Utah Westerners

February Announcement for the Utah Westerners

March 5, 2014 at 2:15 pm kenttschanz Leave a comment

A CLASH OF CULTURES

SEVIER AND PIUTE COUNTY NATIVE AMERICANS AND  THEIR RELATIONS WITH EURO-AMERICANS BETWEEN 1810 AND 1874

EDWARD LEO LYMAN

The so-called Old Spanish Trail from New Mexico to southern California (1829-1848) was first a slave capturing trail into central Utah utilized by Ute Indians and New Mexico traders to carry Southern Paiute women and children to its southeastern terminus as slaves. When the first Anglo-American explorer in the Sevier Valley, Jedediah Smith, arrived in 1826, he noted a line of Paiute smoke signals warning of his approach extending from later Salina through Clear Creek Canyon and on toward later Beaver, demonstrating great apprehension regarding  strangers. By the time fellow mountain man, Elijah Barney Ward, settled near Salina in 1848 and Mormon explorers commenced reconnoitering that region, there were no Paiutes noted residing anywhere nearby.

The formerly besieged Native Americans had clearly relocated to safer areas. Almost twenty years later, during the Black Hawk War between the Latter-day Saint militiamen, mainly of Sanpete and Sevier Counties and the Northern Utes of central Utah, the Southern Paiutes of the same region remained neutral, certainly distrusting their former oppressors in the slave trade far too much to assist them. However, the Mormons did not differentiate between hostile and neutral Native Americans and on two tragic occasions, a large number of Paiutes were mistakenly killed. Possibly up to fifty people died in two massacres, which constituted nearly two thirds of the total lives lost in the war on all sides. Thus the horrible fact was that neutral persons suffered much more than the belligerents and their families.

Most of the fighting in this largest of all Utah Indian wars ended in 1868-69, except for a few Utes residing between Fish Lake and Red Lake (later Wayne County). In 1872, they informed Latter-day Saints they were willing to also talk peace. Thereafter up to 150 Ute and Paiutes cooperated with Mormon interpreter-agents in establishing individual farms in Grass Valley in Sevier County, founding an Indian reservation without any input or assistance from the federal government.

Edward Leo Lyman, a native of Delta, Utah, received degrees in U. S. History from BYU the University of Utah. While studying for a PhD. in U. S. History at UC Riverside, he also taught and coached in high school locally. For some twenty years he spent most vacations at the LDS Church Historical Department, partly being mentored by Leonard J. Arrington. During and after completing his doctorate, he commenced writing western American and LDS history, which he has continued for over forty years, producing many articles and books. He recently won awards for a biography of his great-great grandfather, Amasa Mason Lyman: Mormon Apostle and Apostate, A Study in Dedication; an edited work, Candid Insights of a Mormon Apostle: The Diaries of Abraham H. Cannon, 1889-1895; and a journal article, “Chief Kanosh: Champion of Peace and Forbearance.” He is presently awaiting publication of his history of Utah’s seven attempts at statehood, 1848-1896, and is currently writing a history of the Southern Paiute tribe of Native Americans. He and his wife, Brenda, reside in Silver Reef, Utah. Lyman is presently an adjunct history professor at Dixie State University.

Entry filed under: Uncategorized.