Indian Relations in Utah During the Civil War

Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Faculty Publications 2012 Indian Relations in Utah during the Civil War Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D. Brigham Young University - Utah, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub Part of the Indigenous Studies Commons, and the Mormon Studies Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Alford, Kenneth L. Ph.D., "Indian Relations in Utah during the Civil War" (2012). Faculty Publications. 1702. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/1702 This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Washakie (1804?–1900) served as a Shoshone chief in the Utah–Wyoming–Idaho area for sixty years. Noted for his friendliness to whites, he considered Brigham Young, James Bridger, and General Albert Sidney Johnston as his friends. He was given a U.S. military funeral when he was buried at Fort Washakie, near Lander, Wyoming. (Utah State Historical Society) CHAPTER 12 Kenneth L. Alford INDIAN RELATIONS IN UTAH DURING THE CIVIL WAR ative Americans1 played a small, but history of the United States. Settlers arrived; Ninteresting, role during the Civil War. Indians were displaced. In Utah Territory it During the first year of the war, the U.S. happened quickly. From the arrival of the secretary of the interior reported that “our first Mormon pioneers, it was just over thirty Indian affairs are in a very unsettled and years until the last Indians were removed to unsatisfactory condition. The spirit of rebel- government reservations. This essay provides lion against the authority of the government, an overview of the complicated and often which has precipitated a large number of violent relationships that existed in Utah Ter- States into open revolt, has been instilled into ritory during the Civil War between Indians, a portion of the Indian tribes by emissaries settlers, and the federal government. from the insurrectionary States.”2 Both Union and Confederate armies courted tribe mem- UTAH’S INDIANS bers in an effort to recruit additional soldiers Several Indian tribes lived in Utah Terri- and were met with some success. Confeder- tory during the nineteenth century with three ate General Stand Watie, for example, the last tribes accounting for the majority—Utes (often Southern general to surrender to Union forces referred to as Utahs—the namesake of Utah (in June 1865), was a Cherokee Indian.3 Territory), Shoshones (sometimes referred to While most regions of the country expe- as Snakes), and Paiutes (who lived in the cen- rienced few Indian problems during the war, tral and southern parts of the territory).4 Mem- Utah had to contend with numerous chal- bers of smaller and neighboring tribes, such lenges. What happened in Utah when settlers as Bannock, Goshute, and Washoe, also lived and Indians came into contact is the same within the territorial boundary. As Jacob For- story that occurred throughout the early ney, a Utah Territory superintendent of Indian 204 KENNETH L. AlFORD Affairs who was later dismissed for misman- Territory’s superintendent of Indian Affairs agement, explained in September 1858, “The in 1861, Utah’s Indians were “unquestion- principal tribes are, of course, divided into a ably the poorest Indians on the continent.”7 great number of small bands but all submit to In an 1850 Indian agent’s annual report, the authority of one or the other of the chiefs Paiutes, for example, were categorized as of their respective tribes.”5 “benumbed by cold, and enfeebled, intel- The exact number of Indians who lived in lectually and physically, by the food upon Utah Territory is unknown. An 1861 report which they subsist; it consisting only of roots, from J. F. Collins, Utah superintendent of vermin, insects of all kinds, and everything Indian Affairs, acknowledged that no one that creeps, crawls, swims, flies, or bounds, “had ever been able to obtain satisfactory they may chance to overtake.”8 Many Indians information in regard to their numbers.” struggled to stay alive and eagerly consumed Collins’s estimate at the beginning of the “everything containing a life-sustaining ele- Civil War suggested, though, that there may ment, such as hares, rabbits, antelope, deer, have been fifteen to twenty thousand Indians bear, elk, dogs, lizzards [sic], snakes, crickets, prior to the arrival of the first Mormon set- grasshoppers, ants, roots, grass, seeds, bark, tlers.6 The best approximation prior to the etc. With some of the Indians stealing Civil War may be an estimate included in cattle, horses, mules, &c, is a matter of Superintendent Forney’s 1859 annual report necessity—steal or starve.”9 While sent to to the federal commissioner of Indian Affairs Utah to serve both the government and the (see figure 1). Indians, the personal prejudices of individual Indian agents often crept into reports to their INDIAN TRIBE OR BAND ESTIMATE superiors as