Early Utah Pioneer and Church actions with Native Americans

[kimpearson]

My forefathers came across the plains from Nauvoo and we have innumerable books on their experiences.   Many of those experiences relate to native Americans and always painted a fairly peaceful scene.  In my studies of early Utah history I was aware of flare ups between some settlers and some native Americans but the books I read painted the flare ups as rare and the "policy of the Church" was to feed the native Americans rather than fight them.  Many histories painted negative stories as being similar to the Mt. Meadows massacre where local saints and their leaders were to blame with bad treatment.  Elder Scott gave a similar overview of generally peaceful treatment in his October 2020 conference talk on Church relations with native Americans in Utah.

My children have become very tuned into native American issues and have studied the history of native Americans.  They pointed me to some TikTok and Youtube videos that told stories that were at odds with my understanding of the general treatment of native Americans by early Church members and leaders.  This includes several massacres authorized by general authorities.  The cutting off of heads of native American men killed.  The capture of native American women and children who became "servants" in pioneer homes but all the facts point to something more akin to slavery.  I have spent some time researching on line and was surprised by the number of sites that confirmed this treatment.  I am attaching the link to one such website below but you can search on your own.  There seems to be slanted tellings of the story depending on the side and the website but they all agree on certain facts.

My question for discussion is how did I miss learning the details of these incidents until age 60.  Was this information available and taught to many of you years ago?  Or is this an instance of history that many wish was forgotten so it isn't talked about in Church culture?  Or have you found information that shows the stories are greatly exaggerated?  Please share your thoughts and information sources. 

 

https://www.blackhawkproductions.com/fortutah.htm

[LoudmouthMormon]

My LDS roots come from my maternal grandparents.  Immigrated from overseas to Zion, sent to settle Tooele.  We have a book of family history from those days, and it does relate a few stories about troubles with the Indians, I'll have to go find the book and refresh my memory.   

[Hamba Tuhan]

The social studies section of the Utah state core curriculum includes the following:

Quote

UT Standard 2.4:
Students will research multiple perspectives to explain one or more of the political, social, cultural, religious conflicts of this period, including the U.S. Civil War and more localized conflicts such as the Utah War, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the Bear River Massacre, the Black Hawk War, or other Federal-Mormon conflicts.

If you look at the references to the Wikipedia entry on the Black Hawk War, you can see that the dates for several of the secondary sources go back to the 1970s, and one even goes back to 1962.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[kimpearson]

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

The social studies section of the Utah state core curriculum includes the following:

If you look at the references to the Wikipedia entry on the Black Hawk War, you can see that the dates for several of the secondary sources go back to the 1970s, and one even goes back to 1962.

So part of the problem might be because I grew up in Idaho and it wasn't part of Idaho state history studies.  Good input.  To be truthful I graduated from high school in 1979 and I seem to remember state history being taught in junior high.

Edited November 29, 2021 by kimpearson

[webbles]

I know about it.  I grew up in Arizona so I'm not sure when I first learned about it.  I think I have a family in my ancestry that "adopted" a Native American child but in reality, the child was basically treated as a slave.

I've visited a few of the massacre sites and read about what happened.  I think, for the most part, the saints did treat the Native Americans well.  But there were definitely some incidents that were not good.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, kimpearson said:

So part of the problem might be because I grew up in Idaho and it wasn't part of Idaho state history studies.  Good input.  To be truthful I graduated from high school in 1979 and I seem to remember state history being taught in junior high.

Could be dependent on teacher as well. My CA high school history class was a deep dive into the 20’s and 30’s, big on Dillinger and his type, massive unit on the Depression, did the early settlement of California and the gold rush of course, then some UFW with Chavez and quite a bit of Civil Rights era.  Did decent treatment of current events. Guess my teacher minored in early 19th century American history for his teaching degree. It sucked on pretty much anything earlier especially treatment on Native Americans though my memory said we at least read excerpts from Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, but the teacher was fun, verrrry popular, and most of the kids quite happy to be taught potato chip history. Never had any homework I couldn’t get done in study time. Across the hall they had a teacher who had them memorizing the Constitution and Bill of Rights and examining the cultural development around each amendment. Couple of serious looking textbooks.  I was jealous even though I had never been interested in American history. I liked feeling I got something out of sitting in a classroom all day. 

