The Paiute people didn’t acquire horses until some time after their neighbors, the Ute and Navajo. This left them vulnerable to raids where women and children were taken and sold to the slave trade that supplied Spanish settlements in New Mexico.

The first recorded contact between Paiutes and Europeans occurred in 1776 when two Spanish priests, Fathers Dominguez and Escalante, crossed Paiute lands. They were returning to Santa Fe, New Mexico, after a failed attempt to reach California. Other trails were established after the Dominguez-Escalante expedition bringing trappers, traders, and emigrants through the lands of the Paiute.

This influx of people and their livestock, which grazed traditional forage and hunting areas of the Paiute, had a negative impact on native plants and grasses. As a result, the Paiute people faced famine. Diseases were introduced to the Paiute for which they had no natural immunity. Their population began a steep decline.