Existing comment:
Walkara's War
When the Utes welcomed Brigham Young and his party of 143 pioneers in 1847, they offered the Mormons the use of the land but had not given them their streams with their fish and beaver. They had also not reckoned with the fact that the white men would fence the land into little squares and tell them to keep out. And, they had not known that the ever increasing streams of newcomers would build forts as strongholds against them.
In 1853, relations between the pioneers and the Utes were strained to the limits. In July of that year, three Indians from Chief Walkara's camp on Hobble Creek appeared at the cabin door of James Ivie near Springville to trade fish for flour. An argument followed, and Ivie killed one of the Indians in a hand-to-hand fight with a broken rifle stock. Walkara, upset with this incident and the Mormons' recent policy opposing his lucrative slave trade, grasped the situation and unleashed a hit-and-run reign of terror that plagued the settlements in Utah, Juab, Sanpete, Millard and Iron Counties for the better part of the next year.
Ironically, the largest "engagement" of the war was not fought by Walkara but by Pahvant Utes camped at Meadow Creek south of Fillmore. In the fall of 1853, a wagon train of Missourians enroute to California camped near the Indian village. When a group of Pahvants approached with bundles of buckskin and offered to trade for tobacco and other goods, the settlers surrounded the party and attempted to disarm them. A fight ensued and the father of the Pahvant War Chief Mosnoquap was mortally wounded by a gun shot to his side. In retaliation, Mosnoquap ambushed a United States Army survey team in bivouac near Sevier Lake some 35 miles northwest of Fillmore. Captain John W. Gunnison and 8 of his men died as the Pahvants attacked with a barrage of arrows and bullets as the morning sun rose on the army camp.
When word of the battle reached Fillmore several days later, White officials traveled to the site with Kanosh, Chief of the Pahvant Utes. Kanosh, long considered a friend of the pioneers, was sickened at the sight of the mutilated remains of Gunnison's men. After ordering the appearance of Mosnoquap, Kanosh admonished the war chief for his actions. Although reproved for his role in the battle, the war chief was never surrendered by Kanosh to either Brigham Young or a U.S. Army detachment which had been sent to the Utah Territory to keep the peace.
With the approach of the spring of 1854, the Utes had grown tired of the fighting, and Walkara found his ranks of supporters growing ever thinner. Governor Young, recognizing the opportunity of the moment, arrived at Walkara's camp on Chicken Creek near Nephi on May 22 with a contingent of 50 mounted militiamen and 100 wagons filled with gentlemen, their wives and families. The Chief was presented with 16 head of oxen, blankets, clothing, tobacco, whiskey, trinkets, arms and ammunition. During negotiations that lasted into the night, the Utes agreed to cease all hostilities against the pioneers and to give up their slave trade. The Mormons, in return would establish an Indian farm near Utah Lake. The calmut of peace was smoked on the 23rd of May, and thus ended 10 months of violence that had claimed 20 pioneer lives, an undetermined number of Ute deaths, and about $200,000 worth of property damage. |