What was Brigham Young’s Indian policy? “It’s cheaper to feed them than to fight them”?
Sometimes. Mormon treatment of the Native Americans in Utah’s valleys depended very much on when you ask the question. Don’t let anyone trap you into a single position – good or bad – as being typical of Mormon behavior. Sometimes we tried to “redeem” the Indian according to Book of Mormon prophecy. Other times we tried to annihilate them as menaces who threatened the homes Mormons were trying to establish in the wilderness. Often we fed them; just as often we found feeding them to be too much of a tax, and we let them starve. We enslaved them. We freed them from slavery. We adopted them.
And do you notice how I’ve made this a “we” vs. “them” issue? Mormon policies were even more complex for the “them” that became part of the “we,” through fostering, through intermarriage, through conversion, through friendship, through employment.
This letter, written in 1850 to our non-voting representative in Congress, outlines a policy that you won’t hear discussed in any Sunday School class about Brigham Young or the settlement of Utah.
P.S.: Don’t overthink it. There is no secret meaning hidden below the surface. It’s just Brigham Young, writing to a man who knows him well.
It is our wish that the Indian title should be extinguished, and the Indians removed from our Territory or Utah: and that for the best of reasons, because they are doing no good here to themselves or any body else. The Buffalo had entirely vacated this portion of the country before our arrival; the Elk, Deer, Antelope & Bear, and all eatable game, are very scarce, and there is little left here (abating the white population,) save the naked rocks and soil, naked Indians and wolves; the first two we can use to good advantage, the last two are annoying, and destructive to property and peace, by night and by day, and while we are trying to shoot, trap and poison the wolves on one hand, the indians come in and drive off, butcher our cattle, and steal our corn on the other, which leaves us little time between the wolves and Indians to fence and cultivate our farms: and if government will buy out and transplant the indians, we will endeavor to subdue the wolves, which have destroyed our cattle, horses, sheep and poultry by hundreds and thousands.
But even this will be no easy task for us, situated as we are in the midst of hills thousands of miles in extent, and beasts for wolf prey scarce, except around the settlement: when deep snows come over the earth, they come down in droves, and devour all before them, till their voracious appetites are satisfied, then skulk to their burrows till hunger forces them out to another blood banquet; thus during the mist of midnight, when the marksman’s eye is dim, have we lost stock enough, to sustain all the inhabitants of Deseret for a long time. Is not this alone bad enough for pioneers of the wilderness to contend with? Most certainly but worse by far, are wild men than wild beasts, for they possess not only the cunning and ferocity of the beast, but by trade with Hucksters, licensed or unlicensed, and by robbing and killing the mountain travellers have become possessed of many excellent fire arms, which added to their native bow and arrow, make them a fearful foe, insomuch that emigrants to California are not safe, except in large companies, well armed, added to close watching, and even then are liable to be divested of all their teams in a dark or thoughtless moment, as many travellers have experienced the past season.
Do we wish the Indians any evil? No we would do them good, for they are human beings, though most awfully degraded. We would have taught them to plow & sow, and reap and thresh, but they prefer idleness and theft. Is it desirable that the barren soil of the mountains valleys should be converted into fruitful fields? Let the indians be removed. Is it desirable that the way should be opened up for a rapid increase of population into our new state or Territory, also to California or Oregon? Let the Indians be removed, we can then devote more time to agriculture, and raise more grain to feed the starving millions desirous of coming hither.
For the prosperity of civilization, for the safety of our mail routes; for the good of the Indians, let them be removed; at least, from the interior of the country, now destitute of game, to sustain their shrunk sinews, to some remote part; suppose on the borders of the Wind River chain, where fish, and at least a part of the year, buffalo abound; or on snake river, where are fish and game; or on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, between the northern and southern route to California, where no white men lives, and forests and streams are plenty; or on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, above the dwellings of the whites, if there be space, so as not to interfere, and where Elk and other game are abundant; or any other point of compass, more congenial to their good.
Should the proper authorities think it best to gather on the east of the rocky mountains, in the [blank] of others, hitherto gathered in like manner, and by their teachers farmers and missionarys teach them agriculture, the arts, sciences, and religion, they would improve faster, being thus removed from old hunting grounds, knowing as many of them now do, the value of bread, then they would be instructed in this region, where they have been accustomed to hunt, and long remembered exploits would be constantly brought to mind by daily observation. Not wishing to dictate the Modus Operandi, or place of their removal, we submit these few suggestions to your disposal, with full assurance that the sooner the Indians of this country are removed to some better country, and instructed properly, the better for them, the better for Deseret, the better for California, the better for the Union, the great whole of the nation.
It’s a lot better than what Mark Twain said about the Native Americans of the Great Basin.
I’ll have to look that up, Grant; I don’t know it.
in Roughing It, chap. IX
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3177/3177-h/3177-h.htm#linkch19
oops, Chapter XIX, i.e., 19
I’m glad you present this as a single data point in a complex story. The story of the American Indians in the West is very complex and greatly disturbing and trying to simplify it or clean it up or use one element of the story as a political or religious club is not serving anyone’s purposes, including the remnants of the original Ute, Paiute, and other Utah-area tribes.
Here is a valuable resource:
Utah American Indian Digital Archive
I use that as an entry portal when I need to find a general history or specific tribal resource or check some research question.
