Notes
Documents and sources located in the Archives Division, Church Historical Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, are used by permission. 1. Oliver Boardman Huntington, Diary and Reminiscences, 129, Library-Archives, Historical Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City (hereafter cited as LDS Archives).
2. on Thursday last. May 10, 1849.
3. 20 lodges. Counting adults and children, a Ute lodge usually consisted of about four or five people. Thus, Walker’s entourage probably totaled eighty to one hundred Native Americans.
4. Walker’s brother is not identified but likely was Arapeen, his closest advisor and war chief.
5. a medicine pile. According to Huntington’s brother, Oliver, another Timpanogos warrior commonly fashioned dirt between his legs into a small, round pyramid as part of his ceremonial smoking: “This he does to shield him from the shots of his enemies, and that he may always have good luck whenever he shoots. Called ‘making good medicine’ for himself” (Huntington, Diary and Reminiscences, 51).
6. a puding. Perhaps another ceremonial pyramid.
7. sung around the Fort. A Native American atonal chant, performed outside or “around” the Mormon “Fort Utah” bastion. Brigham Young required each new colony to build a rectangular, high-walled fort, which was supposed to serve both for defense and living quarters for the settlers during their first years in a new land.
8. lots of Indians coming. As the Mormons were considered friendly, their presence was not expected to hinder the annual gathering of Native Americans for the prodigious fish run from Utah Lake. Said one settler, “We soon found out that [the] Provo River region was the great place of gathering of all Ute tribes of central Utah valleys, too, on account of the wonderful supply of fish moving up the stream from the lake to their spawning grounds every spring” (George W. Bean, Autobiography of G. W. Bean, a Utah Pioneer of 1847 [Salt Lake City: Utah Printing, 1845], 51). Four days after making his oral report, Huntington, now back in Utah valley, wrote to President Young confirming the Native Americans in the valley were “very numerous” as they were “coming in from all quarters” (History of Brigham Young, May 18, 1849, 78, LDS Archives).
9. he wants them to stop fighting. Walker expressed the hope that the Timpanogos strife might come to an end.
10. Elk. During the best of times, the heavily armed Big Elk or Parriats was feared and mistrusted by white and red men alike. And at the time, his temper must have been set on edge by the widespread disease raging among his people, likely white man’s measles or perhaps smallpox.
11. Mrs Orr hit old Elk a blow. Apparently disarmed and allowed in the fort, Big Elk soon earned himself a doughty woman’s rebuke.
12. During their first meeting in the fall 1848, President Young and Chief Walker likely agreed to meet the following year. Walker now seeks information on when and where they should meet.
13. good to kill the Timpany Utes. Walker no doubt wished the killing of his Timpanogos enemies.
14. settle a Co. [Company]. The chief hoped to prosper from the Mormon trade, while at the same time learn Mormon, white-man ways.
15. 5 in his valley - 200 miles South of this. The nomadic Walker had various “valleys,” or annually used campsites. Most likely his invitation was to the Little Salt Lake Valley in present-day Iron County where the Chief sometimes wintered. The area became the first Mormon settlement built in southern Utah, occupied by the white men in January 1851. Southern Paiute bands had long lived on these lands, though Walker now asserted his “ownership” on the basis of his superior arms and culture.
16. Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, May 14, 1849, LDS Archives (hereafter cited as Journal History).
17. Once this letter was delivered to Walker, the chief and his tribesmen carefully preserved it, presumably as evidence of their good standing with the Mormons. When the Mormons made their Iron County settlement, Walker brandished it before them (George A. Smith to Walker, March 1851, George A. Smith Papers, LDS Archives).
18. mountaineers. Nineteenth-century usage for mountain men. Brigham Young had received a report that these men were trying to stir up the Native Americans against the Mormons, apparently in the hope of maintaining their old trading monopoly (Louis Vasques to Brigham Young, May 8, 1849, Incoming Correspondence, Brigham Young Papers, LDS Archives).
19. When our people come in this fall. Mormon emigrants due to arrive during the late summer and early fall will replenish the Saints’ supplies and permit trade.
20. trade. There were still other items in Huntington’s report that were not placed in the written summary. President Young reveals here that Chief Walker wants to trade with the Mormons, probably for hard-to-get guns and ammunition.
21. Jim Bridger and others had told Brigham Young of the advantages of settling in the Little Salt Lake Valley situated in present-day Iron County, Utah, and the Mormon leader clearly wished to pursue this option.
