August 4th 1901

If there are in the year 2000 - any Ute Indians, or the descendants of Ute Indians living in the state of Colorado, I wish to point them to an ancestor, to whom they may look & ask with pride, as a man of integrity & honesty who lived and worked for the good of his people - & for humanity and who when he was asked, what should be done for him in return for his kindness in the whole - simply said - I wish nothing but that my name should be perpetuated as the friend of the whole man & of the right.

I refer to Ouray Head Chief of the Utes - Ouray, the white man's friend - a noted warrior in his time who wore a coat - fringed with the scalps of his victims [?] taken in battle and yet gentle true & kind. An ancestor of whom any man might be proud and to whom you may look & ask even as we of this century look & ask to King Philip of Pokanoket of the Early days of our Republic. What your people will be in the year 2000 - we know not - whether merged in the dominating & powerful Anglo-Saxon race - or a distinct & powerful people as they once were, we can only conjecture but whatever comes to them let them not forget the name of Ouray the diplomat - the statesman & the peacemaker & of his friend & admirer Charles Adams - who helped him to cement the ties of friendship between the red man & the white man and averted [?] a war between them. We are now making an effort to preserve the ruins of an extinct race - the Cliff Dwellings of this great west who lived centuries ago once a great-people and who probably became extinct through wars of extermination God grant that this may not be the fate of the Utes & that when this box is opened that then may be no more war upon the Earth & that some better way of settling our differences may be known & used.

That civilization may or advance that love and truth may prevent & hate among men be unknown that the law of loving - kindness may be the law of the land and through this influence that the Indian or Aboriginal race may once more be raised to the states of a great & noble nation by the motion thus has despoiled [?] them of the the [sic] fair land that was once all theirs as my unseen mark [?].

The race will not be extinct - it may be absolved in the stronger white race & go toward the making of that great American - the product of all races which must be the culmination of all that is great in nature - the perfect man - the true & free American because "the truth hath made him free."

God grant if and now farewell I shall try to be there where you read all these letters in 100 years until then may the blessing of Heaven rest upon you.

(Mrs. Margaret T. Adams)

Margaret T. Adams