Since slavery is mentioned in the introduction, fortunately that is a subject that has gotten some attention recently. Michael Bennion wrote a 2012 dissertation for UNLV, “Captivity, Adoption, Marriage and Identity: Native American Children in Mormon Homes, 1847-1900.” I hope it’s being edited for publication.
Bennion describes in detail the “Utes’ technique of killing or torturing children they could not sell to extort a trade, a strategy perfected over years of New Mexican slave trafficking…”
Imagine having that be one of your first introductions to Indian life in Utah! It does provide some complexity to the story to realize that quite a few early pioneers including Brigham Young were caring for torture victims, many severely injured, physically and psychologically, in their homes.
If you’re interested in the subject but don’t care to read the entire document, I’d suggest starting on page 65, and then Bennion includes a remarkable set of appendices including a list of every known Indian child in Mormon households (259).
Thanks for linking to the UAIDA database, Amy. I donated transcriptions of hundreds of letters in the BY papers to that project, although they haven’t all been processed and added yet.
As well as thanks for the rest, too — all very useful. I guess I just wanted to claim credit for something. :/
Being involved in that database is definitely something to be proud of, particularly since it is has a major purpose of improving history education in the public schools.
(See the related curriculum website, We Shall Remain.)
We were only a few decades distant from the Indian Removal actions of the Jacksonian era, which was obviously seen as a possibility. Anywhere we would have moved them would have eventually put them in conflict with white settlers or miners.
A good overview of the relationship between the Mormons in Utah and the Native American populations is in Jared Farmer’s excellent book, On Zion’s Mount. He also gets into how we appropriated and fabricated Native American legends and place names in the settling of the Intermountain West. Any sign of a reply from John M. Bernhisel on this?
kevinf, no; Bernhisel left for Utah about the time this letter could have arrived in Washington, so any response was probably face to face. Where are office tape recorders when you need them??
Thanks for that link to the Michael Bennion treatise, Amy. I have a little story in my family on Indian Adoptions in 1849 that I’ve blogged:
http://www.moderatebutpassionate.com/2014/04/utah-we-love-thee-whatever-you-mean.html
Er, yes, I meant thesis, not dissertation.
Thanks for the link, Grant. It really is sad to think of the experiences some of the Indian children went through, and the mystery of their lives, and how the pioneers tried to help these severely damaged children and youth in the days before professional counseling and social services.
One of the things I found interesting was Bennion’s comments about the washings the children received when they joined the community, and the symbolic and cultural considerations involved.
I know of two adopted native children in my family tree (siblings of my ancestors). Both were listed in Bennion’s thesis, but it’s not straightforward.
As far as family records show, the Rachel Allred adopted by Rueben Warren Allred was married to John Murray. Bennion shows a different Rachel Allred adopted by Thomas B. Allred as the one who married John Murray. Rachel is credited with saving an early Allred settlement. Some of the local natives planned a raid, but some native women decided to warn Rachel, since she was also native. Rachel didn’t know what to do until her family coaxed the story out of her. Then they prepared and the natives made a show but decided not to attack.
There is also an Ellen White listed born within 4 years of the right date, but in the home of a Herbert George, rather than Samuel Dennis White, my ancestor. Ellen was adopted at age 3. When she reached adulthood, she did go out as a housekeeper and seamstress, and I don’t have information on that. She then came down with ‘consumption’ and returned to her childhood home until her death at age 24.
It also occurs to me–although I don’t think of it often. My youngest sister was born in Washington, DC. My parents were told that she was one quarter Navaho. They passed on this information when she got old enough to notice that she didn’t sunburn like the rest of us. R had some interest in Native Americans because of this, but discovered the modern ones to be boringly like herself. Decades later, when she located her biological family, she discovered that her mother was Hispanic, but not native American. In fact, Biological mother had lied on every point she told the agency. It’s a good thing my parents didn’t try to teach her about a culture she wasn’t actually from. That would have been a severe disappointment.
{Final consensus, in case people are wondering–biological mother is crazy, rest of her relatives are lovely people, Real Parents are a gift from Heaven.}
I see many of the same divergent views of how to treat Alaska Natives, since moving to Alaska. There is mostly debate by missionaries about whether they should be allowed to go to Native villages to teach. Most of those missionaries seem to have spent time in Anchorage, where the Alaska Natives who have joined the church are often really converts from Catholic or Episcopal churches.
In my Alaska Native Studies (ANS) classes, I have read stories of Mormon families in villages, mostly as teachers, but no real interest in Mormons. I honestly don’t know what to think of the reactions I getfrom members who know that ANS is my minor. Most tell me that it is better to let Native culture and languages die out so that “they” stop wasting so much land.
On the other hand, most men who are assigned to work in Native villages for a year or two, don’t take their families with them. We have several families in our ward whose husband/father work for the Alaska State Troopers (AST) in the bush and are home for a week every 2-3 months. Most families with husbands working on the North Slope work 14 days one, 14 days off, by choice, rather than move their families up with them.
Sometimes the fact that I am Mormon comes up in my ANS classes, but very rarely do my Alaska Native classmates hold it against me. (Can’t count the number of times people are surprised that I am not a Republican or racist, but when all the Mormon politicians are Republican/Tea Party in the state, I can’t blame them for the assumption.) I honestly don’t feel a spiritual desire to share Mormon doctrine with my Alaska Native classmates, although I am happy to answer questions.
This rambling on is really just to say that I understand that the relationship between Mormons and Native peoples is always complicated because of the variety of interpretations of the Book of Mormon, and responsibilities towards those who might be their descendants.