San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe

A nation today

Mesa Arch on the canyon rim at Island in the Sky, Canyonlands National Park, framing the drop to the White Rim country below.
Farragutful, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Background

San Juan Southern Paiutes are a people whose traditional territory lies in southeastern Utah and north central Arizona, inside land the United States designates as the Navajo Reservation. Tribal members live in and around Navajo Mountain, White Mesa and Blanding in Utah, and in and around Hidden Springs, Rough Rock, Willow Springs, Tuba City and Cow Springs in Arizona. The Tribe's own account holds that during the 1860s United States military campaigns against the Navajo people brought many thousands of Navajo families west into San Juan Southern Paiute territory, and that much of the Tribe's land was then annexed into the Navajo Reservation. In 1907 the United States set aside the Paiute Strip in Utah as a reservation for the Tribe, withdrew that designation in 1933, and in 1934 declared the southern part of the Tribe's territory part of the Navajo Reservation. The Tribe was federally recognised on December 11, 1989, and says it has been a socially and politically distinct tribe throughout.

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Parks on its homelands

Mesa Arch on the canyon rim at Island in the Sky, Canyonlands National Park, framing the drop to the White Rim country below.Canyonlands National Park

A reservation for the San Juan Southern Paiute was established in 1907 as part of the Navajo reservation. The Tribe received federal recognition in 1990, when the Navajo people gave it 5,100 acres near Tuba City, Arizona and another 300 acres near Lake Powell in Utah. Source

The Grand Canyon dropping away below the railed paved overlook at Mather Point on the South Rim.Grand Canyon National Park

The San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe's reservation was set up in 1907 inside the Navajo reservation, and the tribe won federal recognition in 1990, the same year the Navajo people gave it 5,100 acres near Tuba City and 300 acres near Lake Powell. Source

Sources

Checked September 2026.

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