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Show by the Mormons. By 1865 a new leader had risen among the attackers, and the . / war which ensued is named for him- Black Hawk. The Black Hawk War was the largest military engagement ever fought on Utah soil. During the initial stages of the war, a major peace negotiation was held between the Government of the United States, the Ute Indians, and the Mormon leader, Brigham Young. A delegation of other leading Mormons accompanied ex- Governor Brigham Young to the parley. An energetic U. S. Agent for Utah named O. H. Irish negotiated on behalf of the Federal Government. Every major Utah Ute Indian Leader was at the negotiation held at Spanish Fork in June 1865. The treaty provided that the Utes give up all lands in Utah Territory except the Uintah Valley, move into it within one year, and be paid $ 900,000 over the next 60 years. The Indians were to be allowed to take fish at their accustomed places and to gather roots and berries on unclaimed lands. Other sections provided for schools, supplies, and " allotments." Chief Soweett explained that the Utes "... did not want to sell their land and go away; they wanted to live around the graves of their fathers."- However, advised by Brigham Young, all the chiefs and head men. except Sanpkc& signed the treaty. 15 Because the Mormons were the major opponents of the Indian people, Irish had assumed that their presence at the meeting was indispensable. While Irish's logic may have been flawless, the reaction in Congress when the treaty reached the Senate was not- the Senate gave the document short shrift. Since the Utah War, the Mountain Meadow Massacre, and the non- participation of the Mormons in the Civil War, the senators were ill- disposed to do anything that favored Mormon interests. The Utes fully supposed that the treaty was a completed negotiation and that the Government of the United States had agreed to give them gifts, homes, cattle, schools, and other items to get them to remove to the Uintah Valley. When the promised goods did not appear, the tempo of the Black Hawk War intensified. During 1866, 1867, and 1868, the war dragged on at an immense cost to the white communities of central Utah. Both sides understood clearly that it was a war to expel the Utes from land for which they had not been compensated. It is not the purpose of this essay to dwell upon the costs of that war, or to measure the blood and treasure expended by each side. Approximately 50 Mormons and more than 300 Indians died in the conflict. An additional number of Indians lost their lives through starvation. Infant mortality was very high, and the suffering the Utes endured during those times is still a subject of their oral traditions. 16 Black Hawk, who led the forces, was able to gather recruits from neighboring bands of Utes in Colorado and eastern Utah and even from the Navajos, who were the traditional enemies of the Utes. Starvation, the lack of supplies, the attrition of an extended conflict when visited by the armed might, and the organization of the Mormons spelled defeat for Black Hawk's |