"Horrible Massacre of Emigrants!!" The Mountain Meadows Massacre in Public Discourse

 
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Engineer Department, U.S. ARMY.

PRELIMINARY REPORT UPON A RECONNAISSANCE THROUGH SOUTHERN AND SOUTHEASTERN NEVADA, MADE IN 1869, BY FIRST LIEUT. GEO. M. WHEELER, CORPS OF ENGINEERS, U.S. ARMY, ASSISTED BY FIRST LIEUT. D. W. LOCKWOOD, CORPS OF ENGINEERS, U.S. ARMY, UNDER THE ORDERS OF BRIG. GEN.E.O.C.ORD, BVT. MAJ. U.S. ARMY, COMMANDING DEPARTMENT OF CALIFORNIA. WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1875. 

 
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INDIANS.

All the Indians through Southern Nevada may be termed "Mountain Indians," in contradistinction to those that inhabit the valleys or plains, or live along the ocean-shore. The habits, dispositions, and mental characteristics of all the Indains that I have encountered on the Pacific Slope seem to be governed largely by the topography of the country and the principal articles used as food, the latter undoubtedly having the greater effect.

The mountain Indians are more hardy, intelligent, shrewd, and cunning, generally going into the valleys to plant and harvest, returning to their mountain retreats after gathering their slender crops. They make up the deficit in food from nuts and acorns, rarely eating roots. The well-known Digger Indians of the California valleys formerly subsisted in the main upon roots and plants, and to them pine-nuts and acorns were a great luxury. They were and are a filthy, sluggish-minded, disgusting race. Certain other shore Indians, closely allied in general worthlessness of character to the diggers, subsist upon fish and any refuse or offal found along the shore, together with seasweed and various sea-roots and plants. They inhabit the northern coasts of California and Oregon.

The mountain Indians of Nevada and Idaho, as a general rule have been endowed by nature with more of the civilized instincts than those found below the Colorado River; and, in fact, it is not unlikely that a provisional latitudinal distinction, modified by the form and extent of the drainage basins, may be made general in its application to all tribes west of the Rocky Mountains.

With the development and population of countries like Arizona, the Indian will become impressed with the fact that warlike aggression or resistance will be futile; and the submissive Apache of a few years hence will be found to differ but little from the tame Ute and Pah-ute of today.

Our guide and interpreter, Henry Butterfield, a thorough master of the Shoshone and Gosinte tongues, succeeded in gaining a pretty accurate census of the "wickeups" at which the Indians were found at home. His estimate of those enumerated was very nearly two thousand five hunderd; and it is not unsafe to suppose that at least this number are permanent inhabitants of the area surveyed.

 
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UTES OR PIEDES

The Utes, Utahs, or Piedes, as they have sometimes been called, are roving, treacherous Indian. They are found from Pahranagat Valley to the mouth of the Virgin River as the most westerly ine of their country, extending to the north and east along the different lines of Mormon settlements as high up as 38 degrees north latitude, thence stretching out to the east ward as far as the Grand River, and bounded on the south and east by the Colorado proper.

Their number, all told, is variously estimated from three to five thousand; some six or seven hundred were found along our route.

 
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An old fellow by the name of Toshob was chief of these bands on the Muddy; a wily, treacherous, cold-blooded old scamp, who was well known to have been the leader of the Indians that were engaged in the "Mountain Meadow Massacre," that horrible murder of helpless emigrants, both male and female, old and young. the details of this dreadful occurence were gleaned here and there, and, when fully known, for all coming history will stand out as one of the most disgusting pictures of human baseness.

The Utes or Piedes cultivate the soil, are at war with no particular tribe, and excepting the fact that they are great thieves, and treacherous to a heightened degree, even for an Indian, do not differ greatly from others of these mountain tribes. They have no hesitation to rob, plunder, and murder, provided they are not found out, while their sagacity teaches them the advantages to be gained from the reputation of "good Indians." They have a most wonderful antipathy against Germans, whom they can tell at a glance, and no one of this nationality can get past their habitations without a good chance of losing everything he has in the way of personal effects. I know of no manner in which to explain the above except that this tribe has been for long years at enmity with the Navajoes, who have been in the habit of crossing the Colorado and making inroads upon the Utes and Piedes, taking their stock, squaws, or anything else, and then beating a hasty retreat. It is a train, killing all the men and taking the women to their villages, and thereby created a changed race of bad blood, they say; and possibly in their own minds they think that all their troubles with the Navajoes have arisen in consequence. These Utes or Piedes had killed two men in a canon leading into one that we traversed from Meadow Valley to the Muddy settlements. These were travelers with good horses. The indians who were supposed to have been concerned had left their wicke-ups and fled.

 
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SAINT THOMAS,

is situated at the confluence of the Muddy with the Virgin; rather a fine-looking place, well laid out, with shade-trees along the streets. Its inhabitants number as high as three hundred or four hundred altogether, but of the same moving character as the two settlements above named. The bishop at this place, and another person, ex-member of the Arizona legislature, received us with pleasant courtesy. Near this place an Indian chief named Toshob was his wick-e-ups. He is known to have been engaged with some of his Indians in the Mountain Meadow massacre, while the leader of the same was reported to be in a small place called Harmony, some seventy-five miles to the northeast, in a state bordering on insanity from remorse for his actions at that time. No one can judge of the revolting character of that affair who has not been near the ground to learn of the details of the cold-blooded murder of men, women, and children.

Thus it will appear that the late reconnaissance has developed the fact that there are seven Mormon settlements, numbering very nearly two thousand inhabitants, that heretofore have been supposed, certainly or uncertainly, to be in Utah, that lie beyond a doubt within the domain of Nevada. So far they have paid taxes in, and conformed to the laws of, Utah. Some action should now be taken clearly defining their status and place the jurisdiction of both the State and Territory upon proper ground.

That part of Arizona to the north and west of the Colorado River that was ceded by act of Congress of 1866 to Nevada, has never been legally accepted by the State, since their constitution prohibits the accession of territory in this direction, thereby rendering the action of the State officials invalid and liable to be protested in case of attempting to execute their statutes.

The Mormons are prospecting for further lands contiguous to their outer settlements, to be used as asylums for their constantly thickening population, and it is but a short time ago that a call was made for one thousand families to go into Northern Arizona.