The period following early settlement was marked by Indian troubles with
both Paiutes and Navajos. These are sometimes called the Navajo raids,
and in part were an outgrowth of the “Black Hawk War” which broke out in
Sevier Valley, central Utah, in 1865. The whites had brought with them
their livestock, which they grazed upon the public domain, turning the
cattle and horses loose and herding the sheep. These animals multiplied
rapidly and quickly depleted the edible fruits and seeds upon which the
Indians subsisted. Indian resentment not unnaturally was inflamed, and
with starvation staring them in the face, there was little left for them
to do but beg or steal.
The Indians had claimed the lands, the vegetation and the wild game, and
although they had given the first white men permission to come, yet so
many others had followed, like the proverbial camel’s nose, that they
were destroying the means of subsistence of the Indians. Not only were
seeds and fruits being eaten by the livestock, but game also was getting
scarce and hard to find, due largely to encroachment of cattle and sheep
which were taking the place of deer upon the range. The white man hunted
the Indians’ deer so why should not the Indian hunt the white man’s
cattle? There was some compensation to the Indians, however; they could
glean in the grain fields of the settlers and gather waste grain as
easily as they could seeds, and pine nut crops were uninjured by the
whites.
Gradually, friendly feelings of the Indians for the settlers began to
deteriorate. Begging in the settlements and the depredations on the
range increased. The Paiutes in some instances aided and abetted the
raiding Navajos, but the majority sided with the whites. The Navajos
were wont to cross the Colorado, scatter into small bands, make swift
raids on the Mormon settlements, gather up horses, cattle and sheep, and
flee back across the river before they could be overtaken.
From the beginning a military force had been held in readiness against
any emergency. As the southern Utah settlements expanded, improvements
in this organization became advisable. In May, 1864, the Iron Military
District was recast to include Beaver, Iron, Washington and Kane
counties and William H. Dame of Parowan was named adjutant. Nearly all
the eligible men were enrolled and companies of fifty were organized in
towns wherever that many were available. Companies consisted of five
platoons of ten men each, the first platoon of each company often being
cavalry, the balance infantry. Three companies made a battalion and
about seven battalions made a brigade. The men were occasionally called
together for inspection and drill and sometimes these included battalion
or brigade reviews. Training was emphasized during the Indian troubles
between 1865 and 1869. On February 17, 1866, Erastus Snow, the Mormon
leader at St. George, was elected Brigadier General and brigade
headquarters were transferred from Parowan to St. George.
The Black Hawk War broke out in 1865 and was not settled until 1868.
Nearly 3,000 men were enlisted and the cost was over a million dollars
and at least seventy lives. This Ute unrest was contagious, and the
Paiutes in turn were stirred into sporadic resistance.
Hostilities in the south began late in 1865, when, on December 18, a
number of Paiutes raided Kanab and made away with some horses. During
that winter Dr. James M. Whitmore and his son-in-law, Robert McIntyre,
were herding sheep in the vicinity of Pipe Springs. Soon after the first
of the new year, a band of Navajos and Paiutes stole a herd of
Whitmore’s sheep. The next day the two men went in pursuit and failed to
return. This was reported to St. George and a cavalry detachment was
organized under Captain David H. Cannon. As his force appeared
inadequate, he sent an appeal from Pipe Springs for additional support.
D. D. McArthur came from St. George to take charge and brought with him
forty-seven men under James Andrus with wagons and supplies for an
extended trip designed to drive the Navajos across the Colorado River.
When they arrived at Pipe Springs, the snow was two feet deep and no
trace of the sheep or men could be found. On January 18, they came upon
the tracks of two Paiute Indians following a large steer, tracked them
until sundown, and captured the Indians in the act of killing the beef.
After questioning and torture, hanging by the heels and twisting of
thumbs, one of the Indians admitted that he had dreamed that Navajos had
been there and then revealed the whereabouts of a camp of Indians about
ten miles out. A detachment was sent and found that it had been moved
another five miles. The militia overtook the camp about sunrise on
January 20, killing two Indians and capturing five.
