Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, Number 3, 1992

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UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY (ISSN 0042-143X)

EDITORIAL STAFF

MAX J EVANS, Editor

STANFORD J LAYTON, Managing Editor

MIRIAM B MURPHY, Associate Editor

ADVISORY BOARD OF EDITORS

KENNETH L GANNON II, Salt Lake City, 1992

ARLENE H EAKLE, Woods Cross, 1993

AUDREY M GODFREY, Logan, 1994

JOEL C JANETSKI, Provo, 1994

ROBERT S MCPHERSON, Blanding, 1992

RICHARD W SADLER, Ogden, 1994

HAROLD SCHINDLER, Salt Lake City, 1993

GENE A. SESSIONS, Ogden, 1992

GREGORY C. THOMPSON, Salt Lake City, 1993

Utah Historical Quarterly was established in 1928 to publish articles, docufnents, and reviews contributing to knowledge of Utah's history. The Quarterly is published four times a year by the Utah State Historical Society, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101. Phone (801) 533-6024 for membership and publications information. Members of the Society receive the Quarterly, Beehive History, and the bimonthly Newsletter upon payment of the annual dues: individual, $15.00; institution, $20.00; student and senior citizen (age sixty-five or over), $10.00; contributing, $20.00; sustaining, $25.00; patron, $50.00; business, $100.00

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I WANTED TO BE A CHAPLAIN: A REMINISCENCE OF

THE COVER Summer means parades arid celebrations. These Richfield, Utah, women used flags, bunting, fancy dress, and a variety of musical instruments a mandolin, two guitars, and a type of lyre are visible to create a colorful parade entry. USHS collections, courtesy of Charles M. Hansen.

© Copyright 1992

Utah State Historical Society

SUMMER 1992 / VOLUME 60 / NUMBER 3 IN THIS ISSUE 199 THE PHANTOM PATHFINDER: JUAN MARIA ANTONIO DE RIVERA AND HIS EXPEDITION G. CLELL JACOBS 200 NEW LIGHT ON THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS CARAVAN ROGER V. LOGAN,JR 224 CANYONS, COWS, AND CONFLICT: A NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY OF MONTEZUMA CANYON, 1874-1933 ROBERT S MCPHERSON 238 "UNTIL DISSOLVED BYCONSENT .": THE WESTERN RIVER GUIDES ASSOCIATION ROY WEBB 259
HISTORICA L QUARTERL Y Contents
WORLD WAR II EUGENE E. CAMPBELL 277 BOOKREVIEWS 285 BOOKNOTICES 293

JAMES C. WORK Following Where the River Begins: A Personal Essay on an Encounter with the Colorado River. GARY TOPPING 285

RICHARD W. ETULAIN, ED. Writing Western History: Essays on Major Western Historians.

GERALD D. NASH Creating the WestHistorical Interpretations, 1890-1990 ALLAN KENT POWELL 286

ALLAN KENT POWELL Utah Remembers World War II WAYNE K. HINTON 288

ANDREW ROLLE. John Charles Fremont: Character as Destiny RICHARD H. JACKSON 289

RICHARD E. JENSEN, R. ELI PAUL, AND JOHN E CARTER Eyewitness at Wounded Knee BRAD W. RICHARDS 290

BRIGHAM Y CARD ET AL., EDS. The Mormon Presence in Canada

KLAUS J. HANSEN 291

Books reviewed

In this issue

It may be that, as Henry James claimed, "the historian, essentially, wants more documents than he can really use." Nevertheless, when new documentary evidence changes or expands our knowledge of the past the historian's craving justifies itself, as the first two articles in this issue demonstrate. When Juan Maria Antonio de Rivera's 1765 journal of his two entradas into the southeast corner of present Utah came to light in 1975, Clell Jacobs began field research based on this new information that led to a reassessment of the daring explorer's importance to the development of commerce on the Old Spanish Trail Similarly, the recent discovery of sworn statements in the National Archives by family and friends of Mountain Meadows Massacre victims made it possible to present the clearest picture to date of the Arkansas emigrants who were slain

More typical of the historian's documentary fodder, organizational records—supplemented by interviews with key individuals—bring to life, in the third article, the colorful history of the Western River Guides Association and its contribution to river running safety and the protection of our wild rivers Federal documents, another staple, form the research base of the next piece, a history of Native American use of Montezuma Canyon in SanJuan County that persisted despite conflict with whites.

Finally, die reminiscence of an LDS chaplain in World War II, later a leading Utah historian, offers a unique personal perspective of one of the signal events of the twentieth century. It also presents the historian as the creator of a document, a twist that Henry James would have appreciated.

La tinaja, a watersource used byearly travelers. Courtesy of G.ClellJacobs.

The Phantom Pathfinder: Juan Maria Antonio de Rivera and His Expedition

tf'feR >ll'^: .
Valley oftheArroyo Seco, Rivera'sfirst day out ofAbiquiu, New Mexico.Allphotographs courtesy ofauthor. Mr Jacobs, a retired scientist in the aerospace industry and a long-time historian, lives in Las

As MANY COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD CELEBRATE the quincentenary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of the Western Hemisphere, increased interest is being shown in explorations made by other intrepid men into uncharted areas One such venture came in the year 1765 under command of DonJuan Maria Antonio de Rivera, a citizen of New Spain and probably a resident of the Province of New Mexico.

New Mexico wasfirst explored by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in the years 1540 to 1542. During the remainder of the sixteenth century numerous expeditions were conducted throughout what is now New Mexico and Arizona until a permanent colony was established by Don Juan de Onate in 1598. From then until 1760 Spanish officials launched several military missions to punish native groups that created trouble for the empire; yet little concrete information was obtained about the territory to the northwest of the capital, that of the Ute nations.

Expeditions to trade or explore beyond the frontiers required a license or a commission limited bya royal order that had existed since the early days of the New Spain era. Although that order prohibited travel to the country of the Ute nations, at least one group was known to have disregarded that decree and was known to have carried on contraband trade; it was from them that Rivera was able to obtain guides

But the decade of the 1760swas a new time. Charles III ascended the throne in 1759 amid turmoil and confusion following decades of wars in Europe. Those entanglements had so drained the Spanish treasury that little financial support was available for overseas ventures, either military or civil New Spain in particular was beset by rumors of corruption in the viceroyalty and the military.

Seeing the necessity for reform and redirection, the new king sent DonJose de Galves to New Spain to promote reforms in the government and the military. He also dispatched the Marques de Rubi to inspect interior presidios and recommend improvements in the conduct of military affairs Rubi and his constant companion Nicholas de Lafora, both members of the Royal Corps of Engineers, traveled to every sector of the viceroyalty of New Spain to learn more about that vast, generally unexplored frontier territory.1

The Royal Corps of Engineers played a sterling role in the devel-

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The Phantom Pathfinder
1 Janet R Fireman, The Royal Corps of Engineers in the Western Borderlands (Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1977), pp. 76-84.

opment and administration of the provinces. They constructed fortifications, designed and built roads and buildings, and assisted the military in planning expeditions and sorties. In addition to these duties theywere entrusted with the responsibility of locating and developing mineral resources so badly needed in the overseas empire Itwas from that group that Rivera seems to have been spawned.

Before the RiveraJournal was brought forth in 1975, historians had traditionally assumed that the purpose of the Rivera expedition was to search for silver deposits in the mountains north of Santa Fe.2 However, since the journal has been available for examination and analysis, it is now evident that he had a commission to verify the existence of the Colorado River with itsawesome canyons and chasms and map the trail to its only purported crossing.3 The existence of that large river was revealed to the Spanish of New Mexico by the Pueblo people of Zuni andJemez and byvisitors from the Ute nations.4

However, the canyons in the upper reaches of the river had been so elusive to the Spanish since their arrival in New Mexico that the very existence of the places mentioned was treated only as tales and rumors Yet that information eventually demanded verification by exploration, particularly as other great European powers began encroachment on that territory.

