View source for Colorado Territory

{{Short description|Historic region of the US, 1861 to 1876}}
{{About||the western film|Colorado Territory (film)|the attempt to divide the State of California|Territory of Colorado (California)}}

{{Infobox Former subdivision
| conventional_long_name = Territory of Colorado
| common_name            = Colorado Territory
| nation                 = the United States
| subdivision            = [[Organized incorporated territories of the United States|Organized incorporated territory]]
| event_pre              = 
| date_pre               = 
| year_pre               = 
| event_start            = [[Colorado Organic Act]]<ref name=Colorado_Origin_Act>{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/36th-congress/session-2/c36s2ch59.pdf|title=An Act To provide a temporary Government for the Territory of Colorado|author=Thirty-sixth United States Congress|website=[[Library of Congress]] |author-link=36th United States Congress|date=February 28, 1861|access-date=May 13, 2023}}</ref>
| date_start             = February 28
| year_start             = 1861
| event1                 = 
| date_event1            = 
| year_event1            = 
| event_end              = [[Colorado|Statehood]]<ref name=Colorado_Statehood_Proclamation>{{cite web|url=https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-230-admission-colorado-into-the-union|title=Proclamation 230—Admission of Colorado into the Union|author=[[Ulysses S. Grant]]|date=August 1, 1876|publisher=The American Presidency Project|access-date=May 13, 2023}}</ref>
| date_end               = August 1
| year_end               = 1876
| p1                     = Kansas Territory
| flag_p1                = Flag of the United States (1859-1861).svg
| p2                     = Nebraska Territory
| flag_p2                = Flag of the United States (1859-1861).svg
| p3                     = New Mexico Territory
| flag_p3                = Flag of the United States (1859-1861).svg
| p4                     = Utah Territory
| flag_p4                = Flag_of_the_Utah_Territory.svg
| s1                     = State of Colorado
| flag_s1                = Flag_of_Colorado_(1876–1907).svg
| s2                     = 
| flag_s2                = 
| s3                     = 
| flag_s3                = 
| image_flag             = 
| image_coat             = Colorado_state_coat_of_arms_(illustrated,_1876).jpg
| symbol_type            = 
| image_map              = 1860 Colorado Territory map.svg
| image_map_caption      = The Territory of Colorado as shown imposed on an 1860 map of the Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, and Utah Territories.
| capital                = [[Denver City, Colorado Territory|Denver City]] 1861-1862<br/>[[Colorado City, Colorado Territory|Colorado City]] 1862<br/>[[Golden City, Colorado Territory|Golden City]] 1862-1867<br/>[[Denver, Colorado Territory|Denver]]{{efn|name=Denver|[[Denver City, Colorado Territory|Denver City]] changed its name to the [[Denver, Colorado Territory|City of Denver]] on February 13, 1866.<ref>{{cite book|title=Colorado Post Offices 1859-1989|first1=William H.|last1=Bauer|first2=James L.|last2=Ozment|first3=John H.|last3=Willard|date=1990|publisher=[[Colorado Railroad Museum|Colorado Railroad Historical Foundation]]|location=[[Golden, Colorado]]|isbn=0-918654-42-4}}</ref>}} 1867-1876
| government_type        = [[Organized incorporated territories of the United States|Organized incorporated territory]]
| title_leader           = Governor
| leader1                = ''[[List of Governors of Colorado#Governors of the Territory of Colorado|List of Governors]]''
| year_leader1           = 
| leader2                = 
| year_leader2           = 
| leader3                = 
| year_leader3           = 
| leader4                = 
| year_leader4           = 
| legislature            = 
| native_name            = 
| demonym                = 
| today                  = 
}}

The '''Territory of Colorado''' was an [[organized incorporated territory of the United States]] that existed from February 28, 1861,<ref name=Colorado_Origin_Act/> until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the [[United States|Union]] as the 38th  [[Colorado|State of Colorado]].<ref name=Colorado_Statehood_Proclamation/> 