Third degree methods elicited information about the killing of Whitmore
and McIntyre. The captives led another detachment to the scene of the
killings, where the posse crisscrossed the area on horseback, uncovering
the arm of one of the victims in the deep snow. Both bodies had bullet
wounds and were riddled with arrows. They had been killed on January 10.
A wagon was sent after the bodies. While the men were recovering the
remains the other detachment with the five Indian prisoners arrived.
These had in their possession much of the clothing and personal effects
of the murdered men. The evidence of guilt seemed conclusive, so the
Indians were turned loose and shot as they attempted to run. The Navajos
who probably assisted in the killing escaped. The sheep could not be
found and it was assumed the Navajos had taken them across the Colorado
River. As pursuit was impossible because of the deep snow the party
returned home. Charles L. Walker of St. George records in his diary:
They were brought home in a wagon load of snow, frozen stiff and in a
good state of preservation. I, with others, washed them and pulled out
the arrow points from their bodies and dressed them in their burial
robes. Also went to the funeral, which was attended by a large
concourse of people.[70]
On February 19, 1866, two days after Erastus Snow was elected Brigadier
General, Peter Shurtz, who had built a station at Paria and had kept
about twenty Indians around him all winter, reported that he had lost
his cattle and wished to move into the settlements. He also reported
Navajos camped on Paria River about eight miles below his ranch where
the Ute trail reached the stream.
Further information indicated that the Navajos were concentrated east of
the Colorado at Cottonwood, intending to raid Kane County in force and
that Captain James Andrus with thirty men had gone to Paria to get Peter
Shurtz and his family and to reconnoiter. No report of this expedition
is available, but a letter written by L. W. Roundy from Kanab on March
9, 1866, tells that Andrus had left Paria fourteen days earlier headed
for an Indian camp twelve miles south.[71] At Kanab, three Indians had
attempted to kill Oren Clark in the bottoms near the fort and had
started to drive off the livestock. Four men from the fort rushed in
pursuit and after dark recovered about thirty head of cattle, but the
Indians escaped with about an equal number.
The Indian menace was so serious by this time that Erastus Snow ordered
all stock in the region south of St. George and the Virgin River as far
east as Kanab removed to the north and west of the lines of settlements
so that it would be easier to ward off Navajo attacks. This was a
difficult task because the grazing was poor around the settlements and
the mountains to the northwest were already filled with livestock.
The threat from the Utes in upper Sevier Valley also became acute.
Menacing behavior of the Indians in this area and in the Kanab region
led to an order from Utah headquarters to General Erastus Snow (March
15) to send a company of men from Beaver and Iron counties over to the
Sevier River to build and man an outpost between Circleville and
Panguitch. A company of 76 men led by Captain Silas S. Smith served here
from March 21 to November 30, 1866. They established Fort Sanford about
ten miles north of Panguitch and assisted settlers at Circleville to
move to safety. At Panguitch, they helped the settlers transform the
town into a fort.
In the meantime, gathering the livestock from the exposed range was
proceeding slowly. A party sent out from Rockville in April to round up
the stock in the vicinity of Maxwell’s Ranch, found the bodies of two
men, a woman, and an Indian, killed a few days before. When the bodies
were brought in to Grafton, it was ascertained that they were young
Robert Berry, his wife, Isabel, and his brother, Joe, who were coming
home to Berryville in Long Valley via the Dixie settlements and the
Arizona Strip (a roundabout way, but the only wagon route at the time).
They had left the Maxwell Ranch on Short Creek on April 2, 1866 when
some Indians (presumably Paiutes), ambushed them.
According to verbal reports, as related by Mrs. John Dennett of
Rockville (then a girl living in Long Valley and who pieced her story
from Indian and white sources), the Berrys fought for their lives. The
Indians shot one of the horses, rendering the wagon useless. In the
fighting, one Indian was shot. Joe Berry loosened the other horse and
tried to escape but was killed in so doing. The Indians closed in and
captured Robert and his wife. They tied Robert to a wheel where he was
forced to watch them torture Isabel, who was an expectant mother. They
shot arrows into her and laughed at her as she tried to pull them out.
