THE SAINTS AND THE RED MEN.
Prevalent errors as to the red man--Secret treaties--The policy of
the Mormons towards Indians--A Christian heathen--Fighting-strength
of Indians friendly to Mormons.
I HAPPENED some time ago to repeat, in the presence of two "Gentiles,"
a Mormon's remark that the Indians were more friendly towards the
Saints than towards other Americans, and the comments of the two
gentlemen in question exactly illustrated the two errors which I find
are usually made on this subject.
One said: "Oh, yes, don't you know the Mormons have secret treaties
with the Indians?"
And the other: "And much good may they do them; these wretched Indians
are a half-starved, cricket-eating set, not worth a cent."
Now, I confess that till I came to Utah I had an idea that the Utes
were always "the Indians" that were meant when the friendly relations
of the Mormons with the red men were referred to. About secret treaties
I knew nothing, either one way or the other. But while I was there I
took much pains to arrive at the whole truth--the President of the
Church having very courteously placed the shelves of the Historian's
office at my service--and I found no reference whatever, even in
anti-Mormon literature, to any "secret treaty."
The Mormons themselves scorn the idea and give the following reasons:
1. No treaty made with a tribe of Indians could be kept secret. 2.
There is no necessity for a treaty of any kind, as the dislike of
the Indians to the United States is sufficiently hearty to make them
friendly to the Territory if it came to a choice between the one or the
other. 3. The conciliatory policy of the Church towards the Indians
obviates all necessity for further measures of alliance.
And this I believe to be the fact. Indeed, I know that Mormons can
go where Gentiles cannot, and that under a Mormon escort, lives are
safe in an Indian camp that without it would be in great peril. I know
further that on several occasions (and this is on official record) the
expostulations of Mormons have prevented Indians from raiding--and I
think this ought to be remembered when sinister constructions are put
upon the friendliness of Saints towards the Indians.
From the very first, the Church has inculcated forbearance and
conciliation towards the tribes, and even during the exodus from the
Missouri River, harassed though they sometimes were by Indians, the
Mormons, as a point of policy, always tried to avert a collision by
condoning offences that were committed, instead of punishing them. If
the red men came begging round their waggons they gave them food, and
if they stole--and what Indian will not steal, seeing that theft is
the road to honour among his people?--the theft was overlooked. Very
often, it is true, individual Mormons have avenged the loss of a horse
or a cow by taking a red man's life, but this was always in direct
opposition to the teachings of the Church, which pointed out that
murder in the white man was a worse offence than theft in the red, and
in opposition to the policy of the leaders, who have always insisted
that it was "cheaper to feed than to fight" the Indians. In spite,
however, of this treatment the tribes have again and again compelled
the Mormons to take the field against them, but as a rule the extent
of Mormon retaliation was to catch the plunderers, retake their stolen
stock, hang the actual murderers (if murder had been committed) and
let the remainder go after an amicable pow-wow. Strict justice was
as nearly as possible always adhered to, and whenever their word was
given, that word was kept sacred, even to their own loss.
Both these things, justice and truth, every Indian understands. They do
not practise them, but they appreciate them. Just as among themselves
they chivalrously undertake the support of the squaws and children of a
conquered tribe, or as they never steal property that has been placed
under the charge of one of their own tribe, so when dealing with white
men, they have learned to expect fairness in reprisals and sincerity
in speech. When they find themselves cheated, as they nearly always
are by "Indian agents," they cherish a grudge, and when they suffer an
unprovoked injury (as when emigrants shoot a passing red man just as
they would shoot a passing coyote), they wreak their barbarous revenge
upon the first victims they can find. From the Mormons they have always
received honest treatment, comparative fairness in trade and strict
truthfulness in engagements, while, taking men killed on both sides,
it is a question whether the red men have not killed more Mormons than
Mormons have red men.
