Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Year 1862

Excerpts concerning Utah from the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs - Courtesy of the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections. Secretary of the Interior Caleb Blood Smith describes conditions on reservations across the continental U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Dole submits his report regarding the Utah Superintendency (beginning on pg 32) in which he claims the relationship between the federal government and the Utah Superintendency is strained. The Commissioner claims the Utah Indians are "restless and rebellious" because of want and privation and because of Mormon interference with the affairs of the superintendency. Dole reports that a commission has been assembled to negotiate with the Shoshone Indians. Reports from the Utah Superintendency (beginning on pg 54) claim that few acts of violence have occurred and that those that did take place were the result of destitution among the Indians. The report describes farming conditions, the conditions of livestock, trips taken by officials in the superintendency, and incidences of trespassing on reservation land