During the interval since their arrival in New Mexico, Spanish officials had heard many Ute stories of silver deposits in the mountainous area north of Santa Fe, mountains known in early times as La Sierra de la Grulla but after Rivera's time as La Sierra de la Plata. Rivera recorded in hisjournal that aUte from the Payuchi nation sold a lump of virgin silver ore to the blacksmith of Abiquiu who made a crucifix and two rosaries from it He also recorded that a Mouachi Ute by the name of el Cuero de Lobo (Wolf Skin), whom he had met in Santa Fe, had agreed to meet him at his campground on the river

2 The Rivera diary or journal came to light in 1975 when Donald C. Cutter of the University of New Mexico brought it forth and planned his discourse about that expedition before the Western History Association annual meeting in Denver in 1976 Professor Cutter encouraged the author to conduct field research for him to verify the document and map the trail the expedition followed

3 Although those reports imply only a single crossing or ford in that region, a more accurate implication would be that there was only one feasible crossing, since in low water conditions the river could have been forded in a number of places both above and below that famous crossing.

4 The river was known in that time as the Great Tizon, a name derived by the Spanish when they saw natives carrying firebrands along the lower river in native rituals The name Tizon was soon adopted by the native population when they communicated with the Spanish, although other names, in their own languages, were applied to various sectors of the river among the natives themselves, depending upon the predominant group in a particular area This custom was followed until modern times; the Colorado River that empties into the Gulf of California was known above the junction with the San Juan as the Grand River until around 1920

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which Rivera later called the Animas to show him where silver could be found Yet, a careful study of thejournal suggests that a search for silver was only a pretext planned by the governor of the Province of New Mexico and Rivera to mask the real intent of a sorely needed military reconnaissance.5

The Rivera Expedition was executed at a critical time in the history of Spain's involvement in North America, when the success or failure of the Spanish American venture would be decided. It was accomplished without force of arms; in fact, Rivera had no armed escort It succeeded, despite the odds, on the basis of its leader's great personal courage, determination, and diplomacy with the native groups.

The Rivera Expedition consisted of two entradas: the first in June and July of 1765 and the second in October and November of the same year. The objective of the first entrada was not stated in the incomplete documents brought forth in 1975; however, in the instructions issued by Governor Tomas Velez de Cachupin for the conduct of the second entrada, reference was made to the first trip as having been one of discovery of silver and the location of the great river

A careful reading of the authorization for the second entrada reveals the deeper intent of the expedition Governor Cachupin directed Rivera and his companions to go disguised as traders and conceal the fact they were Spanish; to reconnoiter the land along the trail, at the crossing, and on the other side of the river; to determine the names of the nations they encountered; and to ascertain the languages of the native groups and their attitude toward the Spanish; and to make ajournal account of the trip and map the trail to the crossing. That is consistent with objectives issued to people making a military reconnaissance. The instructions authorized the search for precious metals only on the return trip, clearly suggesting that the search for silver was to be a private quest or at most a secondary goal.

When one reads about old trails used by traders and explorers, it is natural to think of a single trail as with the Oregon Trail or the Spanish Trail, for example. However, one must keep in mind, there was seldomjust a single path between certain points. On the contrary,

Pathfinder 203
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5 The journal clearly shows that the Utes were genuinely sensitive to any appearance of a military reconnaissance and were willing to resist the intrusion Their resentment, suspicions, and distrust of the Spanish were undoubtedly among the primary factors Rivera considered in planning and executing his mandate; that is, concealing the fact that his incursion into their territory was a military reconnaissance

there was usually a network of trails which formed a virtual highway system; trails that met at certain key points, such asriver crossings and mountain passes,but diverged again as terrain or water and grass conditions dictated. Those trailswere generally natural folk trails perhaps first used bywild animals such as buffalo, elk, and, very anciently, the horse Those animals foraged over large distances but required a lifeline of water sources. Having the ability to smell water at great distances, theyfollowed the shortest path in the course of least resistance and over years left many well-defined trails. Old-time cattle people have told the author about the trails that were already defined when cattle were first introduced into areas of the West, many ofwhich were used by the native inhabitants, and eventually became the highways and byways of commerce and trade Just such a system of trails existed in the period in which this present drama wasenacted. The people acquainted with these routes were the contraband traders and the native folk It was from those groups that Rivera was able to obtain guides—people who knew the route and showed the way.

THE FIRST ENTRADA

On his first entrada Rivera left the Pueblo of Santa Rosa de Abiquiu in the Province of New Mexico on June 25, 1765, and traveled along the trail known to historians as the Navajo War Trail or the Ute Slave Trail which ran northwest from Abiquiu into the areas we now call Colorado and Utah. He followed that trail and proceeded northwest out of Abiquiu along the right bank of the Chama River to the place below the confluence with the Arroyo Seco, called el Vado deJuan de Dios on the oldJuan de Dios Ranch. He crossed the river and followed along the valley of the Arroyo Seco near the place now called the Ghost Ranch, a church recreation area about fourteen miles northwest of Abiquiu. He spent the night by a small stream he called el Rio del Pueblo Colorado.

The following day,June 26, 1765, he departed along the same trail near the Arroyo Seco and entered a rugged canyon close to what is now called the Echo Amphitheater, going on to thejunction of the arroyo and Canjillon Creek.6 From the stopping place at Canjillon

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6 Early maps show that as Navajo Canyon, although recent USGS maps reserve that name to a branch canyon which debouches to the main canyon at Navajo Spring.
The Phantom Pathfinder 205

Creek, the group traveled north along the floor of the canyon two or three miles past Navajo Spring, where the trail emerged upon a vast plateau which extends northwest to el Vado de Chama.7 At the summit of Navajo Canyon the trail turned northwest where it encountered two small hills.8 On the descent from the two hills, the trail entered and traversed the valleys of Cebolla and Nutria creeks, crossing those streams ten to fifteen miles below the two towns now bearing those names. The travelers followed the trail and proceeded on to el Vado de Chama, where they crossed the river a second time, and rode on to what we now know as Horse Lake, which they called la Laguna de San Pedro.9

7 Navajo Spring is the same place where eleven years later the Dominguez-Escalante expedition turned west and departed from the trail that ran north

8 At the place where the trail turned west there is presently a windmill, from where one can see the two small hills or grades that Rivera encountered.

9 El Vado [the ford] was assumed by Herbert Bolton and others to have been near Park View, New Mexico, which allows easy access by automobile See Bolton, "Pageant in the Wilderness," Utah Historical Quarterly 18 (1950) :19 However, all extant documents by travelers of that day show el Vado to have been downstream from Park View J N Newberry of the Macomb Expedition of 1859 in his private journal pinpointed the location exactly A copy of Newberry's journal is in possession of John Veenheisen, Santa Fe, New Mexico

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The Chama Narrows above Abiquiu.

From laLaguna they followed the trail that was probably a variant of the Old Ute Slave Trail, known to those travelers as the trail to the Piedra Parada, a favored resort by early contraband traders They entered a very narrow canyon known in early times as el Canon del Belduque, which we know asAmargo Canyon, and stopped for the night at a site they called el Embudo (the funnel), its appearance being that of a funnel because of the narrowness of Amargo Canyon at its opening to the meadow near present-day Monero, New Mexico. The following morning—June 30, 1765—they followed the trail north from Amargo Canyon to the place now known as Edith, Colorado, where they crossed the Rio Navajo.10 They proceeded northwest from the Rio Navajo and crossed and named the SanJuan River near the place where Trujillo, Colorado, is now situated and camped for the night on the banks of that beautiful stream. That was twelve to fifteen miles downstream from present-day Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

From the ford of the San Juan River they proceeded up Salt Canyon to the summit and descended the other side to a large meadow which the Utes called in their language el Lobo Amarillo (YellowWolf) near where the old town of Kern, Colorado, once stood. From there they took a northwest bearing and rode on to the Piedra River so called by the Utes in their language for the Piedra Parada or Standing Rock, awell-known chimney-like landmark of rock

The following day, July 2, 1765, the expedition left the Piedra Parada via Fossett Gulch, in Rivera's words "avalley of good land without rock," and rode west toward the high ridge to the north of Paragon Mountain.11 When they arrived at a small rincon on Little Squaw Creek, which the diary records was a place the Utes used for hunting, near the foot of the ridge, the guide informed them of the difficult trail to the summit and cautioned that because of the heat the horses and mules would tire and be abused He added that in the cool of the following morning the climb would be easier; consequently, they spent the night at the rincon. The next day they climbed the high mountain ridge near Paragon Mountain.12 They descended the other side of the ridge to the river the Utes called in their lan-

