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The Black Hawk WarUtah's Forgotten TragedyA Documentary Film Dedicated in Honor of the Noochew |
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Forrest S. Cuch - Executive Director Of Indian Affairs | Will Bagley - Historian |
He (Black Hawk) had "remarkable vision and capacity. Given the circumstances under which he operated, he put together an imposing war machine and masterminded a sophisticated strategy that suggest he had a keen grasp of the economic, political, and geographic contexts in which he operated. Comparable to Cochise, Sitting Bull and Geronimo." - John Alton Peterson author Utah's Black Hawk War
The name "Black Hawk" is not a Ute name. It was a name Brigham Young in jest called him. So it became that Brigham being supercilious referring to him as 'Black Hawk' is the name by which he is now most commonly known. His Ute name was Nooch, and he was so named in honor of his people the Noochew.
Nooch was born into a noble family of legendary leaders spanning centuries of time. He fought bitterly. This noble man had to confront unimaginable horror as his people were dyeing from diseases and hunger, their homeland being invaded by foreigners, his family and kin were
murdered. He faced challenges that were monumental for any leader of any peoples in any time. He should have given up, but something in his character wouldn't allow him to. Before Black Hawk died in 1870, deathly ill from a bullet wound he received a year earlier at Gravely Ford, he traveled 180 miles by horse and visited every Mormon village and apologize for the pain and suffering he and his warriors had caused. He asked for forgiveness and pleaded with the settlers to do the same and end the bloodshed. "You didn't see that happening on the part of the settlers", said Forrest Cuch, "So it took a greater man to do such a thing. And that's what is overlooked in the victors accounts."
But Black Hawk's story didn't end there, just 49 years after his death, in 1919 his grave was robbed and his remains were first put on public display in the window of a hardware store in Spanish Fork, then later in the LDS Church museum on Temple Square in Salt Lake. He was not reburied until 1996, thanks to the efforts of Boy Scout Shane Armstrong and Charmain Thompson National Forest Service Archeologist.
Contrary to popular folklore, there were no treaties made between Mormon settlers and the First People. Yet virtually every town in Utah lays claim to treaties being signed in their town that concluded the war is simply not true. Dr. Floyd O'Neil University of Utah said, "they were only agreements, only the federal government had the authority to make treaties with the Indian people." These phony treaties were divisive and used to coerce the Indians into giving up their homeland to the LDS Church before the United States government took it. (See Black Hawk War treaties here)
Brigham's attempts at making peace simply failed, such was the case at Spanish Fork in 1865. Brigham said, "San pitch, Sow e ett, Tabby, and all of you I want you to understand what I say to you I am looking for your welfare." To which Chief Tabby replied, "the Indians are not ready now to give up the land. They never thought of such a thing."
The decimated lives of some 40,000 Native people has simply been swept aside. Brigham's victory was perhaps a hollow one, for in order to fulfill his dream he had to destroy a civilization. The truth regarding the history of the war has since been cloaked in brilliantly managed rhetoric to discredit the Native people in every conceivable way. The victors accounts filled with ambiguities, omissions, platitudes, and half truths leave use to believe the fate of the Indian peoples was divine destiny. Twenty-six years of Utah's Indian history has since been ignored and left out of school curriculum.
It is important we understand that the Black Hawk war was not a single incident, there were over 150 bloody confrontations in a 20 year period that began in 1849 when Brigham's private militia lead by Capt. John Scott, premeditated the murders of Black Hawk's family at Battle Creek who were innocent of any wrong doing. And that Mormon depredations continued on into 1873, resulting in the eradication of 90% of the Indian population estimated to have been between 40,000 and 70,000 when Mormon pioneers arrived in 1847.
By 1909 government census reported that the Indian population had decreased to just 2300. Some scholars are quick to point out that the cause of the rapid decline in population was due to disease, that the tragedy was merely an unfortunate circumstance. It is true, but what is omitted is that germ-warfare was not an uncommon tactic. And one of the dark truths about Utah's history is the use of poison by Brigham's privately funded militia.
