During these years whose happenings we have been recording, there has been a community existing in the centre of our region that we have barely noticed. Their history, at any period, is a subject which a conscientious writer approaches unwillingly, for it involves a certain consideration of the merits of Mormonism and the Mormons, and that means wholesale denunciation, almost always of the Mormons, and very frequently of their enemies. Sweeping accusations must be made, and these, he knows, weaken alike the testimony of a witness, the plea of an orator, and the statement of an author. It is repugnant to man to believe that the majority of mankind are evil, and it is contrary to ordinary experience that any large class or sect of men should be radically bad. Besides this, all candid men will admit that the Mormons have at times been treated badly; that the killing of Joseph Smith, their prophet, was one of the most disgraceful murders ever known in this country; and that they were driven from their homes in Missouri and Illinois under circumstances of cruel severity. But candid men must also admit that past suffering is no excuse for continuing crime, and, leaving out of consideration all of their offenses that preceded or followed it, it has not fallen, nor shall fall, to the lot of any man to record a more atrocious crime than that of the Mountain Meadows. For this crime all Mormondom has voluntarily shown itself responsible, offering no excuse but fanaticism and revenge; and, worse than nothing as these excuses are, the moral obliquity of the deed is, if possible, increased by the desire of plunder, which was also an actuating motive.
To themselves, the Mormons are, of course, justified in any act that is approved by their priesthood. They are the chosen people whose inheritance is the earth, and in spoiling the Gentiles they are simply taking their own. They are the appointed agents of a vengeful God, and can do nothing but their duty in obeying his mandates, as pronounced by his holy prophets. They are under a “higher law” and the direct control of an inspired guide. They carry the higher law theory farther than even the extreme Jesuits, and in this dogma center all the objectionable features of their religion. When any sect receives a dispensation which permits its members to transgress the laws of man, and the commonly recognized laws of God, “for righteousness” sake “- whenever it publicly confesses that it owns no obligation of truthfulness, or honesty, or humanity, to outsiders – it has put itself outside the pale of our civilization, and can no longer justly complain of the lawlessness of any person. More than that, none of its members can consistently ask to be believed in any statement, except its truth be otherwise established, and this is the only safe rule of procedure with the testimony of Mormons or persons who have ever been Mormons. It will be made manifest, in the course of this chapter that Mormon declarations and oaths are worth less than the breath in which they are uttered, or the paper on which they are written. It does not follow that everything said against them is to be believed, nor that they cannot tell the truth when it is to their interest to do so; but it is evident that their statements must be received with the utmost caution. Put it in what language you may, no really harsher criticism of their veracity can be made than their own claims of obedience to a “higher law.”
When the Mormons left Nauvoo it was not certain where they were going. They profess to have moved under divine guidance, which all may believe who choose. The common understanding was that they were going to California, and a statement to that effect was commonly made in newspapers at the time. It is known also that Governor Ford, of Illinois, gave Brigham Young a copy of Fremont’s report of his second and third expeditious, and recommended him to go to some of the larger valleys of the Wahsatch. However that may have been, a party of explorers went out in 1847 and selected a place and a path for the mass of the people, who did not seem ready to trust divine guidance without an exploring expedition ahead. The Great Basin, in which they settled, was not wholly a desert, as they have claimed and as has been too commonly believed. Colonel Fremont had examined it carefully several years before the Mormons came, and he said of it: “Partly arid and sparsely inhabited, the general character of the Great Basin is that of a desert, but with great exceptions, there being many parts of it very fit for the residence of a civilized people; and, of these parts, the Mormons have lately established themselves in one of the largest and best. Mountain is the predominating structure of the interior of the basin, with plains between – the mountains wooded and watered the plains arid and sterile. . . . These mountains had very uniformly this belt of alluvion, the wash and abrasion of their sides, rich in excellent grass, fertile and light, and loose enough to absorb small streams.” Much of the land then considered sterile has since been made fruitful by irrigation, but it is erroneous to suppose that cultivation and improvement have been more rapid in Utah than in other equally sterile parts of the West. The contrary is the case.