Same school, very different treatments of US History.

Best American history teacher I ever had was a Canadian.  Wasn’t shy about the warts as well as the positive contributions, was better at showing  connections between events as well as impact. 
 

Picked up most of the Mormon conflict stuff from ancestors’ journals and my husband, who was pretty knowledgeable. And discussions online. 

Edited November 29, 2021 by Calm

[Hamba Tuhan]

Here is the Church's general summary from its website, which is a bit thin on the period under question.

The section in this official essay titled 'Latter-day Saints’ Relationship with American Indians' is quite good and has, from what I can tell, very solid references, including Sondra Jones, 'Saints or Sinners? The Evolving Perceptions of Mormon-Indian Relations in Utah Historiography', Utah Historical Quarterly, 72:1 (2004), which seems to speak quite clearly to the OP.

And here is a 2010 Pioneer Day talk titled 'The Rest of the Story: Latter-day Saint Relations with Utah’s Native Americans' from former Church historian, Elder Marlin K. Jensen.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[The Nehor]

Most of the Native American ‘slavery’ at the time were indentures. The bulk of them were acquired from native raiders who would sell children to the settlers. The raiders often threatened to and often did kill children in front of potential buyers to encourage the more ‘soft hearted’ Mormons to save them by buying them. Brigham Young and other leaders encouraged the trade on humanitarian grounds but the practice of rewarding it increased the evil itself. Some were abused but the law required release within 20 years.

Similar things had happened and was still happening further west in California and in Mexico as the confiscation of the Spanish Missions with wealthy oligarchs running the rancho system needed cheap labor and ‘indentured’ natives were a common source.

In general the Mormons did better and were kinder in regards to native relations than other groups but some Mormons took advantage of the system. Other well-meaning people did a lot of damage with less or no intent to do harm.

Edited November 29, 2021 by The Nehor

[CV75]

9 hours ago, kimpearson said:

My forefathers came across the plains from Nauvoo and we have innumerable books on their experiences.   Many of those experiences relate to native Americans and always painted a fairly peaceful scene.  In my studies of early Utah history I was aware of flare ups between some settlers and some native Americans but the books I read painted the flare ups as rare and the "policy of the Church" was to feed the native Americans rather than fight them.  Many histories painted negative stories as being similar to the Mt. Meadows massacre where local saints and their leaders were to blame with bad treatment.  Elder Scott gave a similar overview of generally peaceful treatment in his October 2020 conference talk on Church relations with native Americans in Utah.

My children have become very tuned into native American issues and have studied the history of native Americans.  They pointed me to some TikTok and Youtube videos that told stories that were at odds with my understanding of the general treatment of native Americans by early Church members and leaders.  This includes several massacres authorized by general authorities.  The cutting off of heads of native American men killed.  The capture of native American women and children who became "servants" in pioneer homes but all the facts point to something more akin to slavery.  I have spent some time researching on line and was surprised by the number of sites that confirmed this treatment.  I am attaching the link to one such website below but you can search on your own.  There seems to be slanted tellings of the story depending on the side and the website but they all agree on certain facts.

My question for discussion is how did I miss learning the details of these incidents until age 60.  Was this information available and taught to many of you years ago?  Or is this an instance of history that many wish was forgotten so it isn't talked about in Church culture?  Or have you found information that shows the stories are greatly exaggerated?  Please share your thoughts and information sources. 

 

https://www.blackhawkproductions.com/fortutah.htm

I think technology and funding have assisted historical research and publication/dissemination over the past 20-30 years or so, the Church included.

[rpn]

The only reasonable takeaway from the Mountain Meadows Massacre is that even if the policy and the doctrine supported loving and nurturing and helping Native Americans, members didn't always do right by all of God's children.   Because most of my knowledge about the treatment of Natives came from stories of Jacob Hamblin, it is not surprising that the peaceful stories were retold, and the the tragedies not.   The books about the Mountain Meadows Massacre have appeared only in the last 30 years.    And you'll remember that Native Americans were perceived from Joseph Smith's time as descendants of Lehi  and others the Lord sent to America.  

Edited November 29, 2021 by rpn

[bluebell]

The Saints Vol. II has a lot of chapters that include interaction between the saints and the native americans; some make the saints look good and some don't.  It's interspersed throughout the book though so it would be hard to give specifics on where to find it.  