The gruesome beheadings of some 40 Ute corpses at Fort Utah has long been ignored, "You didn't see the Indians beheading the Mormons." - Historian Robert Carter
"In those early days it was at times imperative that harsh measures should be used. We had to do these things, or be run over by them. It was a question of supremacy between the white man and the Indian." - John Lowry 1894
"We forget that our ancestors both Indian and non-Indian lived close together. That our children grew up with each other. And that's what makes this story so difficult to talk about and remember. But if we are going to understand who we are then we have to understand and remember the Black Hawk War." -Historian Will Bagley
While Young's long-time admonition to the members of his church was to "Treat them kindly, and treat them as Indians, and not as your equals," came in the wake of tens-of-thousands of settlers who systematically spread out across the most fertile land of the Ute.
Many saints were spending time in the Indian camps and inviting them into there homes to which Brigham responded to his followers in 1854, "If the inhabitants of this Territory, my brethren, had never condescended to reduce themselves to the practices of the Indians, (as few of them have,) to their low, degraded condition, and in some cases even lower, there never would have been any trouble between us and our red neighbors." (See Brigham's Discourses here.)
Virtually no one considers Generational Traumas, such as war, genocide, oppression, poverty, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, death or loss of parents or siblings, that are not grieved and healed by individuals, families and communities, the effects of unresolved trauma are carried into the next generation. For the Ute peoples of Utah their inheritance and heritage were gone.
I feel we have a responsibility to compassionately understand their pain. and not sanitize the Black Hawk War. The indigenous people of Utah are, all said and done, those who made the ultimate sacrifice and we should see who they are and what they are doing. We need to experience their pain... to feel it, we owe it to the Native Indians of Utah to feel it. Thousands of lives were lost in the war, most never knew why, and now we don't even think of the war.
Our documentary film will for the first time reveal the truth of one of the darkest chapters in western history, and will be told respectfully from the perspective of the First Peoples of Utah.
- Black Hawk War Researcher Phillip B Gottfredson
Here's The Story of Brigham's Black Hawk War... please click here.
This Is The Book That Started It All
The story of Black Hawk is based in part upon the oldest firsthand accounts from Peter Gottfredson's book titled Indian Depredations in Utah, in 1890 journalist Peter Gottfredson commenced a twenty year project compiling personal eyewitness accounts of the Black Hawk War. Earlier Peter had spent most of his time in the Ute Indian camps during the war, and witnessed firsthand the exploitation that surrounded him and the people he loved.
Peter Gottfredson
working on his manuscript of
Indian Depredations in Utah
Photo by George E. Anderson
Highly respected by noted historians as being a reliable account; to the honor of Peter Gottfredson authors, historians, researchers, journalists, scholars and academia's have cited his work in countless publications, articles, and books for decades; underscoring the importance of his time-honored account. Most recent is historian John Alton Peterson's award winning book titled Utah's Black Hawk War wherein Gottfredson's account is cited numerous times. Original copies of Peter's book are to be found in the New York Public Library, and other major collections. I republished his book in 2002 which can now be purchased at our on-line bookstore.
Being a product of the time the book Indian Depredations in Utah is a testament to man's inhumanity to man, a window that looks upon a landscape of extreme hardship, brutal violence, desperation, despair; a human condition of immense complexities and consequences resulting in the genocide of the American Indian people of Utah.
Get your copy today here.
Read some excerpts from Peter's book here
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wrenching stories. But as profoundly disturbing their past has been, it was their endearing humanity that most impressed me. The message of Indigenous America is connection, relationship, and unity. All people are one. One of the direct living descendants of Creator. Chief Joseph said, "We have no qualms about color. It has no meaning. It doesn’t mean anything. When we are together we are one. Nothing can break it." This is same message Chief Sitting Bull conveyed when he said, "The heart knows not the color of the skin." This is an ancient traditional teaching. It still lives among their true traditionalists everywhere. "The power of forgiveness is greater than hate; love vanquishes condescension and discrimination. That is the power our elders, our true traditionalist hold." - Markwood Hull
