The rapidly rising number of settlers faced conflicts with Ute and Navajo Indians. In 1863, the U.S. Army under General James Henry Carleton, in response to the "Navajo problem", forcibly evicted almost 10,000 Navajo from their lands near the San Juan River. More than 2,000 people died of starvation and disease during and after the "Long Walk" to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. However, the Navajo were allowed to return to their original lands in 1868, and a federally recognized reservation was established to the south of the San Juan River. The Utes, who had been granted a reservation in western Colorado in 1868, faced hostility with settlers because most of the area's mineral wealth was concentrated on Ute lands. The U.S. Army drove the last of the Utes from southwest Colorado by 1881 (with the exception of a small portion in the Southern Ute Reservation, established by the Brunot Agreement in 1873) and the following year of land were opened up for ranching, farming and prospecting.