The territory was organized in the wake of the [[Pike's Peak Gold Rush]] of 1858–1862, which brought the first large concentration of white settlement to the region. The organic legislative act creating the [[Slave states and free states|free]] Territory of Colorado was passed by the [[United States Congress]] and signed by 15th President [[James Buchanan]] into law on  February 28, 1861. This was during the onset of the [[American Civil War]] of April 1861 to June 1865. The boundaries of the newly designated  Colorado Territory were essentially identical with those of the modern [[Colorado|State of Colorado]], with lands taken from the four surrounding  previous Federal territories of [[Nebraska Territory|Nebraska]], [[Kansas Territory|Kansas]],  [[New Mexico Territory|New Mexico]], and  [[Utah Territory|Utah]] established during the [[1850s]]. The organization of the new territory helped solidify [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]]  control over the mineral-rich area of the western  [[Rocky Mountains]]. Statehood was regarded as fairly imminent with the expected growth in the constantly westward moving population, but the local territorial ambitions for full statehood were thwarted at the end of  the war in  1865 by a constitutional [[veto]] by newly sworn in 17th President [[Andrew Johnson]]  (1808-1875, served 1865-1869),  who was a [[War Democrat]] who succeeded to the office after briefly only serving one month as [[Vice President of the United States|Vice President]] after Lincoln's assassination that April. Statehood for the territory was a recurring issue during the subsequent [[Ulysses S. Grant]] presidential administration, with [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] 18th President Grant advocating statehood against a less willing Congress during the following post-war [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]] era (1865-1877).  After a long constant lobbying campaign, the old Colorado Territory finally ceased to exist after only 15 years when the [[Colorado|State of Colorado]] was admitted to the Union  as the 38th state during the [[Centennial Exposition|American Centennial celebrationn]] in August [[1876]]<ref name=Colorado_Statehood_Proclamation/>

East  and West of the [[Continental Divide of the Americas|Continental Divide]], which split the [[North America|North American]] continent and the [[Rocky Mountains]], plus the new territory which included the western portion of the previous [[Kansas Territory]], as well as some of the southwestern decade-old [[Nebraska Territory]], and a small parcel of the northeastern corner of the [[New Mexico Territory]]. On the western side of the Divide, the territory included much of the eastern older [[Utah Territory]], all of which besides its substantial while [[Mormons|Mormon / L.D.S.]] population especially around  the capital of [[Salt Lake City]], was strongly controlled by the [[Ute Tribe|Ute]] and [[Shoshoni]] native tribes  The [[Colorado Eastern Plains|Eastern Plains]] were held much more loosely by the intermixed [[Cheyenne]] and [[Arapaho]], as well as by the [[Pawnee people|Pawnee]], [[Comanche]] and [[Kiowa]]. In 1861, ten days before the establishment of the Federal  territory, the Arapaho and Cheyenne agreed with the [[United States]] government in  the East in [[Washington, D.C.]] to give up most their areas of the [[Great Plains]] to white settlement but were allowed to live in their larger traditional areas, so long as they could tolerate [[Homestead Act|homesteader]]s near their camps. By the end of the [[American Civil War]] in 1865, the Native American presence had been [[American Indian Wars|largely reduced or pacified through military action or peace treaties]] on the [[High Plains (United States)|High Plains]].

==History==
{{main|History of Colorado}}
{{Historical populations
|type= USA
|1860|34277
|1870|39864
|footnote=Source: 1860–1870;<ref>{{cite report|editor-last=Forstall|editor-first=Richard L.|title=Population of the States and Counties of the United States: 1790–1990|page=3|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]]|url=https://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/PopulationofStatesandCountiesoftheUnitedStates1790-1990.pdf|access-date=May 18, 2020}}</ref>
}}

The land that eventually became the Colorado Territory fell under the jurisdiction of the United States in three separate stages: the [[Louisiana Purchase]] in 1803 (as adjusted by the 1819 [[Adams–Onis Treaty]]), then the [[Annexation of Texas]] in 1845, and finally the [[Mexican Cession]] in 1848. The land claims of [[Republic of Texas|Texas]] were initially controversial. The border between the U.S. and Mexico was redrawn in 1848 with the [[Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo]] at the end of the [[Mexican–American War]], and the final borders of the state of [[Texas]] were established by the [[United States Congress|Congressional]] [[Compromise of 1850]].