During the war of 1865-67, I find, for instance, that all the recorded
deaths muster eighty-seven on the Indian side and seventy-nine on the
Mormon, while the latter, besides losing great numbers of cattle and
horses, having vast quantities of produce destroyed and buildings
burned down, had temporarily to abandon the counties of Piute and
Sevier, as well as the settlements of Berrysville, Winsor, Upper and
Lower Kanab, Shuesberg, Springdale and Northup, and many places in
Kane County, also some settlements in Iron County, while the total
cost of the war was over a million dollars--of which, by the way, the
Government has not repaid a Territory a cent. During the twenty years
preceding 1865 there had been numerous raids upon Mormon settlements,
most of them due to the thoughtless barbarity of passing emigrants; but
as a rule, the only revenge taken by the Mormons was expostulation, and
the despatch of missionaries to them with the Bible, and medicines and
implements of agriculture.
The result to-day is exactly what Brigham Young foresaw. The
Indians look upon the Mormons as suffering with themselves from the
earth-hunger of "Gentiles," and feel a community in wrong with them,
while they consider them different from all other white men in being
fair in their acts and straightforward in their speech. In 1847 a chief
of the Pottawatomies--then being juggled for the second time from a
bad reservation to a worse--came into the camp of the Mormons--then
for the second time flying from one of the most awful persecutions
that ever disgraced any nation--and on leaving spoke as spoke as
follows--(he spoke good French, by the way): "My Mormon brethren,--We
have both suffered. We must help one another, and the Great Spirit
will help us both. You may cut and use all the wood on our lands that
you wish. You may live on any part of it that we are not actually
occupying ourselves. Because one suffers, and does not deserve it, it
is no reason he shall suffer always. We may live to see all well yet.
However, if we do not, our children will. Good-bye."
Now, it strikes me that a Christian archbishop would find it hard
to alter the Red Indian's speech for the better. It is one of the
finest instances of untutored Christianity in history, and contrasts
so strangely with the hideous barbarities that make the history of
Missouri so infamous, that I can easily understand the sympathies of
Mormons being cast in with the Christian heathens they fled to, rather
than the heathen Christians they fled from. Nor from that day to this,
have the Mormons forgotten the hint the Pottawatomie gave them, and on
the ground of common suffering and by the example of a mutual sympathy
have kept up such relations with the Indians, even under exasperation,
that the red man's lodge is now open to the Mormon when it is closed to
the Gentile.
What necessity, then, have the Mormons for secret treaties With
the Indians? None whatever. The Indians have learned by the last
half-century's experience that every "treaty" made with them has only
proved a fraud towards their ruin, while during the same period they
have learned that the word of the Mormons, who never make treaties, can
be relied upon. So if the Saints were now to begin making treaties,
they would probably fall in the estimation of the Indians to the level
of the American Government, and participate in the suspicion which the
latter has so industriously worked to secure, and has so thoroughly
secured.
The other error commonly made as to the Indians is to underestimate
their strength. Now the Navajoes alone could bring into the field
10,000 fighting men; and, besides these, there are (specially friendly
to the Mormons) the Flatheads, the Shoshonees, the Blackfeet, the
Bannocks, part of the Sioux, and a few Apaches, with, of course, the
Utes of all kinds. The old instinct for the war-path is by no means
dead, as the recent troubles in the south of Arizona give dismal proof;
and a Mormon invitation would be quite sufficient to bring all "the
Lamanites" together into the Wasatch Mountains.
That any such idea is ever entertained by Mormons I heartily repudiate.
But I think it worth while to point out, that--if the influence of
the Mormons on the Indians is considered of sufficient importance
to base the charge of treasonable alliance upon it--it is quite
illogical to sneer at that influence as making no difference in the
case of difficulties arising. But as a point of fact, the Mormons have
no other secret in their relations with the red men than that they
treat them with consideration, and make allowances for their ethical
obliquities; and further, as a point of fact also, these same tribes,
"the Lamanites" of the Book of Mormon, "the Lost Tribes," are in
themselves so formidable that under white leadership they would make a
very serious accession of strength to any public enemy that should be
able to enlist them.