Then they shot him full of arrows. Mrs. Dennett said her father always
felt that the Berrys had been killed in revenge for some Indians slain
by Long Valley men who had found them roasting a beef. At that time
three were slain: an Indian, a squaw and a papoose.
When the Berry tragedy was reported in St. George, orders were issued
forbidding travel unless in groups large enough to provide adequate
safeguards. This led to the declaration of martial law, May 2, 1866, and
to the issuance of instructions to concentrate the settlers in fortified
places of at least 150 men. Patrols were ordered out in various
directions, especially across the trails used by the Navajos in raiding
the Mormon country and in contacting the rampaging Utes of Sevier
County.
When Silas S. Smith, stationed on the Sevier, heard of the Berry
massacre, he found that the Paiute chief at Panguitch had known about it
for five days without reporting it to him. Smith at once ordered pickets
to bring in all passing Indians for questioning. Friendly Indians
responded willingly enough, but when two strange Indians refused, a
skirmish resulted in which one was killed and the other wounded.
Smith decided to disarm the local Indians and surrounded one of their
camps near Panguitch one morning before daylight and took their arms.
Two visiting Indians were missing from the camp so he kept a guard
awaiting their arrival. When they came, they showed fight. One of them
was killed, whereupon the other surrendered. The next day Smith
surrounded another camp soon after sunrise, but the natives had already
fled. However, in the ensuing melee two more Indians were killed. The
arms taken from them included several guns, many new arrows, and a peck
of new arrow heads. Some escaped to Panguitch Lake and spread the alarm
among the Indians there.
General Snow had a number of chiefs from Panguitch, Parowan, and Red
Creek brought to Parowan for conference. He tried to pacify them with
arguments and presents but insisted that they must not have arms or
ammunition and must have passes in order to travel through the Mormon
settlements. This aroused some resentment, but on April 25, 1866, they
agreed to leave their weapons at Parowan as a token of friendship. Some
of the Indians reported gunfire around Upper Kanab where Col. W. B.
Maxwell was on lookout for Navajos.
With the declaration of martial law and the order to concentrate
settlers in large towns, the outlying ranchers and people from the
smaller villages began to move into Toquerville, Virgin and Rockville.
In June, General Snow decided to abandon Long Valley. Mrs. John Dennett,
who made the trek as a girl, recalled the line of wagons leaving Long
Valley with armed guards in front and rear. While crossing the sand
hills between there and Kanab, a small boy was run over and killed. A
halt was made while the child was buried in the sand, but the exigencies
of the situation forbade longer delay and the weeping mother was hastily
torn from the fresh grave.
The settlers’ train passed Kanab to the left and pushed on toward Pipe
Springs. Near the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon (June 27) they ran into an
ambush of Indians who, for some unexplained reason, failed to attack. J.
M. Higbee reports[72] that they called to the Indians to come in and
talk or be shot. They came in and talked. According to Mrs. Dennett,
there were seven or nine Indians taken into Pipe Springs for a council
of war. The wagons were driven into a large circle, as was customary in
times of danger, the Indians inside the circle in the center of the
group of whites. Higbee says the Indians were told that if any more were
found along the route of the caravan they would be shot. Mrs. Dennett
adds that some of the Indians had guns and clothes belonging to the
Berry boys, which greatly enraged a brother of the dead men, who pleaded
to be allowed to revenge his kin. After this, no more Indians were seen
on the trip.
In the late summer of 1866, Captain James Andrus[73] was ordered to
investigate Indian routes crossing the Colorado River in the rough
country between the Kaibab and the mouth of the Green River. A group of
men was mustered into service from the Virgin River settlements at
Gould’s Ranch, twenty-six miles east of St. George, August 16, and moved
on to Pipe Springs two days later, where final preparations were made.
On the 21st, forty-six mounted men, each equipped with a rifle and two
pistols, and with a pack horse bearing forty days’ rations for each
pair, started northeast toward the rough country. They went via
abandoned Kanab and Scutumpah to the Paria River six miles above Paria
settlement where they met another contingent of their party. Two days
later, Joseph Fish with eighteen men arrived from Iron county. They
located the Ute trail which passed down the Paria to the Colorado.
