Part 1 of 4

Brigham's Utah Black Hawk War

1849 - 1873

 

"Old Black Hawk"

 

The Black Hawk War of Utah, scholars say, began in 1865 when negations for peace broke down in Manti, and a drunken John Lowry assaulted Chief Arropeen. But, tensions between the Ute and Mormon settlers began to arise long before 1865.

 

Mormon pioneers first entered Ute territory in 1847. During the winter of 1849, just two years later, a 12 year old Ute named Noonch would witness the brutal murder of his family in the foothills above Pleasant Grove and was taken captive by church militants. Noonch would later become known as Black Hawk. This little known murderous attack is vividly remembered by the Ute today.

 

In 1850 apostle George Albert Smith declares the Indian people "have no right to their land" and he instructs the all-Mormon legislature to "extinguish all titles" and get them out of the way and onto reservations. This set the stage for the Black Hawk war that would soon follow.

 

Logging, constructing forts and towns, diverting streams, introducing thousands of domesticated cattle, plowing and fencing vital grass lands planting domesticated crops, increasing evermore demand upon the Ute's precious resources, these settlers were less dependant upon natural sources for their food, while the Indian people were forced to travel greater distances, requiring greater effort to find food, leaving the Ute with no other choice than to fight or die from starvation.

 

While settlers poured into the territory at the rate of three thousand a month between the years 1847 and 1873, tensions between the Indian and non-Indian grew exponentially. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, white population exploded and again overwhelming the already distressed Ute. Ute Indian elders told me, "there was a time when our people were happy and content living in the majestic mountains and fertile green valleys of Utah. Then the Mormons came, and our people were killed, the old, the young, the children, women, and many taken to reservations where many more would die." 

 

The benevolent argument that Mormon leader Brigham Young said, "it is better to feed them than to fight them," is incorrect. What he said was, "it is cheaper to feed them than to fight them," and putting it in proper context, he had spent millions in church funds equipping his militia to war against them. There was nothing benevolent at all in his statement, it was a matter of economics he was referring to. 

 

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 said; "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." In the words of John Lowry, "it was a matter of supremacy between the white man and the Indian." (See Brigham's Discourses here.)

 

As of 1996 Spring Lake, Utah, became the final resting place of Chief Noonch "Black Hawk," 126 years after his death. About 1830 Spring Lake was also his birth place, and it is here as a boy he would be lovingly nurtured, and later become one the most remarkable, brilliant, and humane leaders of the time. He attended the first school in Manti when Jesse W. Fox was teacher. He was popular among both the whites and the Ute. He quickly attracted a small but growing band determined to avenge the indignities of their people. His first band of warriors consisted of 44 men. Black Hawk drew strength from adversity.

 

Taking into account Black Hawk's unimaginable personal anguish he was subjected to in his early years, he emerges in a arena of controversy, as some of his own people believe he "sold us out." But considering the severe circumstances he had to cope with, still Black Hawk always put the welfare of his own people first, at times going without that others may live. Historic accounts downplay the War Chiefs remarkable acts of kindness and life long efforts to foster peace.

 

In 1850, a few months following the murder of his family, "Black Hawk" would again be traumatized when made to witness the decapitation of his kin at Fort Utah following a premeditated two day vicious attack by Mormon militia that resulted in the deaths of 70 of his clan. His uncle, Wah-Kara (Walker) who would become a member of the Church, was Chief at the time, but would die an untimely death from pneumonia in 1854. However, some scholars say the is evidence that Wah-kara may have been poisoned. As his death was sudden and it was not uncommon for anti-Indian settlers to poison food and water supplies.

 

1855 Yene-woods became Chief after Wah-kara died, and set out to avenge the deaths of his people, and continued on in his role as leader until 1865. "Black Hawk" took over as War Chief under Ute Chief Tabby, and rallied some 3000 warriors and manage to drive back the Mormons. This, historians would say, was the beginning of "The Black Hawk War," and would place the blame on "Black Hawk" saying that it was he who declared war, a war that in fact began 15 years earlier at Fort Utah. And Fort Utah was the direct result of LDS Church apostle George Smith's order to remove the Ute people from their home-land. The so called "Black Hawk War" did not begin in 1865, but in 1849-50, and continued on into the year 1873.

 

"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

 

Chief Black Hawk's Ute name was "Noonch," and so named in honor of his tribe the Noonchee; he belonged to the Laguna band. He descended from a long line of legendary leaders on both sides of his family dating back centuries of time. He and his family were traditionally the leaders of the Ute Nation; as members of their family became chiefs by succession. (See the lineage of Noonch)

 

Brigham Young dubbed Noonch with the name "Black Hawk." "Black Hawk" is not a Ute name, and it is easy to conclude, but perplexingly strange, that Brigham Young barrowed from a Illinois Sauk chief. The same Sauk that occupied Illinois and fought a war which also became known as the "Black Hawk War;" which was during the time Brigham Young and the LDS people were in Illinois in the 1830's, and prior to them coming to Utah. Noonch went by another name: "Antoñgua," a Spanish name, and is believed to be what early trappers called him before the Mormons entered Utah territory.

