atlantic Ocean. It marks the northern limit of Patagonia . It is also a rough boundary between the commercial agriculture to the north and ranching to the south. The Colorado's lower course splits into two branches that flow into the Atlantic Ocean; the river often overflows its banks in spring.

Colorado •foreshadow, shadow •Faldo •accelerando, bandeau, Brando, glissando, Orlando •eyeshadow •aficionado, amontillado, avocado, Bardo, Barnardo, bastinado, bravado, Colorado, desperado, Dorado, eldorado, incommunicado, Leonardo, Mikado, muscovado, Prado, renegado, Ricardo, stifado •commando •eddo, Edo, meadow •crescendo, diminuendo, innuendo, kendo •carbonado, dado, Feydeau, gambado, Oviedo, Toledo, tornado •aikido, bushido, credo, Guido, Ido, libido, lido, speedo, teredo, torpedo, tuxedo •widow • dildo • window •Dido, Fido, Hokkaido •condo, rondeau, rondo, secondo, tondo •Waldo •dodo, Komodo, Quasimodo •escudo, judo, ludo, pseudo, testudo, Trudeau •weirdo • sourdough • fricandeau •tournedos • Murdo