| OCR Text |
Show Shivwits 111 Navajo, who traditionally were more their enemies than friends. Very few Nuwuvi chose this alternative, although a major uprising almost occurred when a friendly Nuwuvi was killed because he was mistaken for a Navajo. The Nuwuvi asked to have the white man who had committed the murder turned over to them. They were refused, but a serious outbreak was prevented when two horses and some beef were given the dead man's family.2 Most Nuwuvi became dependent on the white settlements. Their hunting and gathering sites were being depleted quickly by overgrazing cattle and their campsites were taken up by white settlements and farms. These conditions, to some extent, caused the Nuwuvi living on the Santa Clara and Virgin to migrate. Many moved to the established colony at Cedar City, where welfare could be received from the Mormon Church. Others moved to the farming communities on the lower Muddy River to work. Many of the young worked in the mining camps to the north. Those who remained primarily were older and dependent on the whites. The whites took a patronizing attitude, for while they provided the Nuwuvi with some aid, they often chastized them for not being able to provide for themselves. In doing this the whites failed to recognize their own responsibility for Nuwuvi poverty. In 1879 Robert Gardner, bishop of the Mormon Price Ward, located southwest of St. George, addressed "Moqueak and his men," a group of Nuwuvi living near the settlement. His statement shows little awareness that all of the land around St. George had been owned by the Nuwuvi or that the Nuwuvi had used it wisely by farming for decades before white intruders arrived: Brother McAllister, Brother Snow, and the Big Chief, John Taylor, have bought ten acres of land from the Mormons for $300.00 on the lower end of our farm, which I will show you, - for the use of the Indians. I, Bishop of Price Ward, will see that it is plowed, and marked out for watering, and plough out your head-ditches, and let you have the water, through the watermaster. You may divide the 10 acres with all the Indians that you expect to get land on this farm. You may divide it to suit yourselves, so that it is divided in strips up and down, so that we can plow it. We cannot plow it in little round patches. Or, I will divide it for you if you wish. This is all we expect to do. You must do all the rest |