[LoudmouthMormon]

12 hours ago, kimpearson said:

My question for discussion is how did I miss learning the details of these incidents until age 60.  Was this information available and taught to many of you years ago?  Or is this an instance of history that many wish was forgotten so it isn't talked about in Church culture?  Or have you found information that shows the stories are greatly exaggerated?  Please share your thoughts and information sources. 

I didn't find my family journal, but I found a copy of this:

Preface says the book "was prepared primarily for the purpose of supplying...a sweep of Utah history from the arrival of the first white men in this region in 1540 up to the year 1947."  Deseret news press.  It mentions working with the UofU history and polisci department chair, the Utah State Historical society, and the Utah State Department of Publicity and Industrial Development.  There's a note on terminology - the book breaks down people into "Saints" and "Gentiles".  

I've spent 5 minutes browsing the chapter headings and summaries, can't find a single mention of the Indians.  46 chapters, with names like "Methods of Land Settlement", "Establishing Colonies", "There arose a people who 'Knew not Joseph'", and "The Utah War", but not a single mention of the Indians in any of the chapter headings/summaries.   As I shuffle through the pages, it appears the Indians are mentioned as occasional background characters, who help or hamper "the settlement of Utah by God-fearing, law-abiding, and peace-loving frontiersmen". (Another quote from the preface.)

My Grandpa left me quite a number of books like this - I'll take another dive later, I think I remember a book or two about the Lamanites.

 

 

 

[Peacefully]

This is quite interesting to me. Being a convert and living in Texas all my life, I’ve never heard stories about the Mormon interaction with Native Americans. I took a lot of history courses since my minor was History, but this is all new info. My guess is that the early Mormons may have been for the most part kinder to Native Americans, but they still felt superior to them and probably infantilized them, I mean they were people of their day, and not particularly progressive in many ways I’m sure. But that is a guess so I’m interested to hear more. 

Edited November 29, 2021 by Peacefully

[ksfisher]

8 minutes ago, Peacefully said:

they were people of their day

With a minor in history I'm sure you recognize that we are all "people of our day." 

9 minutes ago, Peacefully said:

and not particularly progressive in many ways I’m sure

Are you meaning from a modern point of view or from their own?  I'd imagine their were some members of the church who were very progressive for the time, and others who were very conservative.  The mixture was probably constantly changing at new immigrants from different parts of the United States and Europe arrived.

It would be very interesting to know if European converts had the same of differing relations with Native Americans than members of the church born in the United States. 

[Tacenda]

I don't understand how the whites thought they were superior to the Native Americans. https://digitalgallery.bgsu.edu/student/exhibits/show/race-in-us/native-americans

Just watch Dancing With Wolves, and the feeling you get when you witness how much the Natives are more in tune with the spirit and the land. I'd switch races, when surrounded by the racism of the white people. 

It makes me sick to think about it. 

And Joseph Smith thinking that whites intermarrying with the Native Americans was part of God's plan and they needed to be white and delightsome is quite despicable, or he was so wrong in his thinking if he's innocent on that. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_and_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints

[ksfisher]

38 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I don't understand how the whites thought they were superior to the Native Americans.

Racism/nationalism/tribalism has been around forever.  It's hard to find a ground that doesn't think that in some way it is better than another group.  It exists in more species than humans. 

38 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Just watch Dancing With Wolves, and the feeling you get when you witness how much the Natives are more in tune with the spirit and the land.

Dancing with Wolves was a Hollywood movie.  In trying to understand relations between whites and Native Americans hopefully you'll look a little deeper.

Edited November 29, 2021 by ksfisher

[Calm]

13 hours ago, Tacenda said:

don't understand how the whites thought they were superior to the Native

Because it is typical of any group in power to believe they are superior to other groups.  If they didn’t live intimately with the other, it can be hard to see the ways the others do things better. The whites saw them as uneducated which they were concerning the knowledge of white culture, poor which they were by the standards of whites, unclean (I don’t know Native American hygiene practices of the time and how they compared to white settlers) with putting grease and such in their hair and wearing uncouth animal skins, etc., but most likely this was a good use of resources for other purposes than looking good for Europeans.

From what I have read the NAs generally saw themselves as superior to the whites and often tribes saw themselves superior to other tribes.  It was and is not only whites going around thinking others are barbarians.

