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Show 38 we promised it to them and without knowing they did the first evil act in that affair or any other, were shot down without one minute's notice. I felt satisfied in my own mind that if Mr. Heywood had been here they would not have been dealt with so unhumanly. It cast considerable gloom over my mind. Mr. H. has told me on leaving to do all I could to encourage them by employing them to work for me.12 Another incident occurred in central Utah during that same time. A group of California-bound immigrants from Missouri had an altercation with some Pahvant Utes on Meadow Creek which'resulted in the death of one leader of the Utes and the wounding of two others. Although the Mormon leaders of the area were able to convince the Pahvants that further fighting was not a wise action, rancor and hostility to non-Mormon whites remained. It was into this atmosphere that the Gunnison party arrived. While it is highly unlikely that the Mormons were involved with the Gunnison tragedy, it is not too much to say that by 1853 the Mormons saw that their basic interests would not always allow them to be com-i pletely supportive of the general policies of the federal government. When the Indians saw this difference they probably assumed that the gap between the two was greater than it actually was. By "forting up," as Brigham Young called garrisoning, and by closing off supplies, the Utes were defeated. The Walker War ended with the white community assuming that the Utes were pacified, and the Utes holding to the idea that they were defeated. They were. 12"Journal of Martha Spence Heywood," Utah State Historical Society Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, pp. 89-90. (Mrs. Heywood*s husband was U. S. Territorial Marshall for Utah.) |