===Indigenous populations===
The land that was eventually defined as the Colorado Territory was home to a number of indigenous civilizations. The [[Ute people|Ute]] lived across both Western Colorado and the [[Colorado Eastern Plains|eastern high plains]]. The [[Anasazi]] lived in the southwestern, southern, and parts of southeastern Colorado. The [[Comanche]] and [[Jicarilla Apache]] lived in the area that would become the southeastern portions of the Territory. The [[Arapaho]] and [[Cheyenne]] also had a presence in the eastern and northeastern plains of the area at times.

===Exploration by non-native peoples===
The earliest explorers of European extraction to visit the area were [[Spanish colonization of the Americas|Spanish explorers]] such as [[Francisco Vásquez de Coronado|Coronado]], although the Coronado expedition of 1540–42 only skirted the future border of the Colorado Territory to the south and southeast. In 1776, [[Francisco Atanasio Domínguez]] and [[Silvestre Vélez de Escalante]] explored southern Colorado in the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition.

Other notable explorations included the [[Pike Expedition]] of 1806–07 by [[Zebulon Pike]], the journey along the north bank of the Platte River in 1820 by [[Stephen Harriman Long|Stephen H. Long]] to what came to be called Longs Peak, the [[John C. Frémont]] expedition in 1845–46, and the [[Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869]] by [[John Wesley Powell]].

===Early settlements, trade, and gold mining===
In 1779, Governor [[Juan Bautista De Anza|de Anza]] of New Mexico fought and defeated the Comanches under [[Cuerno Verde]] on the Eastern Slope of Colorado, probably south of Pueblo. In 1786, de Anza made peace with the Comanches, creating an alliance against the Apaches.

A group of [[Cherokee]] crossed the South Platte and [[Cache la Poudre River]] valleys on their way to [[California]] in 1848 during the [[California Gold Rush]]. They reported finding trace amounts of gold in the South Platte and its tributaries as they passed along the mountains. In the south, in the [[San Luis Valley]], early Mexican families established themselves in large land grants (later contested by the U.S.) from the Mexican government.

In the early 19th century, the upper [[South Platte River]] valley had been infiltrated by [[fur trade]]rs, but had not been the site of permanent settlement. The first movement of permanent U.S. settlers in the area began with the [[Kansas–Nebraska Act]] of 1854, which allowed private land claims to be filed. Among the first settlers to establish claims were former fur traders who returned to the lands they once trapped, including [[Antoine Janis]] and other trappers from [[Fort Laramie]], who established a town near [[Laporte, Colorado|Laporte]] along the Cache la Poudre in 1858. See [[Forts in Colorado]].

In 1858, [[William Greeneberry Russell|Green Russell]] and a party of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgians]], having heard the story of the gold in the South Platte from Cherokee after they returned from California, set out to mine the area they described. That summer they founded a mining camp [[Auraria, Denver|Auraria]] (named for a gold mining camp in Georgia) at the confluence of the South Platte and [[Cherry Creek (Colorado)|Cherry Creek]]. The Georgians left for their home state the following winter. At [[Bent's Fort]] along the [[Arkansas River]], Russell told [[William Larimer, Jr.]], a Kansas land speculator, about the [[placer gold]] they had found. Larimer, realizing the opportunity to capitalize on it, hurried to Auraria. In November 1858, he laid claim to an area across Cherry Creek from Auraria and named it "[[Denver City, Colorado Territory|Denver City]]" in honor of [[James W. Denver]], the previous governor of the [[Kansas Territory]]. Larimer did not intend to mine gold himself; he wanted to promote the new town and sell real estate to eager miners.

