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Show The Uneasy Peace 73 wheat and potatoes. All of which looked good. "They had in cultivation some four or five acres; their wheat had got ripe and was cut. I looked around to see their tools, but could not see the first tool, only their hands, to dig their ditches, make dams, or anything else." 12 William Adams wrote on December 11: I will say this much concerning the Indians - only for their labor, there would have been hundreds of bushels of produce lost, that could not have been saved by the white population. I consider myself a common hand, to work, but I must give up to some of the Piedes for quickness, and the Pahvantes [Indians] work considerable, but not so willingly as the Piedes or Pahutes." 13 Despite this admiration, however, the whites rarely hesitated to settle on Nuwuvi lands, often taking over Nuwuvi farm lands for themselves. The Nuwuvi bands occupied definite areas. White intrusion into these areas left many homeless. They were forced either to depend on other bands' generosity, thereby overcrowding other campsites, or to seek survival in the hostile deserts and mountains. A common result was that they became hangers-on around the white settlements. The Mormon missionaries who settled in Nuwuvi country in 1854, with a few exceptions, had no real perspective on the results their efforts would have. After getting established at Fort Harmony, they set out to visit the Nuwuvi and to get a firsthand look at their culture. It was a culture which they often did not understand.14 In June, a group of the missionaries visited the Toquerits and Tonoquints on Ash Creek and the Santa Clara. The band living on Ash Creek was led by Toquer. Thomas Brown noted that they had "small stripes of corn, squash, potatoes, etc., all scratched in with their hands, for miles along Ash Creek and seem very industrious." The Nuwuvi had extensive knowledge of irrigation. Toquer and another had built an irrigation canal which was approximately one half-mile long.15 On the Santa Clara, Tutsegavit and his band had built dams. At once place the missionaries were shown "a good dam three rods wide slanting across the Santa Clara." An irrigation canal ran for three quarters of a mile around the base of a rocky mountain. The Nuwuvi had approximately ten acres under cultivation, and all the work had been done by hand. The Mormons soon discovered that all along the |