22. Those Mormon leaders attending the negotiation (some of whom are not here listed) included Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards, President Young’s counselors in the First Presidency; Newell K. Whitney, the Church’s Presiding Bishop; John Taylor, a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles; Jedediah M. Grant, one of the seven presidents of the Seventy, later Salt Lake City’s mayor and a member of the First Presidency; John Smith, Presiding Patriarch of the Church; and finally early Mormon convert Isaac Morley, soon to be charged with the leadership of the Sanpete county settlements.
23. coming down yesterday by American Fork. Traveling to Salt Lake City, Walker apparently followed the American Fork River through the Wasatch mountains. Later the Mormons built a community by the same name in the area. Huntington accompanied Walker on at least the last leg of the journey and now relates some of their conversation.
24. Piedes. Generally the word designated in a general way the Southern Paiutes, who lived in southwest Utah. However, sometimes the settlers used the term to mean a particular subband of the several southern Paiute peoples. Waller appears to suggest that the Piedes acquiesced or at least expected a Mormon settlement.
25. Why Huntington should view this concept as similar to Mormon or Christian thought is unclear. Perhaps he saw it as a variation of the Adam and Eve “rib” account.
26. The Sun, or Tarp, was seen by many of the Great Basin tribesmen as embodying, or perhaps personifying, the Great Spirit. Many modern commentators have claimed the Utes lacked religious ceremonialism, but Walker here clearly observes proper Native American ritual and reveals a religious feeling.
27. Still other Mormon leaders who were present for the occasion are identified. George D. Grant, Jedediah ‘s brother, was a prominent Mormon lawman, militiaman, and legislator. Daniel Spencer was called as Salt Lake Stake President in 1849 and presided over the local congregations of the city. Lorenzo Snow and John Taylor were members of the Twelve Apostles and future Church Presidents.
28. The Snakes or Shoshoni lndians roamed to the north and northwest of present-day Salt Lake City and were Walker’s inveterate enemies.
29. a few of the Snakes & Timpenny Utes wont hear. The Mormons urged the Native Americans to be at peace with one another, and perhaps Walker wishes to ingratiate himself by declaring his conciliation with the Shoshoni—despite some Natives among both groups who, he says, will not “hear” the message of peace. If Walker achieved a temporary truce, it was not long lasting.
30. Brigham declares his willingness to organize a school for the youth of Walker’s band in Salt Lake City. Brigham’s plan was two-fold. While “domesticating” the young Native Americans to white ways, he could at the same time supervise and control them.
31. President Young promises that the white men will settle on Walker’s land in six months, or shortly after the harvesting of crops and the arrival of the expected tide of new emigrants.
32. Goship and Wanship were Timpanogos Indians who left their Utah Lake homeland for the Salt Lake valley, where they assumed the leadership of several Shoshoni bands. President Young informs Chief Walker that the Mormons have made an accommodation with each, though he provides no details. When first arriving in the Basin, the white men had explicitly refused to treat for Native American land. Their informal agreement with Goship and Wanship probably offered surplus food and commodities in exchange for the Natives’ willingness to tolerate the newcomers.
33. For his part, President Young disclaims any desire to fight the Native Americans. In return, he asks Chief Walker to prevent the stealing of the whites’ livestock.
34. The new colony will build a house for Walker and teach Walker’s band white man’s domestication.
35. but a few here. Only a few of Timpanogos, perhaps the remnants of the Kone band, have antipathy for the white men.
36. Once saw it white. Walker continues his fulsome view of his southern lands, saying he has only once seen the ground covered with snow. He employs the exaggeration of a nineteenth-century land agent.
37. they av no game now. Even prior to widespread white settlement, the Native Americans repeatedly complained of the passing of their game resources. Several factors may have played a role in this diminution, including the possibility of recent climate change, new European-introduced animal microbes, the ecological devastation brought about by the white trapper, and, even more likely, the deadly efficiency of the Natives’ new horse and gun culture, which made the killing of large animals much easier. Whatever the cause, the Indian met the white settler with continual complaints of hunger and poverty.
38. live on thistle tops now. The Native American had skillfully adapted to the Great Basin environment, learning to prepare and eat what nature’s limited bounty provided. But with very few exceptions, the white man wanted none of it. Here Huntington disparages a native traditional staple, suggesting only hunger could drive a man or woman to eat it.
39. does good bus[iness]. Brigham has heard of Walker’s bull, and the latter confirms its existence and productivity. Unlike most of the Great Basin Native Americans, whose condition could only be described as marginal, Walker had prospered, as his performing bull evidenced. The chief’s entourage was often considerable, one pioneer counting in his train “23 men and about 25 squaws, 120 head of horses[,] some sheep[,] some cows & oxen[,] about 20 head [of cattle,] & some goats.” See John Steele to George A. Smith, November 7, 1854, George A. Smith Papers, LDS Archives.