Larimer's plan to promote his new town worked almost immediately, and by spring 1859 the western Kansas Territory along the South Platte was swarming with miners digging in river bottoms in what became known as the [[Colorado Gold Rush]]. Early arrivals moved upstream into the mountains quickly, seeking the lode source of the placer gold, and founded mining camps at [[Black Hawk, Colorado|Black Hawk]] and [[Central City, Colorado|Central City]]. A rival group of civic individuals, including [[William A.H. Loveland]], established the town of [[Golden City, Colorado Territory|Golden City]] at the base of the mountains west of Denver City, with the intention of supplying the increasing tide of miners with necessary goods.

===Territorial aspirations===
The movement to create a territory within the present boundaries of Colorado followed nearly immediately. Citizens of Denver City and Golden City pushed for territorial status of the newly settled region within a year of the founding of the towns. The movement was promoted by [[William Byers]], publisher of the ''[[Rocky Mountain News]]'', and by Larimer, who aspired to be the first territorial governor. In 1859, settlers established the [[Territory of Jefferson]], and held elections, but the [[United States Congress]] did not recognize the territory, and it never gained legal status.

Congressional grant of territorial status for the region was delayed by the slavery issue, and a deadlock between Democrats, who controlled the Senate, and the antislavery Republicans, who gained control of the House of Representatives in 1859. The deadlock was broken only by the Civil War. In early 1861, enough Democratic senators from seceding states resigned from the U.S. Senate to give control of both houses to the Republicans, clearing the way for admission of new territories. Three new territories were created in as many days: Colorado (February 28), Nevada (March 1), and Dakota (March 2).

Colorado Territory was officially organized by Act of Congress on February 28, 1861 ({{USStat|12|172}}), out of lands previously part of the Kansas, [[Nebraska Territory|Nebraska]], [[Utah Territory|Utah]], and [[New Mexico Territory|New Mexico]] territories. Technically the territory was open to slavery under the [[Dred Scott Decision]] of 1857, but the question was rendered moot by the impending [[American Civil War]] and the majority pro-Union sentiment in the territory. The name "Colorado" was chosen for the territory. It had been previously suggested in 1850 by Senator [[Henry S. Foote]] as a name for a state to have been created out of present-day California south of 35° 45'.

===Civil War years===
During the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], the tide of new miners into the territory slowed to a trickle, and many left for the East to fight. The Missourians who stayed formed two volunteer regiments, as well as home guard. Although seemingly stationed at the periphery of the war theaters, the Colorado regiments found themselves in a crucial position in 1862 after the [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] invasion of the [[New Mexico Territory]] by [[Henry Hopkins Sibley|General Henry Sibley]] and a force of [[Texas|Texans]]. Sibley's [[New Mexico campaign]] was intended as a prelude to an invasion of the Colorado Territory northward to [[Fort Laramie]], cutting the supply lines between California and the rest of the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]]. The Coloradans, under the command of Union Army [[Edward Canby|General Edward Canby]] and Colonel [[John P. Slough]], Lt. Col. [[Samuel F. Tappan]] and Major [[John M. Chivington]], defeated Sibley's force at the two day  [[Battle of Glorieta Pass]] along the Santa Fe Trail, thwarting the Confederate strategy.

