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Show The Intruders, 1550-1882 37 At this time there was developing a new federal Indian policy â€" the reservation system. Previously, there had been efforts to remove all Indians and concentrate them in an Indian country separate from the lands inhabited by non-Indian citizens. However, this "permanent Indian frontier" was continually overrun by the relentless westward march of the Euro-Americans. About 1850 a new system for handling the "Indian Problem" was developed which would place the Indians on islands ofland, reservations, usually within the larger areas they occupied. Lands surrounding these reservations could then be controlled by private landholders or the United States. The relationships of the Ute People, the American intruders, and their government developed as part of this system. Settlers in Utah Before 1847 most emigrants who went west hurried through the lands of the Ute People and went on to the West Coast. In that year, however, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, inspired by John C. Fremont's reports of the area, came to stay. What had been a homeland to the Ute People became the home of the "Saints." The Mormons had a particular interest in Indians. The Book of Mormon taught that they were descended from the tribes of Israel. Soon after the church was founded in 1830, missionaries were sent to preach to the Indians. The Mormons had a policy of converting the Indians and encouraging them to become farmers. However, after the Mormons settled in Utah, they wanted what all other intruders wanted â€" land and resources. If the Indians were in the way, they were pushed aside. The very first winter the Mormons spent in the Salt Lake Valley foretold the destructive effect they would have on the Ute People. Measles carried by the Mormons spread quickly among the Indians who visited them. The Indians had no immunity to the disease. Although they tried to deal with it by bathing in the warm springs located in north Salt Lake City, large numbers of them died. The Mormons buried thirty-six in one grave alone.14 The Mormons first settled on the borderlands of the Ute People. It was a grasslands area near the Great Salt Lake. Several |
