Ute Land Religion in the American West, 1879–2009

Ute Land Religion in the American West, 1879–2009 is a narrative of American religion and how it intersected with land in the American West. Prior to 1881, Utes lived on the largest reservation in North America—twelve million acres of western Colorado. Brandi Denison takes a broad look at the Ute land dispossession and resistance to disenfranchisement by tracing the shifting cultural meaning of dirt, a physical thing, into land, an abstract idea. This shift was made possible through the development and deployment of an idealized American religion based on Enlightenment ideals of individualism, Victorian sensibilities about the female body, and an emerging respect for diversity and commitment to religious pluralism that was wholly dependent on a separation of economics from religion.  As the narrative unfolds, Denison shows how Utes and their Anglo-American allies worked together to systematize a religion out of existing ceremonial practices, anthropological observations, and Euro-American ideals of nature. A variety of societies then used religious beliefs and practices to give meaning to the land, which in turn shaped inhabitants’ perception of an exclusive American religion. Ultimately, this movement from the tangible to the abstract demonstrates the development of a normative American religion, one that excludes minorities even as they are the source of the idealized expression.

"A welcome edition to the library of anyone interested in the history of the Ute."—Curtis Martin, Southwestern Lore, “Beautifully written, clear, and compelling. [This book] is grounded on a solid understanding of history, while also providing insightful interpretation and theoretical nuance.”—Suzanne Crawford O’Brien, professor of religion and culture at Pacific Lutheran University and author of Coming Full Circle: Spirituality and Wellness among Native Communities in the Pacific Northwest  , “This terrific book shows how white settlers in Colorado used the construct of ‘Ute Land Religion’ to justify their appropriation of Native land, how Ute people both resisted and participated in that invention, and how the category of religion has functioned in the making and remaking of the American West.”—Tisa Wenger, author of We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom  

Brandi Denison is an assistant professor of religious studies in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of North Florida.