Richard D. Komas

This is presumably the only burial of a full-blooded Native American in this cemetery. With his adopted name of Richard, he served the government to communicate its desires to his people while also using his position as a human rights advocate for his people. 

Richard was born into the Ute tribe in the Uintah Valley in northeast Utah, but his given name and exact date of birth are unknown. The “Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation” today is 6,250 square miles or about 86 percent of the size of New Jersey. It is the country’s second largest reservation after the Navajo, although actual tribal land was substantially reduced due to a history of unfair treatment.

The little boy was seven years old when President Lincoln signed an executive order reserving the Uintah River Valley as tribal land. But, persuaded by Mormon leader Brigham Young, Lincoln signed a bill passed by Congress in 1864 that forced all Utah tribes onto the Uintah Valley reservation. A year later another law stripped them of the right to any land in Utah Territory that was “suitable for agricultural and mineral purposes.”

Against this backdrop, a chance meeting with a group of white men would soon alter the course of Richard’s life. John Wesley Powell, a geology professor and former Union Army major, led a series of expeditions along the Green and Colorado rivers in the Rocky Mountains beginning in 1868. His party also mapped the land and photographed the indigenous people. The following year, his was the first U.S. government-sponsored passage through the Grand Canyon. 

Major Powell must have met the teenage Ute hunter on one of  these trips. The next date on Richard’s timeline is 1870 when he was recommended, probably by John Powell to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. They awarded him a free education (and an anglicized name) in return for employing him as an interpreter for and to the Ute people. 

Richard became the first Native American student at Lincoln University, near Oxford in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. Along with room and board, the school’s Preparatory Department gave instruction on a grade-school level in the English language, both oral and written, along with basic arithmetic.

Named after the late U.S. president, the school’s mission was to advance the learning of African-American students. The bureau may have chosen the school because of its proximity to Washington, D.C. but also because it catered to minorities with little or no education.

The commissioner of the bureau, Edward Smith, would have kept in touch with John Powell as the boy progressed in his studies. In 1873 the Major was tapped to head up the Indian Peace Commission and took Richard with him to Utah as his interpreter. They returned at the end of the year, having also completed a rough census of the many bands of the Ute tribe.

During this expedition a photographer captured this image of a young Ute girl and a warrior who is painted with battle stripes. While initially cooperative, many in the Ute nation became suspicious, resentful, and aggravated after being cheated and mistreated by government agents.

Richard also reported on the bands of the Ute living in the White River region of western Colorado. He disputed comments by certain government agents about tribal people becoming farmers since the elevation was too high and the growing season too short. For his white audience, Richard interpreted a council meeting between the Uintah and White River peoples who agreed to sign a treaty negotiated by the Uintah chief. They also talked about making peace with the Sioux and Arapaho nations.

Following another academic session in 1874, Richard returned with John, as reported here. Then he resumed classes at Lincoln in the fall.

He joined the Powell expedition again the next year, this time to Wyoming Territory. John always stayed more focused on learning about different tribes and collecting artifacts and lifestyle information, not just on being an agent of the government. He was especially pleased to find samples of how the Native Americans originally dressed before they met the white man. 

A newspaper article from 1876, the last that could be found that mentioned Richard, says he was invited by members of Congress to appear before both House and Senate Committees on Indian Affairs. From his own experience he recommended that more young tribesmen be given the gift of education that was given him. More importantly, he prepared an impassioned statement about the injustices he saw and “the evils arising from the management of the present Indian Bureau and the sufferings of the Indians.”

Richard’s last days of his 22 years were spent in Philadelphia, according to his death certificate. There are no documents to prove what he was doing at the time but the following scenario seems perfectly logical.

In late 1875 a Washington, D.C. newspaper published a letter from the bureau to the Department of the Interior outlining its proposal for an exhibit at the upcoming Centennial Exposition in 1876 in Philadelphia, the first official world’s fair held in this country.

The bureau proposed exhibiting the collections of John Powell and others, including portrayals by actual Native Americans, demonstrating their tools, crafts, artwork, and living skills. That idea was dismissed, with life-sized mannequins made of paper mache and stuffing as substitutes to display the costumes and headdresses. Still, employing Richard Komas to be an “interpreter” of his people’s way of life to the visitors at the fair would have been a good use of his education and experience.

The Exposition was held from May through November, so if that’s what Richard was employed to do, he wasn’t able to complete the run of the fair. The cause of his death on September 24 was an anal fistula, an abscess due to infection in an anal gland. 

There was no address listed for him; instead, the doctor wrote 3400 Spruce Street, which is the University Hospital’s location. There was no funeral, no next of kin, and no obituary published when the burial took place two days later. There is no known headstone and perhaps there never was.