The Phantom Pathfinder 207
10 Rivera called that place el Paraje de San Antonio de Navajo or "the stopping place San Antonio de Navajo." 11 Fossett Gulch is the only valley in the area that is not predominantly rock 12 They crossed south of what we now see as a radar or communication facility and north of Paragon Mountain That facility, on the summit of the ridge, is accessed from the main highway from Durango, Colorado, to Pagosa Springs near YellowJacket Summit

guage el Rio de los Pinos, above the present town of Bayfield, Colorado. There they found ruins of an ancient civilization among which were signs of a smelter (como de cendrada) from which it appeared those ancients separated gold from the ore. At this juncture Rivera left a contingent of his party, under the direction of Andres de Sandoval, to survey el Rio de los Pinos for the presence of those precious metals, although he made no mention of it until hisjournal entry for July 8, 1765,when the main camp (el Real) was rejoined

From el Rio de los Pinos, Rivera and his company rode on and crossed el Rio Florido, so called by the Utes in their language, and continued to the environs of today's Durango, Colorado, where he encountered a great river whose bank was so steep and rocky and whose current so swift and deep that he could not find a crossing until the following day He then crossed the great river and named it el Rio de lasAnimas.13

At that place Rivera found the encampment of the Ute, el Capitan Grande, whom they called in their language el Coraque, and three lesser Capitanes. Because their friend, el Cuero de Lobo, was not present at that rancheria as had been planned, el Coraque took a small contingent of Rivera's party downstream to the rancheria of el Capitan Payuchi whom they called elAsigare,which meant in Spanish Caballo Rosillo or Roan Horse At that rancheria a Payuchi Ute woman, who identified herself as the daughter of the man who had taken a lump of virgin silver ore to Abiquiu some years before, claimed to know of silver deposits The instructions she gave directed the Rivera party back upstream along the Animas River.

Accompanied by el Asigare, they returned to the area of their main camp then turned west toward what we call the Plata River and went on to the present-day Mancos River which he called el Rio de Lucero. The party trekked on, following instructions given by the Payuchi Ute woman, until they arrived at the upper reaches of what we call McElmo Creek several miles east of present-day Cortez, Colorado. There they climbed a small knoll from which they could see, in the gap between Mesa Verde and Sleeping Ute Mountain, what was called from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century by the Spanish,

ls The word animas has been generally translated by many historians and writers as souls in purgatory, which is one meaning of that word However, a more likely translation in this case is that which gives force or spirit, as modern accounts cited in the Newberry report show that to have been a very swift and difficult stream to cross Charles H Dimmock, the map maker for the Macomb Expedition, noted in his private journal that the river was 175 feet wide and 2 1/2 feet deep, very clear and abounding with fish.

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Casa de Navajo.14 That wasalandmark described bythe Ute woman to determine the location of the silver. Upon failure to find silver, the party returned tojoin their main camp which was then located at the river they called elRio de Lucero near present-day Mancos, Colorado.15

After a short sojourn on July 11, 1765, Rivera was guided by his new acquaintance, el Capitan Asigare, from el Rio de Lucero to what we know as the Dolores River at the Big Bend near where the present town of Dolores, Colorado, now stands. Here he named the Dolores River el Rio de Nuestra Seiiora de Dolores, or the River of Our Lady of Sorrows, for Maria the Mother of our Savior.16

14 This was the region of the Navajo stronghold in the area of the Chuska Mountains, south of el Rio Grande de Navajo, a region never pacified by the Spanish See Frank D Reeve, "Early Navajo Geography," New Mexico Historical Review 31 (1956)

15 El Capitan Asigare, contending the woman had lied, wanted to return and kill her One day in 1977 while the author was photographing the area, a strange object having the appearance of an old sardine can was noted beneath the tripod Upon close examination it proved to be a lump of virgin silver ore Perhaps the Ute woman had not lied after all about the location of silver deposits

16The naming of that river did not show up in the original document found by Professor Cutter, as the text was garbled by the scribe making the copy A second document about the expedition, found in the archives of Mexico by Jose Mendosa of Mexico City, does not have that garbled text and tells of the naming of the river.

The Phantom Pathfinder 209
Rivera's Overlook with Casade Navajo in far background. Inset: Ingot ofvirgin silverfound by author near overlook.

El Asigare persuaded Rivera to dispatch his associates, Gregorio de Sandoval, Antonio, and Jose Martin, along with their interpreter and a Ute guide from the Dolores River encampment, to find another Payuchi band located on what was called el Rio Grande de Navajo near present-day Bluff, Utah There el Cuero de Lobo, the Ute who had promised to show Rivera silver deposits, was reported to have been.17 The main camp (el Real) remained stationary on the Dolores River awaiting news of Cuero de Lobo.

That search party departed from the main camp onJuly 13,1765, and traveled the rest of that day and most of the night before they reached water, as the Utes had told them theywould. Sandoval related that during the night it appeared to them they had traveled west, which would have taken them to present-day Cross Canyon where they intercepted an old Payuchi Ute trail south to el Rio Grande via Montezuma Creek As they approached the river they sighted at adistance ten small lodges of what they called wild Payuchis (Payuchis Cimarrones). When the Payuchis saw the company of Spaniards, one of them jumped into the river and waded out to the middle of the stream where he was met by one of Sandoval's men. Speaking by signs, they established communication, and the Payuchis became convinced of the travelers' peaceful intent.

After a three-dayjourney to the encampment of the Payuchis, the party returned to the main camp on the Dolores Riverwith el Capitan of that band of Utes, who was called Chino by his people. Rivera was advised by el Capitan Chino that Cuero de Lobo had been with them but that he had returned to his rancheria which was then located on the Plata River. Chino also advised Rivera of the dangers of the trip to the crossing of the great river in July, due to the lack of water and grass for the animals and because of the extreme heat along the trail. However, because his people used the area south of the Dolores River and west to the Colorado for their hunting grounds, they knew the way to the crossing and would show the Spanish the wayif they would return to the Dolores River when the aspen leaveswere falling.

Subsequent to that, Rivera retraced his outward journey to the river he called San Joaquin, where he found his friend Cuero de Lobo.18 The following day Cuero de Lobo took a contingent of his

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17 That was near the region known anciently as Casa de Navajo Today we call that river the San Juan 18This is today's Plata River near the site where the old town of Parrot City was once situated

party to the headwaters of the Plata River to search for silver. But because they had brought no tools with which they could excavate the ore, only knives, they could not take samples back to Santa Fe for verification. Rivera wrote, "After we had searched as much aswe could of that sierra, we found a hill which they call Tumichi, on top of which we saw a town that is so large that it exceeded the population of Santa Cruz de la Canada [of 1319 inhabitants], in which there are many burned metals and the same signs as in the previous pueblos along the route. The vestiges of some ancient towers [torreones] are seen, which still have some parts of their walls [standing]."

Rivera and his men left the area on July 23 and spent the next seven days en route to the Villa de Santa Fe, traveling at the speed of laden mules. "Because the road is already well known as well as the watering places, etc., I do not go into detail," he recorded, "and to attest to the truth, because it is a thing that can be inspected again by other people, I sign this today."

Rivera reported to the governor and made preparations for his return trip in the fall of that year.

THE SECOND ENTRADA

Early in October 1765, Rivera and his companions returned to the Plata River and met their newly acquired friends at their combined rancherias, el Capitan Asigare, who had guided them on the first entrada, and a Mouachi, el Cabezon. After a two-day pow-wow they received a guide, a Payuchi Ute who was a grandson of el Capitan Chino (un nieto de el Capitan Chino Payuchi), to take them to the crossing of the Colorado River.19

At their campground of the first day out from the Dolores River, October 6, Rivera met el Capitan Chino who waswaiting for him at a place Rivera called la Soledad. He greeted Rivera and said that they were friends, that Rivera had kept hisword byreturning as agreed He said his grandson would guide them to the crossing, that he knew the trail.

