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Show 33 Difficulties which we shall see long continued to complicate the Indian problem in Utah were mentioned by John Wilson in August 1849, in hin first report sent from the new Salt Lake agency. He stated that the Mormon settlement in the Salt Lake Valley had not only greatly diminished the oupply of fish, but, together with the emigration to California had already driven away nearly all the game BO necessary to the Indians. " It is imperative that the government put in practice some mode of relief for these unfortunate people..." he pleaded; some of whom were already engaged in cultivation of the soil. Portions of the Utah bands were reported at variance with the Shoshones, and portions of them had always been at war witf1 the Mexicans, constantly making inroads into New Mexico and California to steal horses. " Here," he wrote, " the principal agency ought to be established and also the leading military post of these mountains ... If proper agents are kept among the Shoshones and a fair support provided for them, 1 they will be easily managed." This is only the beginning of often repeated testimony to the amenable charaoter of the Utah Indians. 1 Senate Executive Documents, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., Vol. 11, Doc 1, p. 1003 ( 550). |