Elijah Averett, sent back with some of the surplus animals, was killed
by Indians in the hills west of Paria.
On August 29, the main party went northeast through the hills south of
the Aquarius Plateau into a valley where they found wild potatoes
growing (hence named Potato Valley, now Escalante Valley). They climbed
the Plateau and looked off into the wild country stretching to the mouth
of the Green River. Convinced that there was no use in going farther,
they retraced their march on September 2, traveled to the northwest
corner of the plateau, descended to the Sevier River Valley and reached
Circleville. They had been pathbreakers from Paria to this point. From
here they returned via Parowan and Cedar City.
The settlements were now prepared for attack. An Indian raid was made on
John D. Lee’s ranch near Beaver on October 23, 1866, and in November,
General Snow learned that the Navajos were concentrating east of the
Colorado for new raids on Kane County. Soon a friendly Paiute reported
that the Navajos were nearing Pipe Springs.
The crops planted in Long Valley had been left in the care of friendly
Paiutes when the settlers left. In the fall, the Berry boys and others
went back to harvest the best crop that had yet been grown there. It
took several trips to haul the produce to the Dixie settlements. During
their last trip, Snow received a report of an attack of sixteen Navajos
on three white men at Maxwell’s Ranch, in which Enoch Dodge was wounded.
Snow sent men to Long Valley and instructed A. P. Winsor to throw an
intercepting force between the settlements and the fords of the
Colorado, to recover lost stock and find out whether the raiders were
Navajos or Paiutes. He was promised that other men would be held in
readiness if needed.
While this force was on the road, the Long Valley party started home
with a wagon train. On October 31, when the teams were spread out
doubling up Elephant hall, about nine miles south of Mt. Carmel, Indians
attacked near the summit and shot Hyrum Stevens. The pioneers abandoned
the train and left everything in the hands of the Indians. Stevens was
taken with the others on horseback (with a man behind to hold him in
place) around the head of Zion Canyon on a three-day trip over the Old
Indian Trail and down over Kolob to Virgin. He survived the ordeal and
returned to his home at Rockville, where he lived to a ripe old age.
When a rescue party under Captain Sixtus E. Johnson arrived a week
later, November 5, they found the wagons unattended, tongues broken and
contents scattered. The Indians had taken five yoke of oxen, eleven
horses and everything they could carry, including harness, flour and
wheat. Four Paiutes, however, had pursued the Navajos and recaptured the
cattle and harness.
Finding the teamsters gone, Johnson gathered up the livestock that had
scattered back along the way to Long Valley. Then a second rescue party
under Major Russell from Rockville arrived with the Paiutes who had
retrieved the harness and cattle. They took the caravan into Virgin,
arriving November 11.
On November 26, Major John Steele reported signal fires on the mountain
south of Virgin City and General Snow issued an order to establish posts
at the mouth of (Black) Rock Canyon sixteen miles southeast of St.
George and near Gould’s Ranch, eight miles south of Virgin City.[74] The
men at these posts were to serve as guards as well as herders of
livestock and were to build stone quarters; the “house to be covered
with stone flagging or earth in a manner that it cannot be fired from
the outside, with but one door and that heavy and strongly barred, so
that one or two men, well armed, may defend themselves against any
number of Indians.”
Despite these precautions, the Navajos scattered in small bands, easily
passed through the military posts, and hid in the mountains north of St.
George. On the evening of December 28, word reached Harrisburg from
local Paiutes that some Navajos had killed and dried three beeves
between Grapevine Springs and Toquerville. Captain J. D. L. Pearce, with
fifteen men from Washington, at once took up their trail along
Harrisburg Creek toward Pine Valley Mountain but failed to overtake
them.