19 Because Rivera had a Payuchi Ute guide who knew the trails and watering places, he undoubtedly followed a Ute trail—the old Ute Slave Trail which was the most direct course That trail later became known as the Ute Trail from the Dolores River to the Ute Crossing of el Rio Grande and was later dubbed the Spanish Trail Rivera made some detours from what we now know as the traditional Spanish Trail for reasons relating to the supply of water and grass for the animals.

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212 Utah Historical Quarterly

At the stopping place of the second day, October 7, the place Rivera called el Puerto de San Francisco, later called by the Spanish Ojo del Cuervo, or Raven Spring, he encountered a group of Utes he again referred to as Wild Payuchis (Payuchis Cimarrones).20 Here a new Payuchi Ute guide, the brother of elAsigare, intercepted the travelers and said his brother had assigned him to guide them from there to the river, that he knew all of the trails.21

In retrospect we now see the starting of a detour It is obvious throughout the diary that the Utes resisted all attempts by the Spanish to find the route to the crossing of el Rio Grande and to make contact with the people on the other side. It is apparent the Utes wanted to make the trip so difficult and dangerous that Rivera would become discouraged and disheartened, give up his quest, and return to Santa Fe without finding the crossing and without making contact with the people on the other side of the river.

20 In 1934 Frank Silvey showed R A Morris of Columbia University and the author that spring, giving its positive location and confirming both the Spanish name and its English translation Morris was conducting research on the Macomb Expedition of 1859 which used Ojo del Cuervo as a stopping place

21 The campground where guides were exchanged was on a branch of what we now call East Canyon in southeastern Utah, about fifteen miles northeast of Monticello, on the brink of Summit Point

The Phantom Pathfinder 213
El PuertodeSan Francisco Ojo del Cuervo upstream.

The mandate from Governor Cachupin to Rivera and his companions was that they should go disguised as traders and conceal the fact that they were Spaniards. They should reconnoiter the land and observe the quality of it along the trail, at the crossing, and on the other side. They should also determine the names of the various nations they may encounter and ascertain their attitude toward the Spanish. At his October 5 meeting with the Utes on the Plata River, Rivera asked his Ute friends to help him carry out the governor's mandate AMouachi Capitan, el Cabezon, waspresent at the meeting, but he rebelled at the thought of a Spanish intrusion of their land He called his followers to pow-wow to reject the Spanish request, notwithstanding the Payuchi approval. He argued that the Spanish should not be allowed to proceed further, that they would spoil Mouachi trade with the people across the river. A scuffle then ensued between a Payuchi defending the Spanish and a Mouachi against them ElAsigare arrived at the scene and settled the matter; he prevailed and gave Rivera the guide, a grandson of el Capitan Chino. That was the group whose people used the territory south of the Dolores River and west to the Colorado as their hunting grounds. They asserted they knew the route to the river to what they called its only crossing. However, with the exchange of guides two days later at el Puerto de San Francisco, there is a high probability that a new pow-wow had been held between the two Ute groups subsequent to Rivera's departure from their rancheria on the Plata River, wherein the Mouachi prevailed upon the Payuchi's reasoning to recognize the real intent of the Spanish and proposed a plan to prevent or limit their intrusion. There isgood reason to suspect theyjointly dispatched the new guide, the brother of elAsigare, a man of considerable influence and persuasion, with new instructions not to take the Spanish on the direct route to the crossing, which was then only a two-dayjourney away. Instead he was to take them on a circuitous and difficult route to the encampment of the Tabejuache Ute el Capitan Tonampechi, a man who might be able to dissuade the Spanish from completing their journey and return to Santa Fe That Tabejuache camp was located on Indian Creek in what we now call Canyonlands, southwest of Moab, Utah. Either guide could have taken Rivera down East Canyon instead and across Dry Valley, a two-day trip. Inasmuch as it was Payuchi land, there could be no question of their knowledge of the nearness of the crossing.

214 Utah Historical Quarterly

When the travelers left that campsite, San Francisco, the guide took them to the east about five miles, then turned north and descended a difficult grade known to modern cattle people as Bull Pen Canyon. That trail took them into Lower Lisbon Valley near the head of Mclntyre Creek, then turned to the northwest to where that valley joins with Lisbon Valley. At thatjunction the guide took them off the trail to the west through Big Indian Wash and into Dry Valley near the large, red-sandstone monolith known as Casa Colorado, about thirty miles south of present-day Moab. Somewhere near Rone Bailey Mesa, Rivera encountered three ranchitos of the Mouache Utes where they inquired about the location of water. Because of the scarcity of water along the route, they decided to spend the night near that encampment.

The next day, October 10, they continued to the west around the mesa and past Wind Whistle Rock, apparently following a Tabejuache foot path, and descended from their upper level into a very rugged canyon. 22 They followed that canyon into Harts Draw and proceeded on to the summit of Harts Point by a steep and very difficult trail. On the summit of Harts Point they encountered a Tabejuache hunter who told them their camp was nearby. From the summit they descended the cliffs to Indian Creek, in Rivera's words, by a "not too difficult trail."23

Following a three-day journey Rivera arrived at the Tabejuache camp, probably near the present rock art monument known as Newspaper Rock At that encampment they met a young Tabejuache referred to only as el Mozeton, a term used by the Spanish to describe a drifter or a lackey, who had been in Santa Fe and had a conversation with the governor. He apparently had told Rivera in Santa Fe that he knew the trail to the crossing, and he appeared outwardly happy to see the party.

After four days of contention and argumentation between el Capitan Tonampechi and Rivera, where everything short of attacking

22 Rivera described the path to the canyon floor as being three musket shots long We know that canyon today as the lower end of Bobby's Hole

23 The trail was known to early catde people at the Dug-out Ranch on Indian Creek as Trail Canyon Although the present owner of the Dug-out Ranch, Bobby Redd, does not know that trail, previous owners, Joh n and Jim Scorup, who lived there from the late 1800s to about 1935, have given the author great detail about it—how their people used it for years when they went to and from Moab Additional information concerning that route across Harts Point was given to the author by the late Kenneth Summers, the late Cecil Jones, and Cosme Chacone, all of Monticello, Utah These were people who had used that route for many years

The Phantom Pathfinder 215

the Spanish was attempted, the Utes failed to dissuade the explorer from his determination to carry out his commission. Rivera quickly perceived that their protestations of not having anyone who knew the route and their exaggerated tales of dangers they would encounter along the way were only pretexts to keep them from proceeding on. He expressed those views to el Capitan and also recorded them in his journal

When the Utes failed to dissuade Rivera from completing his objective, the Payuchi guide, the brother of el Asigare, broke his contract and returned to his rancheria on the Plata River. That adds further evidence that his assignment was not to take the Spanish to the river but to deter them and prompt their return to Santa Fe. At that time Tonampechi assigned a new guide, friendly el Mozeton Rivera agreed to this arrangement, feeling that el Mozeton would not deceive him.

After Rivera and his group departed from the Tabejuache camp and had traveled about six miles on their way to the river, their friend and guide el Mozeton stopped them and told Rivera the route described by el Capitan Tonampechi was not the best way to go to the

216 Utah Historical Quarterly
Aerialview ofRivera's routethroughHarts Draw.

The

river, as that route wasvery long and difficult, without water and grass. He told him, "When we go to the crossing, we go by the way of the sierra." Rivera and his companions acquiesced to the guide's suggestion and were taken on a different trail That route reversed their travel of the previous four daysback up Trail Canyon to the summit of Harts Point but they avoided the treacherous path through Bobby's Hole bygoing along the summit of Harts Point.

Toward the end of the first day of travel they arrived at a small spring at the upper end of Harts Point, which was the sierra referred to by the guide, near the Abajo Mountains. During the night they experienced a ferocious storm of wind and rain which caused them much discomfort. For that reason they called that place el Purgatorio.24

The route from their stopping place, el Purgatorio, to the crossing was well defined by Rivera. He wrote that they traveled north about twelve to fifteen miles without following a trail until they climbed a very lofty and lengthy grade. That indicated they did not follow the traditional DryValley route over Blue Hill into Spanish Valley but rather took the high trail along the western slopes of the La Sal Mountains. They descended to and entered a monstrous valley with neither grass nor shelter so they could not rest until they arrived at a small spring not far from the great river.25 Because the Colorado River then as today had no high tree line to indicate the presence of the river from a distance, and because of the low hills separating Moab and Spanish valleys, Rivera apparently did not see the river or the riverine meadow until they reached the watering place.

