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Show The Intruders, 1550-1882 41 And the Mormons were increasingly successful in their missionary efforts. However, since the basic interest of the Mormons conflicted with those of the Ute People â€" the Mormons wanted the land the People occupied â€" conflict was inevitable. The power and efficiency of the Mormon organization assured them of victory. In 1854 Garland Hurt was appointed to the Utah Indian Agency. Soon after his arrival in 1855, he established three Ute Indian farms â€" at Corn Creek in Millard County, at Twelve Mile Creek in Sanpete County, and on the banks of the Spanish Fork River in Utah County. (Also, a farm for the Goshutes was established at Deep Creek.) Hurt wanted to help the destitute conditions of the Indians and to control them. He planned to develop the farms into permanent reservations, established with the consent of the Indians given in treaty.22 (See Map p. 40) These federal farms were built upon a system of Indian farms which had been started in 1851 by Mormon church leaders. There were several such farms established throughout Utah. Mormons were "called" to be in charge, to provide food for the starving Indians, and to do missionary work among them.23 After some initial success, the federal Indian farm effort was interrupted by the Utah War. President Buchanan sent an army to Utah to take control from the Mormons. Agent Hurt fled the territory. The next agent Jacob Forney was dismissed for mismanagement. A year lapsed before another agent was appointed. Inadequate funds finally forced the closing of the farms. Everything was sold off at the Sanpete and Spanish Fork farms to keep the Indians from starving. Even though Pah Vants under their leader Kanosh attempted to continue to farm at Corn Creek, grasshoppers devasted their crops. The Indians were left to spend winters of hunger.24 In 1860 Brigham Young sent a survey party to the Uinta Basin to see if it could support a Mormon settlement. The party reported the country: "[was] entirely unsuitable for farming purposes, . . . [was] one vast contiguity of waste, and measurably valueless, excepting for nomadic purposes . . . hunting ground for Indians."25 The area was then suggested as a site for an Indian reservation. President Lincoln signed an order in 1861 so declaring it. The reservation boundaries were simply defined as the "entire valley of the Uinta River within Utah Territory."26 |