Are there no groups or no one you feel like you are better at life than they are?  Do you feel pity when you see homeless people squatting in a park and think how their choices led them to that life perhaps?  Do you see someone who can read as better off than someone who can’t?  When you put a high value on something such as a home or education, those who don’t can be  easily assumed as unfortunate and that can easily turn to seeing them as inferior. 
 

Europeans were called barbarians by Chinese for various reasons in the past  

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarian

Edited November 30, 2021 by Calm

[Peacefully]

2 hours ago, ksfisher said:

With a minor in history I'm sure you recognize that we are all "people of our day." 

Are you meaning from a modern point of view or from their own?  I'd imagine their were some members of the church who were very progressive for the time, and others who were very conservative.  The mixture was probably constantly changing at new immigrants from different parts of the United States and Europe arrived.

It would be very interesting to know if European converts had the same of differing relations with Native Americans than members of the church born in the United States. 

1. Yes

2. Both

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, ksfisher said:

Racism/nationalism/tribalism has been around forever.  It's hard to find a ground that doesn't think that in some way it is better than another group.  It exists in more species than humans. 

Dancing with Wolves was a Hollywood movie.  In trying to understand relations between whites and Native Americans hopefully you'll look a little deeper.

Yes I have, especially in the last few years. But while watching the movie, I felt those feelings, and I believe they are justified. 

[ksfisher]

15 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

But while watching the movie, I felt those feelings, and I believe they are justified. 

Or because it was a very moving movie.  The Native Americans were portrayed as peaceful victims and the whites as warmongering, stupid, aggressors.  That's what the movie makers wanted you to feel.  Not saying that anything anyone did was justified, but history, like the people who make it, is usually much more complex.

[Tacenda]

2 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Or because it was a very moving movie.  The Native Americans were portrayed as peaceful victims and the whites as warmongering, stupid, aggressors.  That's what the movie makers wanted you to feel.  Not saying that anything anyone did was justified, but history, like the people who make it, is usually much more complex.

No, you're not going to convince me that my emotions come only from Hollywood, I've read Native American's stories of life after the white man ripped their lands and families from them. 

[bluebell]

11 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Yes I have, especially in the last few years. But while watching the movie, I felt those feelings, and I believe they are justified. 

Every culture has it's good and bad things, and any show that only shows the good in a culture (especially if it's trying to make a contrasting culture look bad) is not a great movie to use to gain cultural knowledge from.

When Lewis and Clark stayed with the Mandans in what is now North Dakota, a common belief in that group was the women who slept with powerful men and then slept with their husbands could transfer that power to the men.  So, some native american men would send their wives out to sleep with white men so they (the men) could become more powerful.  The tribes portrayed in Dancing with Wolves had their own bad cultural traditions or beliefs as well.  That's how it goes.

I think there is always room to look to other cultures for better practices and ways of being in the world, but we have to be careful not to romanticize those cultures, including Native Americans, especially because that can make it easier for benevolent racism to sneak in.

 

[ksfisher]

2 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

No, you're not going to convince me that my emotions come only from Hollywood, I've read Native American's stories of life after the white man ripped their lands and families from them. 

Not saying bad things didn't happen.  Just saying don't look to Hollywood for history.

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

No, you're not going to convince me that my emotions come only from Hollywood, I've read Native American's stories of life after the white man ripped their lands and families from them. 

White people were horrific to Native Americans.  As someone said, what happened to them was inevitable; the way it happened was unconscionable.  But I think what ksfisher is trying to say is that we always have to acknowledge the perspective and biases of the information we are taking in.

Native American tribes warred with each other, taking each other's lands and people as slaves along the way, breaking up families, killing women and children.  Torturing captives sometimes.  That is not something that only white people did, it's just there were so many more white people with better technology and beliefs stemmed in racism, that made the results so much worse and long lasting than the results of warring among different tribes before white people showed up.

But lands and territories were raided and taken by force in the americas, way before europeans got involved.

 

[Vanguard]

I'm reminded of this clip. Though no less a creation of our Hollywood 'media machine', it reminds me that things are not as 'black and white' as others would suggest. It goes without saying (or maybe we should be reminded continually?) the 'white man' behaved despicably regards to the NAs though it cannot be overlooked that many NA tribes treated fellow NAs just as despicably.