STAR VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY HISTORICAL BOOKS INVENTORY DETAILS 1. Overview Title: ChiefWashakie's Mormon Baptism at Wind River, Wyoming, 1880 Author: Thomas H. Johnson Subject: Indians Publisher: Wyoming State Historical Society Publishing Date: Spring 2008 (Annal) Number of Pages: 6 ID#: 731 Location: Website 2. Evaluation Evaluator's Name(s): Kent and Polly Erickson Date of Evaluation: March 2015 Key Words: Wind River Reservation, Shoshone, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- Day Saints, missionaries Included Names: Brigham Young, Jim Bridger, Amos Wright, James Patten, Charles Hatton 3. Svnopsis As early as 1847, there was communication between the Shoshone Indians and the Mormons. This article chronicles events and communications between these groups. More than one Christian group, particularly the Episcopalians, proselytized on the Wind River Reservation. Amos Wright was a Mormon missionary who served among the Shoshones. On one occasion, he reported that he baptized 104 Shoshones including Washakie and his family. 4. Other "^well-documented 14 Annals ofWyoming: TheWyoming Hislory Journal -- Spring 2003 ChiefWashakie's Mormon Baptism at Wind River, Wyoming, 1880 byThomas H. Johnson ChiefWashakie. Courtesy Grace Ray mond Hebard Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. ''Theformer agent Mn^atton' 'Zm'L ^5 *upon being1*' introduced^ to one ofmyBvothef^i at Evanston one day, told him that ifever he cotdd gethold ofme he wouldi put me in Irons ... For this and other reasons I thought it best to as quietly asI could.^ i ; Wright toJohn Taytovy Presi^ntoftkgiDS Chutch, SaltLake City, Utah, V' f^oveinber 18,il880 K4 I %GHrikiairmiss^iaries le^er^jiip ppsiti9n5"ft^ihe6|d iTiis ?I polic\'; beeun afeoiit^ iheresiiltoftlie Congr^^of the Uffied StatS^assing a « ,'t j-.''. v-. i li-l j lav?that established i, ', Robert M. Utley, "The Celebrated Peacc Policy ofGeneral Grant," North Dakota History 2Q 0"ly1953): 121-42. SharonO'Brien,y4mf«Vrt/i y«</ww (Norman:University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), p. 305. ^ Annals olWyoming: The Wyoming History Journal - Spring 200B 15 Shoshone reservation was assigned to the Protestant Americans in the nineteenth century, this is not Episcopal Church, and James Patten was appointed surprising. The Mormons were not unknown to CO be the lay preacher and teacher for the Shoshone, the Shoshone, however. As early as 1847, soon after while Dr. James Irwin, also an Episcopalian, was the Mormons arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, they appointed agent of the Shoshone Reservation in met with the Shoshone. Chief Washakie met with 1871. Patten later served as agentfor the reservation Brigham Young in 1852, and in the next several in the absence of agent Irwin, from 1877 to 1879. years, contacts continued.^ Brigham Young promised However, he had returned to the private sector by to help the Shoshone, but conversion efforts were 1880 when Amos Wright wrote to LDS President rebuffed, as missionary James S. Brown recalled.'' By John Taylor soon after concluding his missionary 1878, Shoshone were reported going to Salt Lake activity among the Wind River Shoshone in the fall City annually to "renew the covenant," an indication ot that year. Charles Hatton served as agent from of continuous activity over many years." Washakie 1879 - 1882 during the period covered by Anios was given photographs of Young, Young's successor Wrights report of Shoshone baptisms to the LDS John Taylor, and other leaders of the church which church, with Irwin returning briefly as agent from he kept in his possession for many years.'* 1882-1883. The LDS Church was involved in at least two By February 1883, an ordained Episcopal distinct missions to the Shoshone as early as 1854- missionary, Welshman John Roberts, had taken 57; the Wyoming mission at Fort Bridget and the up residence at Wind River. Roberts solidified the Lemhi Mission near Salmon, Idaho. At Fort Bridget, Episcopalian presence and baptized Washakie (once sold to the Mormons in 1853 by Jim Bridget and again), in 1897.' He also established a school for Louis Vasquez, tensions ran high between the new girls in 1901, and a mission congregation.For many Mormon owners and the mountaineers, several of years, the Episcopal mission was the only Christian whom (Bridget included) had Shoshone wives.'' missionamong the Shoshone at Wind River. In 1884, Chief Washakie seems to have sided at first with his the Jesuits were given the opportunity to establish a old trading partners, the mountaineers, who were school and mission to the recently arrived Arapahos American fiir traders not Mormon. "Washakie," an on the easternside ofthe reservation; that schooland unidentified missionary wrote in 1855, "said chat the mission, St. Stephen's, is still active. reason they did not smoke that tobacco was because The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day the mountaineers had told them that the Mormons Saints seems never to have been included in the was coming with poizen tobacco to kill the Indians. parceling our of reservations to Christian