In the meantime, on December 28, near Pine Valley, Cyrus Hancock saw
three Indians skulking on the range and called to them. The Indians
proved hostile and tried to capture him. One seized his horse’s bit and
another tried to shoot him with an arrow. He slid off his horse and ran
toward Pine Valley, the Indians in pursuit. One of them shot him in the
arm with an arrow. He stumbled and fell as they yelled in triumph, but
he regained his footing and outran them into the valley. These Indians
were thought to have been hiding around the town for two or three days,
quietly gathering stock. As soon as discovered, they left with about
thirty horses and passed down the Black Ridge between St. George and
Middleton on the night of December 28, gathering more horses at both
places and hastening southwest via Fort Pearce Wash.
Col. D. D. McArthur immediately ordered out all available cavalry in
pursuit of the thieves, who had an entire day’s start. An expedition of
thirty men headed by Lt. Copelan followed the Indian trail from the
Washington Fields past Fort Pearce, through Black Rock Canyon and out
toward Pipe Springs where it met another detachment returning from an
Indian encounter.
Captains J. D. L. Pearce and James Andrus were at Harrisburg on the
evening of December 29, when an express carrying instructions to Colonel
Winsor at Rockville arrived. Upon reading the instructions they started
for Rockville and arrived at dawn. Thirty men gathered and pushed on to
Maxwell’s ranch where they arrived that evening. After resting an hour,
they hastened on to Cedar Ridge and five miles southeast of Pipe
Springs. Sixtus E. Johnson spotted the smoke of Indian fires curling up
in the distance, about half a mile from the place where Whitmore and
McIntyre had been killed. The men slipped into a wash and kept out of
sight until within gunshot of the Indians, when they made a dash to get
between them and their horses. Firing opened and the Indians took to the
rocks. The skirmish lasted nearly an hour and covered a rough area half
a mile wide and three miles long. The thirteen Navajos in the band
refused to yield even when cornered, and several died fighting. During
the fray an arrow aimed at Captain Andrus struck his horse in the
forehead, saving the rider. One mortally wounded Indian continued to
shoot until he fainted. Another, wounded in both legs, fired until his
arrows were spent and then kept twanging his bow as if shooting as long
as the fray lasted.
When all was quiet the whites gathered together and found that none was
injured. Two Indians who had escaped came out on a hill some distance
away where they felt safe and slapped their seats in derision and yelled
“Squaw! Squaw!” in defiance. A man named Warren, from Pine Valley, who
had an extra long range breechloading gun took a chance shot and brought
one of them down. The other fled.
Of the thirteen Indians, four were killed, seven wounded and two
escaped, only one on horseback. Three horses were lost, but the balance
and the thirteen cattle were recovered and brought back. Copelan’s party
returned on January 1, 1867 but Pearce and Andrus tarried two or three
days longer. General Snow was in Salt Lake City at the time and his
responsibility fell largely upon Captain J. D. L. Pearce and Adjutant
Henry Eyring, his assistant.
The concentration in the larger towns and the military control of the
movements of people in the region tended to reduce the danger to the
settlers. Tension with the local Paiute Indians was gradually eased,
although the Navajo raids continued for several years. Jacob Hamblin,
Utah’s “Leatherstocking,” played an important role in quieting the
Paiutes. In the fall of 1867, he was instructed to keep in touch with
the Indians and do his best to pacify them. He went to Kanab, where he
helped them plant corn and vegetables and had peace parleys with them,
urging the Paiutes to cooperate in preventing Navajo raids by watching
the fords of the Colorado and the trails leading to the settlements.
In November, 1868, a band of about thirty Navajos crossed the river on
foot on a marauding expedition. They divided into squads of two or three
and worked at night in different quarters so rapidly as to baffle the
pickets. They got away with some stock, although twenty-seven horses
were recovered from them on the 25th at Black Canyon, by Andrus and his
command.
Notice of their presence came on November 22 from Henry Jennings to
Erastus Snow at St. George. The next day local Indians reported tracks
around St. George, and General Snow ordered the livestock along the
Virgin gathered together and herded under armed guard. He placed pickets
along the river for fifteen miles and sent Col. J. D. L. Pearce with a
company of cavalry to guard the rough country passes from Black Rock
Canyon (25 miles southeast of St. George) to Pipe Springs. Two days
later, word came from Washington that the Navajos had made off with a
band of horses via Black Rock Canyon. On the night of the 26th, a party
of these Indians with about twenty horses eluded the guards not far from
Pipe Springs and made their way eastward. A detachment under Captain
Willis Copelan started in pursuit. He chased the Navajos and was about
to overtake them, but before he attacked, some friendly Paiutes
encountered the Navajos, gave battle and killed two. They recovered the
horses and willingly turned them over to Copelan on his arrival. The
Paiutes were rewarded with suitable presents.
