After the Ancestral Puebloans left their cliff dwellings in the Southwest, the Ute tribe became the dominant people in the area. The Spanish explorers were the first to document their encounters with the Ute, Apache and Navajo tribes in the 1540s. Over the one hundred year period between 1720 and 1820 the American Indian tribes of Colorado diversified rather dramatically. In 1720s, the Ute tribes populated the majority of the state with a few Comanche tribes on the eastern plains, but over the next century the Ute tribal area decreased in size and the Cheyenne and Kiowas and Comanches had a strong presence. Today, there are numerous places to experience the daily life of American Indians as well as the tribes’ struggle to endure in the face of westward expansion. Places such as the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site demonstrate the struggle while the Ute Indian Museum showcases the culture and history of the Ute tribes.
