The BLACK HAWK WAR LEGACY

 

By Phillip B Gottfredson

 

 

 

Don't Sanitize History!

 

 

There are those who will say it is anti-Mormon to speak of these things. I believe it is anti-Indian to ignore the truth. And this is the crux of the matter.

 

No question about it, there is a ton of books written on Utah's history, the vast majority all talk about our Mormon ancestors and the difficulties they faced as they carved out a place in the wild west. Of their devotion to God, humility and raw courage. Encounters with the Indian people in Utah suggest Mormon settlers made every effort to get along with them, but allege that the Indian people, because of their "degraded condition," were a nuisance and at times "harsh measures were necessary" as it was a "matter of supremacy between the white man and the Indian." The rhetoric in these accounts is brilliantly managed, filled with half truths, omissions, and denials. The one question these accounts do not answer is, what is the Indians side of the story? Even asking the question seems to arouse immediate suspicion and brings into question your motives for wanting to know. "That's all in the past," I was told, "we just need to forget about."

 

It is deeply troubling to me that the tradition has been to trivialize, and downplay the agony of the Indian people in Utah, those who suffered the greatest loss in terms of land, culture, lives, and dignity. It is criminal to ignore their history, and it is time their story be told.

 

We have a responsibility to show the pain, and not sanitize the Black Hawk War. The indigenous people of Utah are, all said and done, the people who made the ultimate sacrifice and we should see who they are, and what they are doing. We need to see their pain... to feel it, and we owe it to the Native Utah Indians, to feel it. Thousands of lives were lost in the war, many who never knew why, and now we don't even think of the war.   

 

I was born and raised a Mormon in the state of Utah. My great-grandfather was Peter Gottfredson. Peter spent much of his life living among the Ute people during the most difficult times of the war. He was their friend and personally acquainted with several Ute leaders including Chief Black Hawk. Peter's unique experience afforded him a keen awareness of settlers exploitation of the Utah Indian people.

 

Peter spent 20 years compiling firsthand accounts of the Black Hawk War that he published in 1919 and titled his book Indian Depredations in Utah. Primarily the book was written for the benefit of the Indian War Veterans organization that Peter helped found in 1893. And it is because of Peter's account I became interested in the history of the Utah Indians.

 

In 2002 I republished the book when noted historian Will Bagley, at the time a columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune, reviewed the book saying, "A product of its time, Indian Depredations is bitterly racist: the Utes and Paiutes are “skulking savages,” “murderous marauders,” “Mr. Redskin”  and “the sleepless foe.” But the book reports any number of white depredations that would otherwise be unknown, and like the Iliad, the losers are often more courageous and noble than the victors."

 

Peter' Gottfredson's book is a compilation of eyewitness accounts that he acquired from interviews and journals of those individuals who had witnessed, and in instances participated in the genocide of the Utah Indian people, and it follows that in doing so Peter's account is an open window through which the reader see's an unfiltered view of the mindset of early pioneers in Utah. In fact Peter refrains from injecting his own personal opinion as a journalist, rather he lets the record speak for itself.   

 

I devoted several years in my study of the war, researching countless books, personal histories, LDS and state archives. In 2005 I had the distinct honor of living with a Shoshone family in Oregon learning and participating in the traditions and life ways of the American Indian people. Trying to understand the Indian people intellectually is not the same as learning from them first hand. Mala Spotted Eagle of the western Shoshone tribe, and his wife Sky, a member of the Tlinket tribe, were my mentors for nearly two years. Later I became personally acquainted with members of the Ute tribe, of those I met Forrest Cuch, Larry Cesspooch, and descendents of Chief Black Hawk. who have since been my close friends and mentors for several years. Through these associations I was introduced to a plethora of people from various tribes throughout the western United states. And like my great-grandfather, I had the honor of being witness to and often participating in Native ceremonies, and observing ancient traditions.

 

As I continue to learn from the Native people what it means to be an Indian, I am still shocked and disgusted by the injustices and discrimination that they face each and every day not only from the general populace of Utah but the state and federal government. I am sickened every time I have heard "we have given the Ute every chance to succeed, yet they choose to live off the government, and live in poverty." What kind of choice have they been given? To conform to white man's beliefs or walk knee deep in the blood of their people? To give up their land, children, culture, traditions or die?

 

The arrogance and attitudes of supremacy toward the Utah Indian people has prevailed for 150 years unchallenged, and few have had the courage to stand up and say, enough, we're not going to tolerate these human injustices or knowingly participate in genocide of the American Indian people. I am astonished that they have had little or no voice, ignored, shunned, kept out on the fringes of society and denied access to even most the basic fundamentals of equality and human rights. That they live in fear of telling their story, their truth, that there may be retribution for exercising their freedom of speech.

 

How much longer must they be prisoners on their own land? When will they be allowed to live their lives in dignity, no longer demoralized, and free to live their lives according to their ancient traditions? How can we continue to tolerate the the mindset of those who are aware but say, it's not my problem, I'm just doing my job? If you don't think it's not your problem or your duty then never ever again pledge your allegiance to the flag and the United States of America and make the promise you will defend liberty and justice for all when you only mean for a privileged few. It is time for every one us to take a hard look at our own mindset toward the Native Indian peoples in Utah and find the ways to rid ourselves, and society from hypocrisy and racism that has wrecked so many innocent lives.

