MILITARY RECONNAISSANCE IN SOUTHERN UTAH, 1866 EDITED BY C GREGORY C R A M P T O N
The extension of American rule in 1848 over the region and the rapid colonization by the Mormons after 1847 posed serious problems for the Indians living on both sides of the canyon country of the Colorado River basin. On the eastern side American relations with the Navajos ran a stormy course until a majority of the tribe was starved out of their stronghold in Canyon de Chelly and exiled to Bosque Redondo in 1864. In 1868 the Indians were permitted to return and were assigned to a reservation astride the Arizona-New Mexico boundary. During the course of the warfare and exile, many Navajos fled into the canyon lands of the San Juan country. Others worked their way westward toward the Colorado River and crossed it to raid the settlements on the advancing Mormon frontier, which was already plagued with Indian difficulties. The Mormons in pushing their settlements southward through central Utah had early encountered Indian resistance. The Walker War, 1853-54, was followed in 1865 by a general outbreak of the Utes in central Utah and of the Paiutes in southern Utah and northern Arizona. This uprising, called the Black Hawk War, caused a serious retraction of the Mormon frontier and cost many lives before it was brought to an end by the Utah Territorial Militia in 1868. During the war the Navajos crossed the Colorado, often teamed up with the Paiutes in the fight against the southern settlements, and did not make a general peace until 1870. The war in the south began when Navajos early in 1865 stole some horses at Kanab. More serious incidents followed. J. M. Whitmore and Robert Mclntyre were killed near Pipe Spring in January 1866; a few months later the Berry family was killed in Long Valley. Martial law was now proclaimed; outlying settlements were abandoned; and units of the Iron Military District, Utah Territorial Militia, were sent against the maurauders. During the course of its campaigns the militia explored much new territory bordering the canyon country of the Colorado River. When Dr. C r a m p t o n is professor of history at the University of U t a h and associate editor of The American West. T h e author is grateful for the assistance provided by Robert W. Inscore, registrar, Military Records Section of the U t a h State Archives, and Preston W. Parkinson, historian of the Woolley family, Salt Lake City. At Cannonville, U t a h , O. Wilford Clark, whose grandfather Samuel Newton Adair was in the 1866 campaign, kindly supplied much information and directed the author to the grave of Elijah Averett. Field research undertaken for this article was supported by a grant from the University of U t a h Research Fund.