===Colorado War between the U.S. and the Indians of Cheyenne and Arapaho===
{{Main|Colorado War}}
In 1851, by the [[Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851)|Treaty of Fort Laramie]], the United States acknowledged the [[Cheyenne]] and [[Arapaho]] tribes control, in the Colorado area, of the Eastern Plains between [[North Platte River]] and [[Arkansas River]] eastward from the [[Rocky Mountains]]. The Fort Laramie Treaty, in Article 2 of the treaty, did allow the U.S., government to build roads, military and other posts on Indian lands. If these roads could be used by U.S. citizens to lawfully pass through the Indian territories was not stated but apparently implied since the U.S. government bound itself to protect Indian nations against depredations by U.S. citizens. The treaty did not grant any rights for the erection of posts or settlements by U.S. civilians. Since this treaty was enacted before the railroads had come and before the finding of gold in the region, few whites had ventured to settle in what is now Colorado. By the 1860s, as a result of the [[Colorado Gold Rush]] and [[Homestead Act|homesteaders]] encroaching westward into Indian terrain, relations between U.S. and the [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] people deteriorated. On February 18, 1861, in the [[Treaty of Fort Wise]], several chiefs of Cheyenne and Arapaho supposedly agreed with U.S. representatives to cede most of the lands, ten years earlier designated to their tribes, for white settlement, keeping only a fragment of the original [[Indian reserve|reserve]], located between Arkansas River and [[Big Sandy Creek (Colorado)|Sand Creek]]. This new fragment was assigned in severalty to the individual members of the respective tribes with each member receiving {{convert|40|acre|m2}} of land. The United States, by the Fort Wise Treaty, wished to have the Indians settle the new reservation as farmers. The U.S. agreed to pay the tribes a combined total of $30,000 per year for 15 years and in addition to provide a lumber mill, one or more mechanic shops, dwelling houses for an interpreter, and a miller engineer. See Article 5 of the Fort Wise Treaty.

A good part of their co-nationals repudiated the treaty, declared the chiefs not empowered to sign, or bribed to sign, ignored the agreement, and became even more belligerent over the 'whites' encroaching on their hunting grounds. Tensions mounted when Colorado territorial governor [[John Evans (Colorado governor)|John Evans]] in 1862 created a home guard of regiments of Colorado Volunteers returning from the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] and took a hard line against Indians accused of theft. On August 21, 1864, a band of 30 Indians attacked four members of the Colorado Cavalry as they were rounding up stray cattle. Three of the members made it back to the stockade at Franktown, Colorado, but the fourth man failed to return. This man, Conrad Moschel, was found a few days later having been shot with a firearm and pierced with an arrow, and had been scalped in the manner of the Cheyenne. This offensive action by the warring Cheyenne further enraged the U.S. people of Colorado. After several minor incidents in what would later come to be designated as the [[Colorado War]], in November 1864, a force of 800 troops of the Colorado home guard, after heavy drinking, attacked an encampment of Cheyenne and Arapaho at [[Big Sandy Creek (Colorado)|Sand Creek]], murdering between 150 and 200 Indians, mostly elderly men, women and children. This [[Sand Creek Massacre]] or 'Massacre of Cheyenne Indians' led to official hearings<ref>{{cite book|url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=ABY3709.0003.001;rgn=full%20text;view=toc;cc=moa|publisher=University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service|title=United States Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 1865 (testimonies and report)|date=11 May 1865 }}</ref> by the [[United States Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War]] in March and April 1865. After the hearings, the Congress Joint Committee in their report on May 4, 1865, described the actions of Colonel [[John Chivington]] and his Volunteers as "foul, dastardly, brutal, cowardly" and:
{{cquote|It is difficult to believe that beings in the form of men, and disgracing the uniform of United States soldiers and officers, could commit or countenance the commission of such acts of cruelty and barbarity as are detailed in the testimony, but which your committee will not specify in their report.}}
Nevertheless, justice was never served on those responsible for the massacre; and nonetheless, the continuation of this Colorado War led to expulsion of the last Arapaho, Cheyenne, [[Kiowa]] and [[Comanche]] from the Colorado Territory into [[Oklahoma]].