evidenced by the 1850 report Sho-sho-nes or Snakes 4,500 of Indian agent J. S. Calhoun, who charged Ban-nacks 500 that Indians “feed upon their own children. Uinta Utes 1,000 Such a people should not be permitted to Spanish Fork and San Pete farms 900 live within the limits of the United States, Pah-vant (Utes) 700 and must be elevated in the scale of human Pey-utes (South) 2,200 existence, or exterminated.”10 Yet the same Pey-utes (West) 6,000 Indians were defined by other Indian agents Elk mountain Utes 2,000 as “very industrious,” “honest, amiable,” and Wa-sho of Honey lake 700 “peaceable,” who “conducted themselves Total 18,500 well” and were “friendly disposed toward us Figure 1. Supposed total number of Indians in Utah Territory [Indian agents] destitute as they are.”11 (1858). Source: Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1858 (Washington, DC: George W. PRIOR TO THE CIVil WAR Bowman, 1859), 365. (“Farms” were Indian reservations. Utah’s first Mormon settlers arrived in the Original spelling retained.) Salt Lake Valley in July 1847. Mormons iden- Living conditions in Utah Territory were tified American Indians as a lost branch of the difficult for everyone—but especially so for house of Israel and felt a sense of responsibil- Indians. According to Benjamin Davies, Utah ity to convert and civilize them. There were INDIAN RELATIONS IN UTAH DURING THE CIVIL WAR 205 many Indian baptisms, but conflict occurred reflection that those [Mormons] whose mis- more frequently than conversion. sion it is to convert these aborigines by the For security reasons, new Mormon settle- sword of the spirit should thus be obliged ments often began with the building of an to destroy them.”18 (Gunnison himself was enclosed fort. Lieutenant John W. Gunnison, killed by Utes in October 1853 near Fill- a U.S. Army topographic engineer sent to more, then the capital of Utah Territory.) Utah in the early 1850s to survey potential Prior to the Utah War (1857–58), Indian rail routes, described the first settlement in relations and diplomacy had been a shared Salt Lake City: “A fort enclosing about forty responsibility, divided by proximity and acres was built, by facing log-houses inward, interest between the Mormon population and picketing four gateways on each side of and federal Indian agents. After the Utah the square, making a line nearly a mile and a War, Indian policy was most often made and half in length—the timber being hauled sev- enforced by the U.S. Army and the federal eral miles, and cut in the distant kanyons.”12 government’s Indian agents. Among the many Indians did not appear to be concerned challenges this presented was that “army with the initial arrival of Mormons in the Salt leaders and their volunteers often had little Lake Valley because that valley was a neu- training in and patience for the protocols of tral buffer zone between the Ute, Goshute, Indian diplomacy.”19 and Shoshone tribes. Trouble began when According to an 1861 government report, the Mormons expanded into Utah Valley. among the many causes of Indian hardship The Mormon fort in Provo was built on were “the natural poverty of the country, the a centuries-old Indian campsite that was destruction of the wild game by the intro- near several major hunting trails.13 During duction of white men, and the selfish policy 1848, just one year after the first pioneers of the Mormon people”—although exactly arrived, settlers suffered attacks by a band of what that policy might have been was left Shoshones and sought to administer a “chas- unstated.20 Perhaps it was the fact that the tisement” of their own to the Indians.14 The arrival of Mormon pioneers upset the delicate following year, in the winter of 1849, Indians and fragile natural balance within the region. “became insolent in Utah Valley, killed cattle Indians were continually being displaced as and boasted of it, entered houses and fright- the Mormons established new settlements. ened women and children, took provisions Competition for limited natural resources forcibly, and compelled those on the farms to became “a constant source of irritation and retire within the fort.”15 In 1850, during what vexation to the whites” as well as to the Indi- is sometimes termed the Timpanogos War, ans.21 Indians were soon “deprived of their Mormon forces from Salt Lake and Utah Val- accustomed means of subsistence” and were leys attacked and killed dozens of Indians.16 “driven to the alternative of laying violent Additional Indian-settler skirmishes, such hands upon the property of the whites or of as the Walker War in 1853–54 (named after perishing by want.”22 the Timpanogos Ute Indian chief Wakara), Violence between Indians was another continued throughout the 1850s.17 Gunni- problem, with intermittent conflicts occur- son wryly noted, “It is a curious matter of ring within and between the numerous tribes 206 KENNETH L.

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