 

And I will point out that in the state of Utah there has never been a monument erected in recognition of the thousands of Utah Indians who died as a direct result of white expansion into Ute territory. Shame on you Utah for making such a big deal out of a few cattle being stolen by starving Indians, and while a little over a hundred Mormons died at the hands of Indians, even Brigham Young acknowledged that 90% of the Utes 30,000 population died. One can only conclude that Utahan's have been faithful to the admonition of Brigham Young when he told his followers, "Treat them kindly, and treat them as Indians, and not as your equals." I would say to Brigham treat them with respect, and with dignity treat them as fellow human beings and honor their sovereignty. And recognize them for the tremendous sacrifices and contributions they have made to the state of Utah and America.

 

Euro-Americans have for centuries forced upon the Indian their views, opinions, cultural and religious beliefs. "The Mormons brought with them a moral code, a new technology, and an economic system. Mormon's inability or refusal to accept Indian culture on its own terms is a conflict repeated countless times throughout the west. Coexistence, with each culture intact, was impossible; compromise seemed unattainable, for the cherished ideals of one culture were the unpardonable sins of the other." (The Other 49ers) Mormons brought the ways of civilization with them, in their minds. Contrary to their desire for a enlightened spiritual way of life, the world followed, and they gave into the kind of discrimination that they ran from.

 

In the year 1095 Pope Urban II of France launched a military campaign to recapture Jerusalem and the middle east which became known as the Christian Crusades. 1492 Columbus lands on the shores of North America marking the beginning of the greatest act of genocide in the history of the world against Native American Indian people. 1519 Spanish explorers led by Cortez in search of riches for the Royal Crown, and under the banner of Christianity decimated the ancient cultures of the Aztec and Inca. 1619  slavery of Africans is introduced in the United States. By the mid 1600's Native Ute come in contact with the Spanish conquistadors in the southern regions of what is now Utah.

 

The Christian Crusades, Spanish Conquest, genocide of the American Indian, Black slavery, each were rooted deep in greed, hate, bigotry, and dishonesty. These are the very ingredients that have kept humankind torn apart and separated.

 

The exodus of migrants from Europe, seeking freedom from tyrannical governments in a new world is the theme of the American dream. Freedom has long been the very foundation upon which America was founded. But unlike Euro-settlers who sought freedom at all cost, the American Indian people were already free, and had been for thousands of years. Their societies were not without moral ethics, or not without structure; a vibrant prosperous people were masters of their domain. But from the time Columbus washed upon the shores of Indian country, they were stripped of their freedoms, forced to abandon their culture and traditions, dehumanized, demoralized, and have been subjected to European humiliation ever since.  

 

In 1847 when Mormon pioneers entered into the land of the Ute, the Ute awoke to find themselves in an arena of an ongoing white expansion. Settlers spurred on by President Polk's fanatical conviction of Manifest Destiny, and President Grant's mandate to leave the fate of the American Indian in the hands of Christian's. Christian's whose mandate was to "kill the Indian and save the man." While armies of the federal government were dispatched to punish the Mormon's for their illegal practice of polygamy, in the cross fire of clashing beliefs and bloody confrontations, it became a matter of who would survive and who would control the land, Land that Peter Gottfredson notes, "It fell my lot to to be heard boy in Thistle Valley, which was then a favorite haunt of the Indians, and they often told us that we were trespassers on their domain."

 

Today some historians say the massacre at Mountain Meadows Utah was the worst human tragedy in Utah's history when 126 innocent whites were brutally murdered by Mormon settlers disguised as Indians in 1854. It is inexcusable that such a claim should be made when over 300 Shoshone were slaughtered in the Bear River massacre, and we continue to ignore the fact a Utah Indian population of 30,000 was reduced to just 2400 in the years 1847 to 1909. Their suffering goes beyond any description. We have an obligation to these people, not to forget the thousands and thousands who died, and put aside arcane racial differences.

 

It is our government that needs to stop holding the Indian people hostage and making them tenants on their own land.

 

It is we who need to stop blaming them for the actions of our ancestors.

 

It is we who need to respect their sovereignty.

 

It was our ancestors who invaded their country and wrecked their lives.

 

It was our government and our ancestors who made treaties with the Indian people and broke every one of them.

 

It was our ancestors who stole their children, and punished them for speaking their own language, physically abused them, and forbid them from practicing their religious beliefs. Carlisle’s founder, Capt. Richard C. Pratt, championed a disastrous approach to educating Native Indians that aimed to “kill the Indian, and save the man.”       

 

It was President Lincoln who set aside 5.6 million acres of land for the Ute, and it was our government who took back 4.3 million acres of that land, the best of that land, and put it in public domain.

 

It is we who have dug up the graves of their ancestors, and sold the contents for profit, and put their bones on public display as a mere curiosity.

 

It is our public school system that ignores the Indians side of the story and omits their perspective from school curriculum, teaching us and our students a mixture of platitudes, half-truths, omissions, and plausible denials...