The Indians who inhabited this country were diverse in character, although originally of the same stock and speaking dialects of the same language – the Shoshonee or Snake Indians. They have three principal divisions, the Snakes proper, the Bannocks, and the Utes, but these relate only to race. In tribal government they were separated into more than a hundred small bands, each entirely independent. The country was divided among them in small districts, the boundaries being fixed by natural monuments. Only the principal divisions can be noticed here. The Eastern Snakes ranged from the South Pass to Bear River and Wind River; they numbered one hundred and twenty-five lodges, and subsisted largely on buffalo meat, for which reason they are called Kool-sa-ti-ka-ra, or Buffalo Eaters. They have been very reliable in their friendship to Americans, their chief, Wash-i-kee (Gambler’s Gourd), otherwise known as Pina-qua-na (Smell of Sugar), having attained a wide notoriety on this account. He was a half breed, tall, well formed, superior to his people, and exercising strong control over them. The Took-a-ri-ka, or Mountain Sheep Eaters, ranged high up on the mountains, usually, and had little to do with the whites. They were an extraordinary people, building their rude houses above timber line on the mountain heights, and seeming doomed to so cheerless a life that the Canadian trappers gave them the name “les dignes de pitie,” or, the objects of pity. On the Salmon River was a milted band, largely of their people, which numbered fifty lodges. Its principal chief was Qui-tan-i-wa (Foul Hand) and his sub-chiefs were “Old Snag,” an Eastern Snake, and Grand Coquin, a Bannock. Their friendship was always questionable. The Western Snakes were in two main bands, one under Am-a-ro-ko (Buffalo Meat under the Shoulder), ranging on Camas Prairie, and the oilier under Po-ca-ta-ra (White Plume), ranging in the Goose Creek Mountains and on the Humboldt. They numbered about one hundred and fifty lodges, and wore on good terms with the Mormons, but not with, other whites. They are commonly called Sho-sho-kos, or “White Knives,” from the white flint knives they formerly used. A large band of the Bannocks ranging west of the Blue Mountains were known as the War-ra-ri-kas, or “Sunflower Seed Eaters. They numbered one hundred and fifty lodges, were commanded by Pa-chi-co (Sweet Root), a mighty medicine man, and were hostile when favorable opportunities occurred. In the neighborhood of Fort Boise were one hundred lodges of Bannocks, under Po-e-ma-chee-ah (Hairy Man), who were the most friendly of their race towards the Americans. Ranging about Salt Lake, especially on Bear River, was a band led by “Long Beard” and Pag-e-ah (The Man who Carries the Arrows), numbering about fifty lodges, and known variously as Ho-kan-di-ka, the Salt Lake Diggers, Southern Snakes, Mormon Snakes, or Cache Valley Indians. They were the worst of all these Indians, so far as Americans generally were concerned, but were hand-in-glove with the Mormons. Commonly associating with these were the Mo-pe-as, so called after their chief Mo-pe-ah (Bunch-of-Hair-in-the-Forehead), who boasted himself a friend of the Mormons. They numbered sixty lodges. The Utes were much the largest division, and held the country to the south of the other two, occupying practically all of Nevada, Utah, and the mountainous part of Colorado, with a considerable portion of Northern New Mexico. The eastern bands, the Tabequaches, Mohuaches, Grand Rivers, Capotes, Uintas, and others occupying the country east of the Wahsatch Mountains, were the best warriors among them; they were less influenced by the Mormons, and most friendly to Americans. The Pah-Utes, or Water-Utes, of the Sierra Nevada, and the western part of Nevada, commonly called the Monos and the Washoes, were also good warriors. Of intermediate grade were the Gosi-Utes (Goships, Goshoots) of Eastern Nevada, the Sanpitches (Sinpichi, or, as now corrupted in Utah, San Petes), Timpanagos, and others of Eastern Utah. The lowest as warriors were the Pah-Utes, or Pih-Utes of Southern Utah and the desert portions generally, several bands of miserable beings, who were getting into a more wretched state each generation, through starvation and their defenseless condition. They were decreasing in numbers, in stature, and in physical strength, and were constantly preyed upon by their neighbors. Their food consisted of snakes, lizards, roots” berries, grass seed, worms, crickets, grasshoppers, and, in short, anything that could be chewed, swallowed, and partly digested.
The Mormons had but little trouble with Indians, for they approached them as brothers and equals, without any desire to force civilization upon them. The Negroes, the descendants of accursed Ham, were originally barred from the Mormon heaven, though latterly a revelation has been made which lets them in, but the Indians were always brothers. They are “Lamanites,” the “remnant” of the lost tribes of Israel, lineal descendants of Abraham, sprays from the “fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall,” who are to be reclaimed by Mormon righteousness, and in due time to become “a fair and delight-some people.” The Mormons brought to the Indians a religion and customs differing in but one essential respect from what they already had, and that was obedience to the Mormon prophet. This duty was largely brought by presents (usually purchased with United States funds) and protection, and was further induced by missionary work and intermarriage. Their protection of the Indians who adhered to them was sufficient to prevent any punishment for their crimes. The case of the murders of Lieutenant Gunnison will illustrate this. Gunnison had wintered at Salt Lake in company with the remainder of Captain Stansbury’s party, and all had been treated kindly by the Mormons. Gunnison repaid their kindness by serving as a volunteer in their Indian war during the winter, and by eulogizing them in his reports. But in 1853 he was on a mission which the Mormons did not wish accomplished, that of selecting a route for a Pacific railroad by way of Salt Lake, and he, with seven of his party, were killed by the Indians near Sevier Lake. In 1854 Colonel Steptoe reached Salt Lake with a body of soldiers, captu