OCR Text |
Show 152 X. DINE BIKEYAH Many traders set up posts in and around Navajoland. These Navajos were going to the store at Bluff, Utah, to trade. Photograph courtesy of the Library of the State Historical Society of Colorado. One year after Mitchell came to the San Juan River, the first Mormon settlers arrived. In June 1879, they set up a base camp near the river, between Montezuma and McElmo creeks. Next April they founded Bluff. They had already begun to settle on Navajo lands far to the west, where they had founded Tuba City in 1875. The seasonal movement of the Navajo flocks upset the Mormons, whose farms and pastures lay across the routes between the Navajos' summer and winter grazing lands. Twice a year, Navajo flocks "trespassed" on Mormon land, and complaints flew to the Navajo agent. Competition for land between Mormon and non-Mormon settlers made matters even more difficult. The battle simmered on three fronts. Some non-Mormons claimed that the Mormons were selling guns to the Indians and even joining forces with them. Other settlers said that Mitchell was selling Navajos ammunition and urging them to graze their flocks north of the river. Army officers suspected that each group was trying to use the Navajos against the other. Constant cries of complaint came from Mitchell and from Bluff. Patrols by Colorado cavalry and raids from unfriendly Utes increased the tension. Both Mitchell and the Mormons wanted to restrict the Navajos to the river's south shore. The Navajos wanted to graze their herds in the country to the north, to which they had |