 

It's ok to speak of the injustices against our ancestors, but to point out the atrocities Indian people have suffered from the hands of our ancestors, is wrong.

 

It was our Christian ancestors who stripped them of their dignity, demoralized and dehumanized the Indian people to the point they were forced to depend upon our church and government for their very survival.

 

And it is we who have looked the other way and said nothing and remained silent saying, "it's not my problem, I'm just doing my job."

 

And in the end it is we who say "we have given the Indian people every opportunity to succeed, yet they choose to live in poverty, and live off the government..." and indifferently state: "it's their own damn fault...?"

 

Some of these atrocities played a part of the Mountain Meadows massacre, yet scholars are saying it was the "worst human tragedy in Utah history?" Dr. Floyd O'Neil said it best, "you can't stretch a rats ass over a rain barrel."

 

I echo the words of Martin Luther King, "Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Indian people in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them."

 

Accommodation history has long been a practice of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. "The Accommodation History advocated by Elders Benson and Packer and actually practiced by some LDS writers is intended to protect the Saints, but actually disillusions them and makes them vulnerable... The tragic reality is that there have been occasions when Church leaders, teachers, and writers have not told the truth they knew about difficulties of the Mormon past, but have offered to the Saints instead a mixture of platitudes, half-truths, omissions, and plausible denials..." - D. Michael Quinn 1981

 

As Peter Gottfredson reflected over the past he asked, "I have often queried; why should those conditions be forgotten, and why has so little interest been taken in keeping memoranda's and records of events and conditions of those early and trying times?" This was an important question 116 years ago, and it is no less important today as the answer to this intriguing question still remains a mystery.

 

Remember, prejudice has to be taught. Children learn to be prejudice from their schools, family, friends, and community.

 

Because Ute history has been omitted from school curriculum, or sanitized, and trivialized; consequently Utahan's, Indian and non-Indian, have a distorted sense of where they have come from. The dropout rate of Indian children in public schools is high, for it is then natural for the Native people to believe that their tragedy has little or no importance in the history of Utah. Even worse our children are being taught that genocide is acceptable when religion is the justification for doing so, is simply outrageous! This is demoralizing and the source of resentment, and anger, which contributes to social divisions within society, and for many it undermines hope and prospects for a better future.

 

Many will say that prejudice does not exist, but in fact it does. Omission of their history is itself discriminatory. The seeds of racism were planted a long time ago, and like a noxious weed has become entwined into every aspect of society. Racism has become institutionalized and so appears natural in the social landscape. Those who say, "it's not my problem, I'm just doing my job," those who are aware but ignore man's inhumanity toward their fellow man are themselves agents in the on-going genocide of the American Indian people. If things are going to change for the better, these issues must first be addressed.

 

Both Indian and non-Indian who do not recognize names like Noonch, or Black Hawk, Wah-kara, Arropeen, Tabiona, Kanosh, Sanpitch, Tabby, Ouray, Colorow, and events such as the Black Hawk War, Fort Utah battle, Circleville Massacre, or the brutal Bear River Massacre, and what they represent; have no sense of true history the reality of Utah.

 

Brave generals, military tactics, stolen cattle, naked savages living in stick huts, are the trite and stereotypical themes common in the victors accounts. While gruesome details of the Black Hawk War attest to settlers beheading Indians, Indian skulls being sold to medical institutions for scientific examination go unnoticed. There was torture, murders, and as thousands died from disease, hunger, hopelessness and despair; many were buried in mass graves, graves that would later be looted and the contents thereof considered as trophies, grave looters heralded as heroes with their pictures on the front pages of newspapers, as funerary objects and bones were traded for profit. Their corpses and body parts were publicly displayed, hung from corners of buildings for entertainment, and in two separate interviews I was told Utes were placed in cages and taken into the mountains where they were left to die.

 

Stories of frightened children being taken from their homes and families and placed in distant Christian boardinghouse schools, where they were often physically abused, and harshly punish should they speak their own Indian language. Many died and buried on school grounds in unmarked graves. Others were forced into slavery, while some were brutally murdered.

 

The demands Mormon settlers and the Federal government imposed upon the Ute were extraordinary. Expectations for the Ute to toss aside their ancient vibrant culture and traditions, sign over their land, and embrace an entire new way of living, prohibiting them from speaking their language, punishing them for practicing their religious beliefs. Does this sound familiar? It should... these are the very same human injustices that made our ancestors leave Europe to seek freedom from oppression in America.

 

Quoting from historian John Alton Peterson, and George E. Tinker an Osage/Cherokee, "Without confronting and owning our past, as white Americans, as Europeans, as American Indians, as African Americans, we cannot hope to overcome the past and generate a constructive, healing process, leading to a world of genuine, mutual respect among peoples, communities, and nations." But that "mutual respect" must begin by seeking to understand the history and human motivations of all these "peoples and communities, and nations" with a spirit of equity, balance, and compassion."

 

My message to my Native American friends is simple, "You must become the rock the river cannot wash away. Speak your voice. Dance."  

 

 

-Phillip B Gottfredson

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