Teen & Young Adult 

"The Paiute" Indian bands, including the San Juan, the Shivwits, the Kaibab, and the Moapa, once inhabited a vast region in what is now Utah, as well as portions of Nevada and Arizona. There they raised corn and other crops and supplemented their diet by hunting game animals and gathering wild plants. In the 1850s, non-Indian pioneers, including Brigham Young and his Mormon followers, began to establish settlements among the Paiute. As increasing numbers of white settlers entered the region during the ensuing decades, the Indians' territory shrank steadily. By the late 1800s, the Paiute were struggling to survive as low-paid wage laborers nd farmhands on lands they had once controlled themselves. The Indians' condition began to improve in the early 1900s when federal fact-finding missions prompted the U.S. government to grant the Indians reservation land. Today, the Paiute bands are regaining their self-sufficiency. For example, the Kaibab band has established an agricultural project, and the more traditional San Juan community has successfully created a basket-making cooperative.