===The movement for statehood===
Following the end of the American Civil War, a movement was made for statehood; the United States Congress passed the Admission Act for the territory in late 1865, but it was vetoed by [[Andrew Johnson|President Andrew Johnson]]. For the next eleven years, the movement for territorial admission was stalled, with several close calls. [[Ulysses S. Grant|President Grant]] advocated statehood for the territory in 1870, but Congress did not act.

In the meantime, the territory found itself threatened by lack of [[railway|railroad]]s. By the late 1860s, many in Denver had sold their businesses and moved northward to the [[Dakota Territory]] communities of [[Laramie, Wyoming|Laramie]] and [[Cheyenne, Wyoming|Cheyenne]], which had sprung up along the [[First transcontinental railroad (North America)|transcontinental railroad]]. Faced with the possible dwindling of the town and its eclipse by the new towns to the north, Denverites pooled their capital and built the [[Denver Pacific Railroad]] northward to Cheyenne to bring the rail network to Denver. The [[Kansas Pacific Railway]] was completed to Denver two months later. The move cemented the role of Denver as the future regional metropolis. The territory was finally admitted to the Union in 1876.

==Territorial capitals==
Three Colorado cities served as the capital of the Territory of Colorado:
#[[Denver City, Colorado Territory|Denver City]]: from creation on February 28, 1861, until July 7, 1862.
#[[Colorado City, Colorado Territory|Colorado City]]: July 7 until August 14, 1862.
#[[Golden City, Colorado Territory|Golden City]]: August 14, 1862 until December 9, 1867.
#[[Denver, Colorado Territory|Denver]]:{{efn|name=Denver}} December 9, 1867 until statehood on August 1, 1876.

===Governmental buildings===
For much if not all of its existence, the Colorado Territorial government did not actually own its houses of government, instead renting available buildings for governmental purposes. Today, two buildings which served the Territorial government remain:  the historic log building in Colorado City, and the [[Loveland Building and Coors Building|Loveland Block]] in downtown Golden City (which had housed the complete legislature, Territorial Library and possibly Supreme Court from 1866 to 1867, with library remaining to 1868). Others which served include the original Loveland Building (1859–1933, 1107 Washington Avenue in Golden, housing the Territorial House from 1862 to 1866); the Overland Hotel (1859–1910, 1117 Washington Avenue in Golden, housing the Territorial Council from 1862 to 1866); and the Territorial Executive Building (unknown dates, approximately 14th and Arapahoe Streets in Golden, housing the executive branch of the government from 1866 to 1867).

==See also==
{{portal|Geography|History|United States|Colorado}}
*[[Colorado in the American Civil War]]
*[[Colorado War]]
*[[Comanche Campaign]]
*[[List of governors of the Territory of Colorado]]
*[[List of territorial claims and designations in Colorado]]
*[[Pike's Peak Country]]
*[[Pike's Peak Gold Rush]]
*[[Territory of Jefferson]]
*[[Bibliography of Colorado]]
*[[Geography of Colorado]]
*[[History of Colorado]]
*[[Index of Colorado-related articles]]
*[[List of Colorado-related lists]]
*[[Outline of Colorado]]
{{clear}}

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{sister project links|auto=yes}}
* {{Cite AmCyc |last=Hawes |first=J. W. |wstitle=Colorado (territory)|display=Colorado, a territory of the United States|short=x}}
{{Colorado|expanded}}
{{Territories of the United States}}
{{authority control}}

{{coord|38.9972|-105.5478|dim:300000_region:US-CO_type:adm1st|name=Territory of Colorado (historical)|display=title}}

[[Category:Colorado Territory| ]]
[[Category:Pre-statehood history of Colorado| ]]
[[Category:History of Colorado]]
[[Category:History of the American West]]
[[Category:1861 establishments in Colorado Territory]]
[[Category:1860s in Colorado Territory]]
[[Category:1870s in Colorado Territory]]
[[Category:1876 disestablishments in Colorado]]
[[Category:States and territories established in 1861]]
[[Category:States and territories disestablished in 1876]]