When Rivera arrived at the river crossing after a two-day journey from the Tabejuache camp, he sent two Tabejuache youths who had accompanied the guide as messengers to locate the people on the other side of the river and invite them to come and trade Then he and Gregorio de Sandoval crossed the river to inspect the other side.26

Before long, the messengers returned with five warriors (gand-

24 That was probably near the place shown on local maps as The Gap, near the road now used by travelers going to Canyonlands National Park

25 This describes a route from the high La Sal Mountains by way of Amasa back into Spanish Valley. That valley, which starts at the Colorado River and extends twenty or so miles to the La Sal Mountains, is actually two valleys separated by a series of low hills and called by two names, Moab and Spanish valleys

26 He described the meadow and the river in such detail and with such exactness that anyone who knows the area would recognize it as Moab, Utah

Phantom Pathfinder 217

ules) of the Sabuagana Utes who gave him some interesting information. They said that some of their people were hiding from the Spanish because they were afraid. Years before they had killed some Spanish and were afraid of reprisal. Three additional Sabuaganas arrived at Rivera's camp and said they were from the rancheria of their Capitan, whom they called Cuchara, upstream about eight or ten miles They said their Capitan was a friend of the governor of New Mexico and wanted Rivera to visit him.

When Rivera left the crossing to go to the Sabuagana camp, he found it impossible to go directly upstream; the river ran through a channel walled in by lofty precipices of gleaming red rock and cliffs that extended down to the water's edge. It was necessary to proceed over the ridge east of Moab Valley toward the east, then turn south toward the La Sal Mountains. Near the La Sals they were able to negotiate what we call Porcupine Ridge and enter Castle Valley. They fol-

218 Utah Historical Quarterly
Moab Valleynear river with Spanish Valleyin left background.

lowed Castle Creek back to the northwest toward the river, which at that location was traditionally called by the native population Rio de las Sabuaganas On Castle Creek about one-half mile above the late Tommy White's ranch, they found a beautiful marsh where they spent the night. The next day they traveled upstream to the camp of the Sabuaganas. There near Professor ValleyRivera met the Sabuagana, el Capitan Cuchara, and cemented relations for future cooperation between him and the Spanish.

Rivera asserted in thejournal that from the Sabuagana rancheria he returned to Santa Fe by the shortest route at the speed of laden mules. That route probably took them back to the La Sal Mountains by way of Castle Valley where the trail branched. One branch would have taken them by the way of Geyser Pass and into East Coyote Draw at present day La Sal, Utah. The second branch would have taken them around the west side of the mountain bywayof the La Sal Meadows to East Coyote Draw. From thatjunction the trail went along East Coyote Draw past Bull Horn Spring, known to the Spanish as Ojo del

The Phantom Pathfinder 219
La Sal Meadows and theEast Coyote route oftheSpanish Trail.

Cuerno de Toro, and into Lisbon Valley at Lisbon Gapwhere itjoined their outward trail.27

EPILOGUE

While Rivera was at that place near the crossing, he listened with great interest as his Ute friends informed him of the trail they used when they visited the Spanish on the Lower Colorado River.28 This would be welcome news for the planners of the Empire, the Royal Corps of Engineers, who, being aware of the resistance offered by the Hopi and Apache nations to the passage of commerce through their territories to the regions of the Lower Colorado River, sought a route to that area through the territory of the then friendly Ute nations. Perhaps the groundwork was laid at that early date for what developed into the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition in 1776.

In a relatively short period that followed the Rivera Expedition many important events took place The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition was consummated, and other expeditions, many of which were not recorded, were made into the heartland of the Utes in what is now central Utah Trails were blazed from the Ute Crossing of the Colorado River to the Green River Crossing and to the Wasatch Mountains that the great Ute Chief Wasatch called his domain. Here the true Spanish Trail developed.29

Although documentary evidence is lacking about early travel over the trails into what we know as Colorado and central Utah, the Pueblo of Taos was a huge trading center long before Don Juan de

27 East Coyote Branch was a favored section of the Spanish Trail during the heyday of the large caravans from Los Angeles to Santa Fe during the 1830s and 1840s because of the abundance of water and grass for the large herds and because that branch was not a "heavy trail" as compared to the trail through Dry Valley. A trail through sand and soft earth, on undulating ground, can increase the loads of burden on pack animals, pound their hooves, and shorten their lives as useful animals All accomplished packers try to avoid trails of that type

28 That could have been the beginning of the knowledge the Spaniards obtained of the trail which sixty-five years later developed into the Spanish Trail to California The Utes also informed Rivera of the People of the Rock, los Timpanogos, near present-day Provo, Utah Eleven years later the Dominguez-Escalante expedition visited those people and referred to them as the Laguna Utes because of their habitation near what he called la Laguna de los Timpanogos, or Utah Lake. Yet Escalante knew definitely of that group before his departure from Santa Fe and had intended to reach them via the Ute Crossing of the Colorado River—that which was shown to Rivera at present-day Moab—for Rivera's Ute friends informed him that the trip to Timpanogos took only seven days

29 The route to California, dubbed by explorers John C Fremont and Kit Carson in the 1840s the "Great Spanish Trail" or "Old Spanish Trail," was in reality a Mexican Trail because it was developed after the Spanish influence fell to Mexico

220 Utah Historical Quarterly

Onate established his first settlement in 1598 at the confluence of the Chama and the Rio Grande. Utes from as far away as central and northern Utah as well as from east of the Rocky Mountains were known to gather for annual trade fairs to trade with the Pueblo nations and other Great Plains tribes. After the arrival of the Spanish, the Utes developed a tremendous desire for horses and guns The most valuable commodity they possessed for trade was slaves. Young native women and boys were in great demand among the Spanish, as they could be trained for household tasks and for working in the fields. The stronger Ute tribes, whose domain extended from east of the Rocky Mountains west beyond the Wasatch Range, would prey on the weaker Paiute tribes of what is now southern Utah and Nevada They traveled over a system of trails across the Wasatch Mountains to the Green River Crossing and the Ute Crossing of the Grand River (Colorado), then southeast along the same trail Rivera followed to the crossing, to bring their booty to the Spanish markets. That system of trails has become known to historians as the Ute Slave Trail. Later, when the Spanish went into these areas after Rivera's time to trade with the friendly Utes, the route they followed was that of the Ute Slave Trail, which soon acquired the name of the Spanish Trail.30

Granted that considerable trail definition and refinement were required by later travelers to make this a practical avenue of commerce, there can be no doubt that the essential details about these trails were first made known to the Spanish officials by Rivera and his companions.

The Dominguez-Escalante Journal mentions for example, the common practice of Spaniards going among the Sabuagana Ute Nation to stay for long periods of time and trade for pelts and other items. It also reflects common knowledge of the country as far east as the San Luis Valley and the Arkansas River and west to the Colorado River. Inasmuch as there were no other known explorers into that region except Rivera and his companions, we can deduce that he was

30 According to Joseph J Hill, "By die time of the Dominguez-Escalante expedition (1776) the region east of the Colorado and as far north as the Gunnison seems to have been fairly well known to the Spaniards of New Mexico This is clear from the fact that most of the more important physical features of the country were referred to in the diary of Escalante by names that are still on the map, and in a way that would lead one to think that those names were in more or less common use at that time. It was also definitely stated by Nicolas de la Fora who accompanied the Marques de Rubi on his tour of inspection through the northern provinces in 1766-67 that the country to the north along the Cordillera de las Grullas was at that time known to the Spaniards for a hundre d leagues above New Mexico." See "Spanish and Mexican Exploration and Trade Northwest from New Mexico into the Great Basin, 1765-1853," Utah Historical Quarterly 3 (1930): 262

The Phantom Pathfinder 221

the source of that knowledge. We can also deduce that he made other incursions after his famous entradas because of the exactness and completeness of the information he provided, information that could not have been obtained by a single incursion.

