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Show 72 Nuwuvi: A Southern Paiute History missionaries were the first sustained contact most of the Nuwuvi had with the new settlers. Up until this time, the Nuwuvi had occupied almost all of the fertile valleys and oases in southwestern Utah and southern Nevada. The settlement which was to occur over the next several years would result in the present situation-almost every town in that country sits on land which was formerly a Nuwuvi campsite. This settlement occurred so rapidly that the Nuwuvi were overwhelmed before they had any opportunity to resist. The band leaders, men such as Kan-arra, Toquer, and Tutsegavit, at first were willing to accept the trade, instruction, and buffer which the Mormons provided. Most were baptized, and to many of their band members they appeared to have changed their allegiance. Tutsegavit was at one time headman over the Santa Clara band called "Tonoquints" and powerful enough to have been thought by the whites to be the head chief over the Nuwuvi. Whatever his true status was, he lost it in 1858 when he was forced to leave the band. He journeyed to Arizona to preach Mor-monism to the Apaches.9 Only a little over a year before, Tutsegavit had said in reaction to increased Mormon pressure: "We cannot be good, must be Paiutes. We want you to be kind to us. It may be that some of our children will be good, but we want to follow our old customs." 10 The Nuwuvi had established stable communities, each occupied by a band and surrounded by small farms. It is a common error to think of all the Nuwuvi as desert nomads who wandered from spring to spring seeking sustenance wherever they might find it. This was true only of a remote few. Most had definite places to which they moved to hunt and to gather wild vegetables. Most had permanent campsites at or near these places where they lived when they were not living at their farms.11 Even the bands of western Nevada who did not all have farming communities had a regular series of campsites located near springs or mountain hunting grounds which they visited in succession each year. Those Nuwuvi who farmed did so successfully. Two letters to the Deseret News reflect how the Mormons were impressed with their efforts. On August 7, 1852, J. C. L. Smith and John Steele wrote of visiting the area where La Verkin and Ash Creeks join the Virgin and where a number of Nuwuvi were raising corn, squash, beans, |