40. Gulf- & Country. The President seeks information about country lying west, including the California Gulf. At some point, perhaps as early as this conversation, Brigham hoped to bring goods via the Gulf and the Colorado River to his budding inland empire. Walker knew this country well. Several California travelers testified of his knowledge and assistance during their journeys west. See for instance William Lewis Manley, Death Valley in ’49 (San Jose, Calif.: Pacific Tree and Vine Company, 1894; reprint, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1966), 86.
41. An unidentified peak, Salt Mountain may have been near present-day Salt Creek canyon, about three miles northwest of Cedar City, Utah.
42. Little Salt Lake. A small, seasonal sink lying north of present day Parowan, Utah; the Southern Paiutes called it “Paragoon,” meaning vile water. Later generations have identified it as Parowan Lake. “Little Salt Lake” was in contradistinction to the larger body of water near the Mormons’ first settlement.
43. Salt Spring. This spring was probably located in today’s Iron County, Utah.
44. In the middle of speaking about other matters, Walker strangely interposes details of the death of his father by hand of his Timpanogos neighbors. Obviously the matter weighed on him.
45. Passawitt heard the Mormons killed his bro. Walker’s likely reference is to Timpanogos lndian Patsowiet. Patsowiet’s brother apparently had been killed in the Battle Creek engagement, spawning the surviving sibling’s enduring enmity for the Mormons. Patsowiet played a leading role in the Fort Utah battle in February 1850 and after escaping capture by the militia, continued his depredations during the following spring. Captured while visiting Brigham Young’s Salt Lake City office, he was given a summary trial and was executed on the outskirts of the city. See Juanita Brooks, ed., On the Mormon Frontier: The Diary of Hosea Stout, 1844–1861, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1964), 2:368.
46. Walker claims to have told members of the Kone, or Roman Nose, band to stop their thievery of Mormon cattle. He is not “mad” about their suppression, but “glad.”
47. Walker shifts the discussion to the Paiutes of southern Utah. He claims that they, like the Timpanogos, do their share of “fighting & stealing.” Some of these bands had been outraged by their treatment by John C. Frémont’s troops during the Pathfinder’s 1844 exploration. Believing the white men to be their enemies, they proved a continual scourge to travelers on the Old Spanish Trail to California. For conflicting views of the raiding Paiutes, see George A. Smith, “History of the Settling of Southern Utah,” October 17, 1861, Journal History; Charles Preuss, Exploring with Frémont: The Private Diaries of Charles Preuss, ed. and trans. Erwin G. and Elisabeth K. Gudde (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958), 130; and John C. Frémont, Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains (Readex Microprint Corporation, 1966), 267.
48. Sowiet. While Walker’s exploits on the Old Spanish Trail and in California earned him considerable notoriety in the American and English press, among the Native Americans themselves no Utah Ute rivaled the prestige of Uintah chief Sowiette. Esteemed for his good judgment, good nature, and high principles, Sowiette was already an old man when the first white settlers came into the region. In 1868 he declared himself to be 132 years old. See F. H. Head, “Office of Superintendent of Indians Affairs Utah, Salt Lake City, September 16, 1868,” in Report of the Commissioner of lndian Affairs, 1868 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1869), 610. Sowiette had visited the Saints’ Salt Lake City settlement with Walker the year before.
49. they dared us to do it. Brigham justifies the Mormon Battle Creek expedition. The Kone, or Roman Nose, clan were warned several times to stop their depredations but apparently believed their concealed camp gave them protection from Mormon retribution.
50. he want you to hunt Passanetts wife. Chief Walker wants President Young to use his good offices to secure the missing Timpanogos wives, including Patsowiet’s.
51. Wanship & Smith. No copy of either of these letters survives. However President Young’s office journal documents that a letter was issued, May 14, 1849, to Thomas L. Smith, a friendly mountain man then living in the Bear River valley, asking him to “hunt up Patsowett’s squaw.” See Journal History, May 14, 1849.
52. 40 charges for a heavy buckskin. A consummate trader, Walker begins his bartering with a high bid. He seeks forty ammunition charges for a prime buckskin. Young, himself no novice at such transactions, responds by noting that other traders such as Grant and Bridger are reportedly offering no more than twenty-five charges. He counters with a bid of thirty and offers less for smaller and lesser grades of skins.
53. Possibly mountain man Richard Grant.
54. Brigham Young offers to buy all the skins that Walker’s clan can secure and ends the negotiation by giving the Native Americans some hats, which he promises will be ready when the Natives leave their camp.