In consideration of these historical facts, there isan ironic twist of fate and a touch of injustice in that the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition failed to find the Ute Crossing of the Colorado that was shown to Rivera. For although Escalante tried to follow Rivera's Trail, as he had either a copy of thejournal or else intimate knowledge about it, he did not have a Payuchi Ute guide and therefore missed Rivera's campground of the first day out of the Dolores River stopping place Rivera's stopping place for that first day, October 6, 1765,was in Cross Canyon west of present day Cahone, Colorado, near what later became known as Tierra Blanca of Spanish Trail days and was also known to early settlers of the 1870s as the Cross Canyon Spring. Had Escalante found that place, the rest of the trail to the campground of the second day, el Puerto de San Francisco, would have been easy. That would have put him at Ojo del Cuervo at the head of what we now call East Canyon fifteen miles northeast of Monticello, Utah, and would have led him down East Canyon, through Dry Valley and to the Ute Crossing at Moab, an easy two-dayjourney. Escalante knew that Rivera went to the east about six miles from his campground el Puerto de San Francisco, then turned north through a steep canyon. When he tried to follow those directions, not knowing the exact location of the stopping place, he estimated where that canyon might have been and turned north. He was one mile too far east. Upon descending Summit Canyon to the Dolores, he became lost That cost him the total success of his undertaking in proceeding on to Monterey, California, as he lost many precious weeks in his detour through the Colorado mountains

There is also a touch of irony in the history of Rivera as a pathfinder, for the trail he found to the crossing of the Colorado River was a signal event in the development of ties and commerce between Santa Fe and Upper California; yet to this day he has not been given proper recognition. The trail he found provided the beginning of a viable avenue of travel well into the American era when wagon roads were substituted for those old trails Rivera was also a phantom of the borderlands for he appeared on the scene of history in 1765 and seems to have vanished by the end of 1766 Records have been searched in New Mexican archives, Spanish archives, and in Mexico

-222 Utah Historical Quarterly

for some indication of his family roots, but nothing has been found. Only three primary sources of information have been found to testify of his existence: hisjournal, a notation in the Dominguez-Escalante Journal about him, and the papers he prepared for the submission to the Council of the Indies with the Marques de Rubi reports.31

Another irony lies in the assertion by the Dominguez-Escalante guide and interpreter, Andres Muniz, who claimed to have been with Rivera on his entrada and affirmed that Rivera went over the Uncompahgre Mountains to the confluence of the Gunnison and Uncompahgre rivers instead of the Great Tizon He stated that although he waswith Rivera, he did not accompany him to the river; he stayed behind for the distance of a three-day march However, that appears to be contrary to fact because Andres Muniz was not listed in the Rivera diary, so if he had traveled with Rivera on his expeditions, it would have had to have been on a follow-up trip after 1765.From the events recorded in the diary it is evident that he could not have stayed behind for three days His statement to Escalante probably was made to increase his prestige among the padres and his peers. Yet it caused historians to be led afield for many years. They treated Mufiiz's statement asfact and never gave Rivera credit for finding the Ute Crossing of the Colorado River.

It isappropriate that here in the year of the quincentenary of the discovery of the Western Hemisphere by Christopher Columbus that we should remove from the closets of history, among the dust and cobwebs of time, the name of DonJuan Maria Antonio de Rivera and recognize the events he placed in motion. He was a man of courage and determination who deserves attention and honor not only during this great anniversary but for all time.

31A report of over four hundred pages submitted to the Council of the Indies contained a copy of Rivera's journal on pages 140 to 170, which indicates it was considered to be a part of the official report In that same document were three other citations given by Rivera See Servico Historico Militar, Ponencia de Ultramar, Madrid, Spain

The Phantom Pathfinder 223

s On September 15, 1990, this memorial was dedicated near the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. On the monument are the names of those believed to have been killed near there in September 1857. The memorial was planned and executed with the cooperation of relatives of the victims, citizens of southern Utah, and officials of the state of Utah and of the Mormon church. Photo by author.

New Light on the Mountain Meadows Caravan

ACCURATE DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT THE VICTIMS of the Mountain Meadows Massacre has for many years been scarce. Many writers have studied the event, attempting to place blame, to expose complicity, to Judge

-saa CTSPSIN MEMORIAM IN THE VALLEY BELOW BETWEEN SEPTEMBER 7 AND a IM MANT S K COMPANY
™ * '* !
R FANCHER L r o
l.RF.< afSGS&ff :TEO SEP UTAH HI- FAN"1'.;.,, rwos-- *'"
OF MORE•
«^ANDE
BY CAPT JOHN «AKER ANO CAPT TO ^ ^ WAS ATTACKED WHILF EN R YASTHF TH 'STAN*^OW S MASSACRE
Logan lives in Harrison, Arkansas.

draw meaning, or to teach lessons from the tragic details of the killing.1 But, even with a considerable amount of literature on the subject, reliable information about the Arkansas emigrants has remained hard to find. It is, therefore, difficult to describe myjoy when, after I had collected information about the massacre for many years, Ron Loving, a descendant of John Fancher (brother of emigrant Alexander Fancher), called me and said that he had found depositions taken in 1860 from close relatives and friends of the victims of the massacre. Loving read from one of the documents signed by my ancestor,James Douglas Dunlap. It contained information about one of his two brothers who had fallen in the massacre. In all, there are depositions signed by seventeen people They provide a glimpse of what the caravan was like.

Loving said he discovered some of the depositions while reading microfilm copies of the original records in the National Archives filed under the rather uninviting title Territorial Papers of the United States Senate 1789-1873, Roll 15, Utah December 31, 1849-June 11,1870 (Washington, D.C., 1951) Among a number of other items on the roll were the sixty pages of depositions. The documents were made as a part of a futile effort byArkansas's U.S. Sen. William K. Sebastian, apparently prompted by State Sen. William C. Mitchell, to get the federal government to reimburse seventeen of the surviving children of the Mountain Meadows Massacre for the financial losses they had sustained in the event

The organizer of one of the main contingents of the emigrant caravan was Capt.John T. Baker, a farmer, cattleman, and slave owner who lived on Crooked Creek near modern Harrison, Arkansas. His wife Mary in a deposition made October 22, 1860, said:

'John D Lee, Mormonism Unveiled; Including the Remarkable Life and Confessions of the Late Mormon Bishop, John D. Lee. Also the True History of. the Mountain Meadows Massacre (St Louis: Vandawalker & Co., 1892);Juanita Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre (1950; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962); Josiah F Gibbs, The Mountain Meadows Massacre (Salt Lake City: Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co., 1910); James H Carleton and William C Mitchell, Report on the Subject of the Massacre at Mountain Meadows Relative to the Seventeen Surviving Children , Arkansas State Senate Document (Litde Rock: True Democrat Steam Press, 1860) Many other books deal with the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and scores of newspaper articles and even some ficdonal works treat it See, for example, Jack London, Star Rover (1915; Second Printing, Malibu, Ca.: Sun Publishing Co., 1987)

New Light on the Mountain Meadows Caravan 225

My name is Mary Baker. I was lawfully married toJohn T. Baker in the county of Madison and State of Alabama [in] 1823; we emigrated to Arkansas in the year 1847 where we resided together until the saidJohn T. Baker left his home in Carroll [now Boone] County . .. with a lot of cattle, horses and I have been informed and verily believe that after the saidJohn T Baker had proceeded as far as a place in the west known as "Mountain Meadows" he, together with a large number of persons in company with him, were murdered, and their property all stolen or appropriated by the murderers; The object my husband . . . had in going to California was to sell a large lot of cattle with which he started, and when he left here in April 1857, for California he was the owner of, and started with 138 head of fine stock cattle, 5 yoke of work oxen, 4 yoke of work oxen extra, two mules, one mare, one large ox wagon, provisions, clothing and camp equipage for himself and five hands The cattle were all good stock, and all three years old and upwards—were picked cattle and such as in this market at the date of his departure from this place were worth at the lowest cash price twenty dollars per head . . . [here follows a list of property and value] . . . amounting in all as far as I now remember to the sum of $4148.00 in this market. . .