By December 1, 1868 Pearce concluded that the Navajos had decamped, and
started home, moving from Pipe Springs to Cedar Ridge. On that same day,
however, Erastus Snow received word from J. W. Young on the Muddy River
in Nevada, sixty miles below St. George, that the Navajos had run off
with eighteen horses and mules. Snow sent word to Pearce to be on his
guard. A posse of whites and Paiutes set out in pursuit from Mesquite.
The Indians overtook the Navajos and recovered eleven of the horses.
The messenger carrying this news reached Col. Pearce at Cedar Ridge at 4
a.m., December 2, and at daybreak scouts were sent out. Captain Freeman
found their trail and started after them with several men, being joined
by Captain Copelan. They sighted the Navajos’ dust, but could not
overtake them and the chase had to be abandoned.
A raid in February 1869 caused such concern that another expedition
(February 25 to March 12) of thirty-six men, under the leadership of
Captain Willis Copelan was sent out to deal with it.[75] As usual, the
Navajos struck swiftly and fled before the expedition arrived. At Pipe
Springs, Copelan watched the passes, hunted the surrounding region for
the raiders and found they had gone east. On March 1, with twenty men he
started in pursuit of the raiders. About eight miles out he struck a
trail where the Indians had been driving about fifty head of cattle.
During the next five days he followed the trail around the north end of
Buckskin Mountain (Kaibab) across Paria and Warm Springs Creek to the
old Ute ford on the Colorado River. Finding the quarry had escaped, he
returned home, arriving at St. George March 12.
During the fall, fresh raids by the Navajos created yet another scare. A
band raided settlements north of St. George and drove off stock. This
time Colonel James Andrus was detailed to lead a foray against the
marauders. He started up the Virgin River gathering fourteen recruits.
Then he went to Pipe Springs where he received word that another band of
Navajos had raided near Pinto. He hastened toward Pinto to intercept
them, passing via Kanab and Scutumpah. Near Paria, he found a trail
where some Navajos had escaped with an estimated eighty head of
livestock. Here Andrus learned that the Paiutes had attacked and wounded
a Navajo in a running fight, and that other raiders were on the way back
from Pinto.
Andrus and his men waited until November 10 and finding no signs of the
Indians, started home. The detachment had not gone far when they
encountered a fresh Navajo trail made by an estimated twelve horses and
two men. They caught up with the Indians early the next day just as they
were passing into a narrow gorge of the Paria canyon. There were
actually eight Indians with twelve horses, traveling leisurely. Under
the detachment’s fire, two Navajos fell; the rest disappeared into the
narrows. A few minutes later they re-appeared on the canyon cliffs on
both sides of Andrus’ force. Bullets from the Indian rifles soon
convinced Andrus that discretion was the better part of valor and he
retired.
The Navajos were adroit raiders. In rounding up stock they would often
camouflage themselves with bush foliage, crawling past the unsuspecting
guards to stampede the herd. Or they would skin a young steer, leaving
hoofs and horns in place and throw the hide over a brace of Indians, who
would steal to the corral under cover of darkness, let down the bars,
and quietly drive the stock away.
These raids were costly. Not only did the settlers live in constant
fear, but a heavy toll of livestock, estimated in 1869 at 1200 horses
and cattle, was taken. Men had to be continually on the alert and
peaceful pursuits were interrupted to furnish posses to chase the
Indians. When Major J. W. Powell of the U. S. Geological Survey was
exploring the Kanab region in 1870, he expressed grave concern about the
losses the Mormon settlers were suffering because of the raids.[76] In
October, Jacob Hamblin decided to accompany Major Powell on a peace
mission to the Navajos when the latter was leaving to return to
Washington, DC.[77] They reached Fort Defiance in eastern Arizona at a
time when 6,000 Navajos were gathered there for their annual allotments
from the Federal government.
