Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way.
--_Pope_.
When Mormonism was no longer compelled to maintain the defensive it
quickly assumed the offensive. This was apparently deemed necessary
for the existence of the system. Two kinds of preaching were indulged
in by the elders on their missions, home and foreign. At home they
declared the beauty of the Smithian gospel, including the doctrine of
polygamy, a sweet morsel for the blood-thirsty Utes. They were trying
by every means, Machiavellian or otherwise, to gain the Lamanites, as
Indians were called by the Mormons, at least to an extent which would
allow them to remain undisturbed throughout the territory of Utah. Old
Kanosh and other leaders were immersed for the remission of their
sins, but they were permitted to multiply unto themselves as many
squaws as they cared for. It would take water stronger than the common
alkaline pools contained to reach the morals of a heathen Ute.
Very many of the Indians thus were made Mormons and white men were
appointed as their bishops. Brigham Young used to make visits to them
to try to instruct them in various things. For a considerable period
he was the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory. He was
such official at the time of the lamentable Mountain Meadow Massacre,
in 1857, and for which crime Bishop John D. Lee suffered death.
Possibly it was the influence of Mr. Young that kept the most of the
red men from the warpath and thus saved the scattered settlers in the
earlier days when there were so few to guard the isolated homes in the
far-away nooks and cañons of the mountains.
The other sort of preaching in which the elders indulged was that of
an absolute and unqualified denial of polygamy in Utah. Such was the
plan of the elders who went to Europe. The public denial of John
Taylor, later president of the church, is abundant evidence. When they
deny polygamy now they have the consistency of definition to back
them; to their manner of explaining, polygamy is the act of taking new
wives; to the non-Mormon, polygamy is the possessing of more than one
wife. For this reason we are very bold in saying that polygamy is
publicly practiced in Utah--witness Joseph F. Smith as chief example.
Although we may read of it, none can comprehend just what it means to
a girl-wife, two thousand miles away from her parents, to be treated
as an alien, in a land under the flag of the free. This was the case
in the strictly Mormon settlements in Utah thirty years ago. Reason
only kept the Giant Despair from the threshold of the mind. The
bravery of these women can be compared only to the English women of
the Sepoy Rebellion days of 1857 in India, or to those of our American
sisters who accompanied their valorous husbands to their isolated
posts on the Indian frontiers, resolved to share equally in the
dangers, and to die lingeringly and cruelly if necessary. Retreat and
surrender never grew in the hearts of such women. It was so in the
times that were called the "dark days" in Utah--the time when the
government applied its functions to the stamping out of polygamous
practices, 1883 to 1893--ten terrible years for the Mormon as well as
the non-Mormon.
Add to this the fact that, unannounced, a brawny, stalwart Indian
might walk in at the door. More than once has it so occurred in our
home. One day the door was suddenly opened and in walked a grinning
brave, armed with a long knife, and followed by his squaw; extending
his empty hand toward the far-from-home girl-wife, alone in the house,
he said, "How-do!" In telling us of it, she said: "I was scared to
death, I thought, but I would have shaken hands with him if I had died
in the attempt. I would not let him know I feared him." But this was
not Weber Tom.
It was in those fearsome days when the leading men of Utah--farmers,
bankers, stockmen, church dignitaries, all sorts and conditions of the
Latter-Day Saints--were being arrested and haled to the courts almost
daily, that one morning there rode up to our door the battle-scarred
old warrior, Weber Tom, chief of the Skull Valley Utes, or Goshutes.
If perfection is beauty, this Indian was most beautiful, for he was
the ugliest creature imaginable, ugly even to perfection. One eye had
been gouged out, a knife-scar extended from his ear down across his
mouth, and he was Herculean in physical proportions. I am a large man,
but once when I gave him an overcoat he tried vainly to button it over
his vast frontal protuberance, looking at me and saying, "Too short,
too short."
This giant chief dismounted, and, seeing my wife standing near,
reached the reins of the bridle to her and said, "Here, squaw, hol' my
hoss."