John T. Baker and his son Abel Baker and his married son George W. Baker were all victims of the Mountain Meadows tragedy.2 Another of Baker's sons,John H. Baker, also gave a deposition verifying what his mother had said. He added that his father had taken guns, saddles, and bridles and gave detailed information about the cattle John H Baker said that he wasfamiliar with livestock prices in Arkansas and in California:

I have been in California—was there in the latter part of the year 1852, stayed there until the month of September 1854, and from my knowledge of the country, and the price of property I think the property that the saidJohn T. Baker left here with in April 1857, would have been worth at Mountain Meadows the full sum of ten thousand dollars. This statement, however is only made from such general knowledge as I have from the western trade, and also from the information of other traders I cannot now state what amount of money my father started with, but I know he had money with him but as to the amount I do not know

John Crabtree, a neighbor who lived about half a mile from John T. Baker, said:

226 Utah Historical Quarterly
.
2 William C Mitchell to A B Greenwood, commissioner of Indian Affairs, April 27, 1860, Microcopy 234, Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1824-1881, Roll 899, Utah Superintendency, 1849-80—1859-60, M-244/1860 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives, 1957)

Mr Baker was a very industrious man, and a shrewd, good trader I was at the house of the said John T. Baker, frequently while he was collecting the cattle, and I was present in April 1857 when the said Baker started for California. . . . I . . . aided and assisted him on his way a few miles when he started

Hugh A. Torrance said:

In April 1857 I was living on the farm of the said John T Baker and while he was gathering cattle for his intended trip to California, I helped take care of the cattle and to feed them They were a good stock of cattle, well selected and likely.

One fact becomes readily apparent from the depositions:John T Baker was the organizer and leading character in the contingent of the Mountain Meadows caravan that originated at Crooked Creek. Most of the depositions mention the other victims as having gone west in company with Baker. It is interesting to note that none of the 60 pages of depositions mentions Alexander Fancher, the person traditionally thought to have been the leader of the caravan Other evidence shows that Fancher was in the caravan and that he was referred to as its leader by a number of persons who saw the train Most modern accounts list him as the leader.3

GEORGE W BAKER

Another leading citizen of the caravan was John T and Mary Baker's oldest son, George W.Baker. He took hiswife and family along on the trip west. Only three of his children would return.4 Joseph B. Baines, a neighbor of the Bakers, testified on October 23, 1860:

I was living in 1/A mile ofJohn T Baker when the parties all left for California in April 1857. I now reside at the same place I did then and within x/\ of a mile of Mary Baker the widow of John T Baker George W. Baker was the son of said John T. Baker and Mary Baker and I know that the said George W [Baker] left here about the same time of his father April 1857. When George W. Baker left he was the owner of in his own right and had in his possession a considerable amount of cash

3 Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, pp. 44, 49, 52, 69, 142, 151, refers to the caravan as the Fancher Company; see also Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, p 242

New Light on the Mountain Meadows Caravan 227
4 Carleton and Mitchell, Report on the Subject of the Massacre, p. 32.

and personal property, and had sold out his lands and was moving to California He had a wife and four children when he left here [Baker's wife Manerva Beller Baker and children: Mary Lovina Baker, Martha Elizabeth Baker, Sarah Frances Baker and William T Baker.] He was guardian of Malissa Ann Beller and she was also in the company with him and he had in his possession as guardian of said Malissa Ann Beller the sum of seven hundred dollars in cash I had paid him as guardian that amount for the said Malissa Ann, and know he had that amount I think Malissa Ann had a bed [?], bedding, evening apparel &c but of what value I can not say. The amount of personal property within the possession of the said George W Baker, and which he carried off with him as well as I can make an estimate from my knowledge and information, recollection and belief was as follows ... [:] 2 ox wagons, chains &c each worth $125, [He] Had in cash in hand about [$]500 He had beds and bedding, evening apparel for himself and family, provisions for himself and family worth [$]500, 3 young mares at $100 each, ... 1 rifle gun [$]25, 1 double barrel shot gun [$]25, 136 head of cattle (or about that number) [total dollar value] 4,320 He had oxen, but how many he had I do not know. Neither do I know their value. . . . Baker had a good outfit, and his family was well provided for in the way of evening apparel, provisions, &c, and I have placed the estimate at a sum that I am satisfied is a low estimate of what said property was worth in this market. The cattle were a very good lot. . . . Three of his children . . are now living within one quarter mile of me at their grand mother's Mary Baker The oldest of the children were recognized by their friends and relations here as soon as they returned, and this fact convinces me that said Baker and family except the children were all murdered at Mountain Meadows

Beller, George Baker's brother-in-law, said:

I was present when he [George W Baker] started to move to California in April 1857, and saw his cattle and outfit for the trip. I think that George W Baker had, when he started from here, one hundred fifty or sixty head of cattle, in which was included about eight yoke of work oxen. I think the cattle without the oxen were well worth in cash in this market fifteen dollars per head. . . .

He was moving to California, and had his wife, 4 children, Malissa Ann Beller, D[avid]. W. Beller, and 2 hired hands with him and was well supplied with provisions, clothing, etc for the trip I could pick [the Baker children] out of the crowd of children when they were brought back here. I know they are the children of George W. Baker. . . .

John H. Baker, mentioned above, testified about the composition of his brother's family and estimated the value of his 136 cattle, 8 yoke

228 Utah Historical Quarterly

of oxen, 3 mules, and other possessions at $3,815.00. He said that he knew that the three children returned to Arkansas were his brother's.

Irwin T. Beller, a brother-in-law of George W. Baker, swore that he had accompanied Baker for two days at the start of the trip west and that he was familiar with his stock and other possessions He estimated the value at $5,135.00.

Lorenzo D. Rush, Sr., was one of the earliest settlers of the area that is now Harrison, Arkansas. His son Milam L. Rush died at Mountain Meadows.5 The elder Rush testified October 23, 1860:

I am the father of. . . Milam Rush and know that he left here in the month of April 1857, bound for California; he left in company with John T Baker When my son the said Milam L Rush left here he was the owner of. . . from ten to twelve head of cattle . . . He had one rifle gun, three blankets, knives and his wearing apparel, and also about twenty five dollars in cash I think his cattle were worth at a low cash price ... at least fifteen dollars per head . . . [total] $268.00.

H. A. Torrance testified that he was well acquainted with Milam L. Rush and knew that he had left with about ten head of cattle. Torrance said he was a neighbor to Baker, Rush, and DeShazo who were all emigrants in the Mountain Meadows caravan.

Francis M. Rowan testified about members of the Jones and Tackitt families:

My name is Francis M Rowan: I reside in the County of Carroll and State of Arkansas In April 1857, I was residing in the County of Washington in this state, and the saidJohn M.Jones and his brother Newton Jones, on their way to California camped some 10 to 15 days within five or six miles of where I lived at that time I had been acquainted with the

5 Ibid

New Light on the Mountain Meadows Caravan 229
JOHN M.JONES, NEWTONJONES, PLEASANT TACKLTT,AND CYNTHIATACKITT

Jones boys for a number of years previous to that time, and when they camped there, I was frequently with the boys; I was at their camp and saw their property, and being well acquainted with the boys, Milam Jones, and Newton Jones particularly pointed out the property that they owned, showed me their cattle and oxen My recollection, and belief is that the twoJones boys owned four yoke of work oxen, one large ox wagon John M.Jones was married and had his wife and two children with him, and was moving to California He had with him the widow Tackitt and three or four of her children; Newton Jones,John M.Jones, his wife and two children, Widow Tackitt and three or four children and Sebron Tackitt constituted one company in family groups. The Jones boys owned the wagon, oxen and outfit, and the others seemed to be traveling with them and depending on the Jones boys for their support. The wagon was large and very heavily loaded; I suppose John M. Jones had a gun and other fire arms but of what value or number I do not know. Newton Jones had a fine rifle gun. They appeared to be all well supplied with beds and bedding and wearing apparel for an excursion of that kind, and also with provisions

Rowan said that the Jones herd consisted of eight head of cattle and four yoke of oxen With their equipment and other possessions he estimated the value of their property to be $1,075.00 Rowan thought that the Jones brothers each owned half interest in the wagon and that NewtonJones had one yoke of oxen of his own. He saidJohn M. Jones had a gun. He further deposed that:

