Tensions are rising in southwest Colorado after a group describing itself as Native Cherokee with ties to a Mormon sect erected a barbed wire fence around 1,400 acres of forest they say they own.
Ranchers and locals who used that part of the San Juan National Forest to herd cattle and hike have torn down parts of the fence outside the town of Mancos, about 30 miles northwest of Durango.
This has led to tense clashes with the group, the Committee of Free Landowners, which claims to have several thousand members and historical documents demonstrating their treaty rights to the land.
Some members have past ties to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), a polygamous sect led by Warren Jeffs, a cult leader serving a life sentence in Texas for child sexual assault.
Ryan Borchers rolls up barbed wire that was part of a fence installed in early October in the San Juan National Forest to the north by a group calling itself the Committee of Free Land Holders.
Patrick Pipkin, a member of the Freeholders’ Committee, says he represents thousands of members claiming tracts of the San Juan National Forest.
Local authorities have urged rival groups to remain calm and have the dispute resolved by federal officials and the courts. The two sides were scheduled to meet on Friday.
Patrick Pipkin, a member of the Free Land Holders, told DailyMail.com that the members were “part of the Cherokee tribe” and that their land rights were not being respected.
‘We were the inhabitants here before, we were here when the ships came to the east coast. We don’t come from Europe,” Pipkin said.
“We are the inhabitants, and we are here, and we want people to be able to understand that and also recognize that we are here in peace.”
The Free Land Holders say they will allow locals and ranchers to use the land and its trails and roads, but they plan to build a “learning center” to showcase “treaty law and patent law.”
Pipkin asked the US State Department to send an ambassador to negotiate the dispute.
The State Department had no immediate comment on the request and DailyMail.com could not independently verify Pipkin’s claims.
He said the members had no ties to Jeffs’ cult today, having cut ties with the cult decades ago.
The Free Land Holders began building the fence on U.S. Forest Service land over the weekend.
Angry residents, some of them armed, cut sections of fence and ripped posts out of the ground Thursday afternoon in the national forest.
Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin has urged people to leave to allow the dispute between federal agencies and the Free Land Holders to be negotiated.
The fences surprised ranchers who graze cattle on federal lands and those who mountain bike, hike and cross-country ski in the area, known locally as Chicken Creek.
They fear the group will cut off access to public lands.
“They couldn’t have chosen a piece of land more beloved by the city than that area,” Brad Finch, a retired teacher and firefighter who lives outside Mancos, told The Denver Post.
Pipkin says he comes from the ‘Cherokee tribe’ and has documents to prove the land belongs to his group.
Locals use the San Juan National Forest to graze livestock and engage in outdoor sports such as hiking and camping.
Members of the group downplay their ties to Warren Jeffs, a cult leader serving a life sentence in Texas for child sexual assault.
Jeffs led a polygamous sect called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) and had many “wives.”
Jeffs is serving a life sentence in Texas after being convicted of two counts of child sexual assault.
But the sheriff and Pipkin say access has not been cut off, even though the fence ran through U.S. Forest Service property.
Nowlin said some locals had become “tangled with false information.”
Nowlin, representatives from the Forest Service and Free Land Holders spent hours Wednesday trying to negotiate a deal.
The Free Land Holders agreed to halt fence construction to give federal officials time to review their claim, Forest Service spokesman Scott Owen said.
Other meetings have been held to ease tensions, attended by dozens of anxious locals.
Forest Service records show the 1,400 acres in question have been owned by the federal government since 1927, Owen said.
Nowlin said the newcomers claim they have rights to the land under the Farm Act of 1862, which gave U.S. citizens rights to the land in exchange for living and working on it.
They also cite the Treaty of Ghent of 1814, the Treaty of Paris of 1783, and the Articles of Confederation.
“These people are just like you and me,” Nowlin told the Denver Post.
‘They are normal people. They are not any kind of vigilantes or anything like that.
Jeffs, who called himself a prophet, owned properties throughout the Southwest, including about 60 acres outside Mancos, which were placed under judicial guardianship after his conviction, Nowlin said.
That $1.5 million property near Mancos was sold in 2020 to Blue Mountain Ranch LLC, whose owners are Pipkin, Claude Seth Cooke and Andrew Chatwin.
Pipkin said he was not baptized in the FLDS church, but had family members who had belonged to it.