All the Navajo chiefs but one were present and met in council to
consider Hamblin’s proposal. Powell introduced Hamblin by saying that he
represented the Mormons from the other side of the Colorado River who
were helping to pay the taxes from which the annual allotments to the
Navajos were made. Hamblin, in turn, pointed to the disastrous
consequences of the war and the advantages of peace. Through war the
Navajos had lost twenty or thirty men; with peace they could herd their
livestock in distant places where forage was good without fear of
molestation. He proposed, in place of war, a peaceful settlement of
difficulties and trade with the Mormons.
After several days of consultation, peace was agreed upon. The council
appointed one of the chiefs, Hastele, who lived near the Colorado River,
as negotiator who ended by saying, “We hope we may be able to eat at one
table, be warmed by one fire, smoke one pipe and sleep under one
blanket.” Thus was peace promised, though it was soon again to be put in
jeopardy. Hamblin reached Kanab with the good news about December 11,
1870.[78]
Within a few weeks, a group of eighty Navajos arrived at Kanab on a
trading expedition. They came on foot and brought all the Navajo
blankets they could carry. They scattered among the settlements and
traded their blankets for horses and returned well satisfied with the
experiment.
Peaceful trading continued until the winter of 1873-74, when a party of
four young Navajos was caught in a snowstorm near a ranch in Grass
Valley, Sevier County. They made themselves at home at the ranch and
even killed a small animal for food. The owner of the ranch, said to be
a non-Mormon, learned of their presence and gathered some of his friends
to go with him to investigate. At the ranch, they shot and killed three
of the Indians and wounded the fourth, who escaped and after painful
hardships made his way home.[79]
His story inflamed Navajo vengefulness and disquieting reports reached
the Mormons of threatened reprisals. Brigham Young asked Hamblin to
visit the Navajos again and satisfy them that the Mormons were not
involved in the outrage. Bishop Levi Stewart of Kanab, however, tried to
dissuade Hamblin and even sent a messenger to induce him to return after
he had started, urging that the risk was too great.
Firm in his purpose, Hamblin went his way and met the Navajos east of
Moencopi, about January 29, 1874. Hastele, the representative appointed
by the Navajos, was not there, but other influential Indians considered
Hamblin’s statement. The war council was held in a Navajo hogan, to
which there was but one entrance opposite Hamblin and his two
companions, while two dozen Navajos occupied the space between.
Hamblin’s explanation of the killings was at first rejected on the
ground that it was he who had invited the Navajos to come into the
Mormon country to trade, with the result that three of their good young
men now lay on the ground “for the wolves to eat.” The interpreter told
Hamblin his companions could go home, but he must die. The moment was
tense. His companions refused to leave him. Without arousing suspicion,
Hamblin passed several revolvers to his friends, saying as he did so,
“These are in my way.” The men behind unobtrusively readied them in case
of emergency. Hamblin reminded the Indians of his many friendly acts, of
his willingness to come into their midst to settle the matter, and told
them it was not right to kill him for the acts of strangers for whom he
was not responsible. The wounded Indian was brought in. A stirring
appeal for revenge was made by a young warrior, who demanded that
Hamblin be the victim.
The Indians, however, after the excitement subsided, offered to settle
for three hundred and fifty horses and cattle. Hamblin deliberately
refused. One of them remarked that he would agree after he had been
stretched over the hot coals of the fire. The interpreter asked if he
were not afraid. “No,” he said, “my heart has never known fear. What is
there to scare me?” “The Navajos,” was their answer, to which he replied
that he “was not afraid of his friends.” Mollified, the Indians finally
agreed to leave the matter to be settled by Hastele after an
investigation.
Late that spring, Hastele and his party visited Kanab and were piloted
to Sevier Valley where their findings convinced them that the Mormons
were innocent. Thus ended the last threat to peaceful relations with the
Navajos. Thereafter, both groups traded on good terms largely due to the
outstanding bravery and cool judgment of Jacob Hamblin.