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Show UTAH SUPERINTENDENCY. 369 I have already explained to the department my motives for opening farms in Deep Creek and Ruby valleys, and think it unnecessary to reiterate them. I returned, two weeks ago, from a visit to these farms and the Indians in that region. I met man? small bands on my way to and from those valleys, and some at the farms. The farms are well located, on a rich soil, and some of the Indians have worked well, and many more manifest a desire to do so as soon as they can be fed. To work and hare to hunt food elsewhere is imprac-ticable. We could not furnish food to all those who ahowedanauxiety to work. This difficulty, I trust, will be obviated next year. There were about twenty-five acres of heat on each farm, and it appeared more promising than any I hare seen elsewhere in this Terri-tory. There was a good prospect also for potatoes, beets, onions, turnips, melons, &c. This is the first effort to introduce agricultural labor among the Sho-sho-nes, and the result is satisfactory; showing evidently that these Indians only want an opportunity to work. I have heretofore, in letters to the department, and alsoin this report, adverted to the distressed condition of the Indians in this Territory gen-erally, attributable to their having been dispossessed by the whites of the land which produced for them the elements of life, and as yet they have received no remuneration for any of their lands. What, under the circumstances, is to be done? The Indians must have assistance from some source, or steal, or starve. The extension of the farming system is, in my opinion, the proper remedy. The five hrms already alluded to have afforded much material aid to many Indians. Three additional general reservations, jpdiciously located and properly managed, with congressional intervent~on to au-thorize the absolute concentration of the Indians on the contemplated reservations, would obviate the difficulty. This does not include the Indians in the Carson agency. A liberal appro riation for one year, say $150,000, would enable me to provide farms ?or all the Indians in the Territory not already pro-vided for, and to defray all the other necessary expenses of this super-intendency. MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE. A company of emigrants from Arkansas, emigrating to California, arrived and camped at a spring in the west end of Mountain Meadow valley, on the 3d or 4th September, 1857.. On the 9th of said month, and near the said spring, one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and twenty were inhumanly massacred. The lives of seventeen children were spared, who were from two months to seven years old. This massacre was brought to my official notice by aletter from the Honor-able C. E. Mix, received June, 1858, instructing me to make inquiry, and recover, if possible, certain children, who, it was supposed, were saved from the massacre and were supposed to be living with Mor-mons and Indians. Sixteen of the surviving children were collected in July, 1858, and were placed in a respectable family in Santa Clara, 350 miles south of this city, and were provided for by my directions. 24 I |