religious But Brother Barney then took it and took a chin of denominations under Grants Peace Policy of 1870. it and said it was notpoizon. Then they (the Indians) Considering the antipathy to them among many thot the mountaineers had lied."'" D.B. Shimkin, "Dynamics of Reccnt Wind River Shoshone History," American Anthropologist A4 (1942): 451-62. Ihomas H. Johnson, Vie Enos Family and Wind River Shoshone Society: AHistorical Analysis (Ann Arbor; University Microfilms, 1975). The Episcopal mission wa5 also given 160 acres of irrigated land by the Shoshone tribe. In an efi'ort to be self-sustaining in aremote region, die mission also had extensive gardens, fruit trees, and a dairy. Grace Raymond Hebard, Washakie - Chirfofthe Shoshones edition in Glcndale, California; Arthur Clark, 1930, reprinted Lincoln: Univensit)' of Nebraska Press, 1995). Brigham Young was both governor of Utah Territory and Superintendent ofIndian Affairs. James S. Brown, Life ofaPioneer (Sale Uke City, 1900). See also Hebard, Washakie, p. 84, where Washakie stated that Vje Book ofMortnon was good for the white man, but not for the Indian. Report to the Commissioner ofIndian Aflkirs, Washington, D.C, from Shoshone Agency, Wyoming, 1878. James Patten, aeent hereafter cited as RCIA. , A.R. Wright, Feb. 18, 1908, letter to editor, Improvement Era, LDS Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah. ' { Dale L. Morgan, "Washakie and the Shoshone," Part \\\,AiinahofWymmigl(>, 2(1954): 145. ^ Anonymous, journal of Mormon mission to the Shoshone Indians, June 14, 1855, LDS Archives, Salt Uke City, Utah, hereafter cited Aiwnymous. mission journal. This small leather-bound journal shown to the author by the LDS archivist in 1976 is alog that recounts die" difficulties of the members of this mission. One of the members, Joshua Terry, had ason, George, who later became chair of the Wind River ; Shoshone Tribal Council in the early 1900s and was brutally murdered in 1907. The murder was never solved. Terry was married to Kad^, Enos, and one daughter, Felicia Terry Kennah, survives. Many ofher descendants reside in Fremont County to this day. 16 Annals of Wyoming: Ttie Wyoming History Journal" Spring 2Q08 Brigham Young mistrusted Jim Bridget; he He preached to Washakie and his band who were thought Bridget said one thing to the Mormons and very friendly."''' One way ofhelping Indians become another thing to the Indians, spreading innuendo a "white and delightsome people" was through and rumor. The Mormon mission journal entry of intermarriage, producing offspring whose skin August 17. 1856, describes Washakie's anger as well: would be lighter and who would presumably follow "Washakie found considerable fault with us and the teachings ofthe LDS Church. The equation of with Bridget for selling their land and in a rage he ancestry orblood with culture and behavior was not stabbed an old squaw and then fied for the Flathead only a dominant belief among nineteenth century country. 1 \ Mormons, but among most Americans. By the 1850s, there were at least five recorded With the arrival of the Shoshone at their f>ew marriages between the Mormon missionaries and the reservationat Wind River and the construction of the Shoshone and sixteen recorded marriages bet\veen the agency in 1871, the government agent theoretically mountaineers and the Shoshone.'" fhese marriages had the right to banish any person thought signify close alliances between at least some Shoshone detrimental to the welfare of the Shoshones.''' It is and the mountaineers and more recently, Mormons. not surprising that Amos Wright, appointed by the Itappears that marriage was part ofthe Mormon LDS Church to convert and baptize the Wind River strategy for converting the Shoshone. Ihe Book of Shoshone in 1880, was threatened by former Wind Mormon describes three migrations to America from River agent and Episcopalian James Patten."' Thar the Middle East. One of those groups was known as Patten harbored these feelings before the threat was the Lanianites or Rebellious Faction. The Lamanites, made can be seen in the tone and words ofWrights whose descendants arc American Indians, were dark- report or letter to President Taylor, where he states skinned and degenerate, but could be redeemed that entrance into the reservation demanded the through righteous living. Tlieir redemption would utmost secrecy. Traveling on horseback, Wright lighten their skin, turning them to a "white and avoided roads and white settlements, such as South delightsome people."'^ On June 24, 1856, celebrating Pass, Miners' Delight, and Lander, favoring instead the entry of the Mormons to the Great Salt Lake a route higher in the foothills of the Wind River Valley in 1847, the missionaries at Fort Bridger range. organized a procession. "Tliere was a company of Onceat Wind River, Wright continued to keep a Indians led by E.B. Ward with a banner 'We Shall low profile, staying with friendly Shoshone converts. Become AWhite Aiid Delightsome People' and on Because Wright's report to President John Taylor the banner was an Indian painted with a bow and is dated November 18, 1880, it is possible he was arrow.