 

Because whites found it difficult to pronounce Indian names it was common practice to call them by contrived, and insulting names such as - Roman Nose, Stick-in-the- head, or Squash-head, and etc. These contrived names somehow survive, and are now assumed to be Indian in origin when in fact they are not. They were insulting to the Native people then, and they are insulting now. Some examples of Ute names are: Peteetneet, Pocatello, Sagwitch, Sanpitch, Wanship, Tabiona, Tabby, To-Quo-Ne, Shegump, Skipoke, Tackwitch, Tow-Ich, Nar-A-Coots, Pe-Do, and To-Ne-Oo.

 

In 1857 members of the Mormon church, disguised as Indians, massacred a wagon train of 129 whites at Mountain Meadows, and laid the blame on the Indians.

 

In 1863, 280 Indian men woman and children were brutally massacred at Bear River. As the Shoshone tried desperate measures to fight off the U.S. Army, including the use of tomahawks and archery, the soldiers seemed to lose all sense of control and discipline. After most of the men were killed, soldiers proceeded to rape and molest the women of the encampment, and many of the children were also shot and killed. In some cases, soldiers held the feet of infants by the heel and "beat their brains out on any hard substance they could find." Those women who refused to submit to the soldiers were shot and killed. One local resident, Alexander Stalker, noted that at this time many soldiers pulled out their pistols and shot several Shoshoni people at point blank range. The soldiers also deliberately burned almost everything they could get their hands on, especially the dwelling structures that the Shoshone had been sleeping in, and killing anybody they found to be still inside.

 

The Bear River Massacre has been ignored. "It was not in the interest of key players - the military and the Mormons - to remember, and the decimated Northwestern Bands of the Shoshone had no voice in the nation that came to surround them. The battle, as it was initially regarded, was at first celebrated in Salt Lake City, especially by the military. What little records there are indicate between 250 and 350 Shoshones died, although some suggest nearly 500 perished. Paul Hutton, a historian of the Indian Wars at the University of New Mexico, said he had never heard of the Bear River Massacre when he got his first teaching job at Utah State University in 1977." - Salt Lake Tribune
 

 

Background:

 

The Utes have consistently been a diverse and adaptable people. They have always been innovative to have sustained their culture for over six centuries. Each one of them were gifted with intelligence, love of family, and friends, and the gift to feel joy, and pain, and experienced awe in the face of surprising natural beauty, as were any of the Old World Christian brethren. Their land was not just real-estate, their land was their soul. They will tell you, "my father's face is in the rock on the mountain; the rock to which I turn and all sons turn to see the face of all our fathers on the mountain. The voice of my father is on the wind and my voice also when it becomes strong for only my sons to hear and keep on hearing after I am gone."

 

Our mountains of Utah are sacred to the Ute. They are the birth place of their ancestors, where they lived, played, laughed, danced, prayed to Creator, experienced all the things that gave their lives meaning and purpose. They may say, "my help is in the mountain where I take myself to heal the earthly wounds that people give to me. I find a rock with the sun on it and a stream where the water runs gentle, and the trees which one by one give me company. So must I stay for a long time until I have grown from the rock and the stream is running through me and I cannot tell myself from one tall tree. Then I know that nothing touches me nor makes me run away. My help is in the mountain that I take away with me. Earth cure me. Earth receive my woe. Rock strengthen me. Rock receive my weakness. Rain wash my sadness away. Rain receive my doubt. Sun make sweet my song. Sun receive the anger from my heart." These are the words that come from the hearts of our indigenous people.

There never was anything genetically inferior about the Utah Indians. Shaped by their environment they were a tough and rugged people. They established over time an economic trade network from the regions of northern Utah territory, and as far south as Mexico. Ute leaders had long established trade relations with Euro-American fur traders, which proved profitable on all sides. They had tremendous knowledge and skills to master their own environment, and sustained a population that exceeded 30,000 people. To feed a lot of people they needed a productive and fertile environment. The Ute were not famers, but depended on natural resources for their food supply. They found sustenance from roots, fruit, seeds, and a variety of nutritious plants. Fish, deer, elk, were their primary source for protein, also clothing, and a vast array of other uses. By the 1680's the Ute had domesticated the horse giving them the ability to manage their extensive territory. Theirs was a highly structured society, noble and skilled in their ways, and deeply respected by other tribes throughout the west.

 

Then what gave early Euro-settlers such enormous power over the Ute? Not so unlike early Spanish conquistadors such as Francisco Pissarro, who annihilated 60,000 Inca with only a hundred men with the support from Indian allies, Euro-settlers had migrated from distant European lands by ship, bringing with them domesticated animals and plants, and of coarse superior weaponry. "Guns, germs, and steel," as Dr. Jared Diamond put it.

 

Continued...

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