There were several other persons along, and who had separate wagons. There were three men by the name of Peteat [perhaps Poteet], or Pitteats The oldest one of the Peteats was a married man, and had his wife and children along; They had a separate camp and wagon; There was another man Pleasant Tackitt who had a separate wagon; and before they started George W Baker drove up and camped near the others. The Peteats and Pleasant Tackitt had oxen and other property but I can not say how many. They had horses, and camp equipage, provisions, and appeared to be well fixed for the outfit I have no doubt but what all the parties were murdered at "Mountain Meadows" in September 1857, except a few children who have been sent back to the states

Fielding Wilburn also testified about the Jones and Tackitt group:

I was living near the Indian line in Washington County, Arkansas, in the month of April 1857. I was personally acquainted with John M.Jones,

230 Utah Historical Quarterly

and Newton Jones, Pleasant Tackitt, and the Widow Tackitt mentioned in the foregoing deposition of Francis M. Rowan. When the parties above named, were on their way to California, and while they were in camped [sic] on Indian Line in Washington County, Arkansas, I was at their camp and stayed with them two or three days. I was well acquainted, and on intimate terms with the Jones boys, and saw their property John M Jones and his brother had to my knowledge: one large good ox wagon, 4 yoke of first rate work oxen. Their wagon was very heavily laden with clothing, beds and bedding, provisions, 8cc. . . .

Wilburn went on to say that theJones brothers had six or eight stock cattle and that there were other cattle totaling about sixty but he did not know to whom they all belonged. He mentioned that the Widow Tackitt, Pleasant Tackitt, Peteats, and others were in the crowd and said that they all left Arkansas for California together during April 1857 He said that the Peteats, Basham, and Tackitts had three wagons, several yoke of good oxen to each wagon, and one horse and provisions.

Felix W.Jones testified that he was a brother to the two Jones men He said thatJohn M.Jones was married and went west with his wife and two children He said that Newton Jones was a young man and was going with his brother to California. FelixJones gave further details about the property his brothers had taken with them and confirmed much ofwhat Wilburn had already stated about them.

James DeShazo, who lived in the same neighborhood asJohn T. Baker, lost a son, Allen DeShazo, in the massacre. 6 On October 23, 1860, he testified that his son had left for California with Baker in April 1857 and that he believed he had been murdered at Mountain Meadows.

He had seventeen head of stock cattle The most of the lot were likely heifers, and were worth in cash over two hundred dollars the morning he left here. . . . This together with his evening apparel worth fifty dollars, and a violin worth ten dollars was all the property that I now remember that the said Allen P had when he left

New Light on the Mountain Meadows Caravan 231
ALLEN P DESHAZO 6James DeShazo was a pioneer citizen of Boone County, Arkansas Killed during the Civil War, he was buried at the Old Milam Cemetery northeast of Harrison, Arkansas

James DeShazo said his son's property was worth $300.00 Hugh A Torrance said young DeShazo's cattle were well selected and "likely" and worth $15.00 per head at least.

CHARLES R MITCHELL ANDJOEL D MITCHELL

One of the most interesting depositions is that of a state senator and later Confederate colonel, William C Mitchell.7 He had the melancholyjob of describing his murdered sons' property. Earlier, he had written to Senator Sebastian (December 31,1857):

Two of my sons were in the train that was massacred, on their way to California, three hundred miles beyond Salt Lake City, by the Indians and Mormons. There were one hundred and eighteen unmercifully butchered; the women and children were all killed with the exception of fifteen infants—one of [my] sons, Charles was married and had one son, which I expect was saved, and at this time is at San Bernardino, I believe in the limits of California. I could designate my grandson if I could see him

Mitchell felt strongly that something must be done to punish the guilty in this matter. He continued:

From all accounts the President has not made a call sufficient to subdue them; the four regiments together with what regulars can be spared is too small a force to whip the Mormons and Indians, for rest assured that all the wild tribes will fight for Brigham Young. I am anxious to be in the crowd—I feel that I must have satisfaction for the inhuman manner in which they have slain my children 8

Colonel Mitchell believed that his infant grandson, John Mitchell, had survived the massacre. He wrote about the boy on different occasions and worked tirelessly for the return of the surviving children. Mitchell was appointed an agent of the U.S. government and sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory, to receive the surviving children in August 1859. He, with others from Arkansas, brought the children back to Carrollton where they were distributed to their

232 Utah Historical Quarterly
'Desmond Walls Allen, The Fourteenth Arkansas Confederate Infantry (Conway: Arkansas Research, 1988), pp 9, 10, 12, 42 8 William C Mitchell to Sen William K Sebasdan in U.S., Congress, Senate, Senate Executive Document 42, Message of the President. Communicating Information in Relation to the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, and Other Massacres in Utah Territory, 36th Cong., 1st sess., 1860, pp. 42-43.

families, and in one case, to a friend. Two of the surviving children who had been kept in Utah to serve aswitnesses, should the guilty be prosecuted, were later taken to Washington, D. C, and then delivered to Mitchell at Carrollton, Arkansas, inJanuary 1860. It isbecause of William C. Mitchell that we have most of the original written records of who the emigrants were. He was present at the taking of most, if not all, of the depositions and appears to have been the one who forwarded them to Senator Sebastian in Washington Mitchell's own deposition tells a good deal about his sons and their property:

I was personally well acquainted with said Charles and Joel Mitchell— They were my sons, and I assisted them in making their outfit for the trip in the spring of 1857 They left in company withJohn T Baker and many others and were murdered as I am informed and believe at "Mountain Meadows" in September of same year. They were on their way to California, and when they left here they had in their possession and under their control the following personal property. They had cash when they left this county in April of 1857 about the sum of two hundred and seventy five dollars They had thirteen yoke of good work oxen They had sixty two head of other cattle and when they reached Washington County in this state, they wrote to me that they had bought ten head more and intended getting two more so as to make one hundred head in all They had one large ox wagon, log chains &c They had their wearing apparel, beds, and bedding and cooking utensils. . . . The property they had with them when they left for California in April 1857, was worth in this market, at the date of their departure [as follows:] 13 yoke of work oxen @ $60.00 per yoke $780.00, 74 head of other cattle, cows, steers &c @ [$]12, $888.00, cash on hand when they left here [$]275.00, 1 large wagon, chains &c [$]120.00, 1 horse, saddle and bridle [$]100.00, guns, firearms, knives &c [$]50.00, clothing, beds, and bedding, provisions, cooking utensils, camp equipage &c [$]300.00 [total] $2513.00 I believe that said property at Mountain Meadows would have been worth the sum of about five or six thousand dollars."

Sam Mitchell, another son ofWilliam C.Mitchell, did not gowest with the wagon train. He also gave a statement about his brothers:

I am a brother to Charles R. and Joel D. Mitchell mentioned in the foregoing deposition of William C Mitchell I was well acquainted with the outfit of the parties, and acquainted with all the property set forth in the tabular statement made by the said William C. Mitchell and from my knowledge of the property and its value I believe that the value therein given and estimated is a fair cash valuation

New Light on the Mountain Meadows Caravan 233

JESSE DUNLAP,JR., AND LORENZO Dow DUNLAP

William C Mitchell's wife Nancy was a sister of two victims of the massacre, Lorenzo Dow Dunlap and Jesse Dunlap, Jr.9 The Dunlap-Mitchell family had twenty-six members in the caravan, and only five orphan children survived the massacre. 10 Senator Mitchell gave a second deposition about his brother-in-law Lorenzo D. Dunlap:

[H]e was well acquainted with Lorenzo D Dunlap who left for California in John T Baker Company and that the said Dunlap had a wife and eight children who was all killed at or near a place called the Mountain Meadows, Utah Territory, except two small daughters who is at this time in my care and the said L. D. Dunlap had at the time he left Arkansas, the following described property to wit: four yoke of oxen worth sixty dollars each, twelve head of cattle worth fifteen dollars each, three guns, pistols, knives &c worth fifty dollars, one wagon, log chains, wagon sheet &cworth one hundred dollars. Provisions, cooking utensils, tent, bedding &cworth three hundred and fifty dollars. This statement is what property was worm at the time they left Arkansas in the spring of 1857 I am informed and believe it was worth more in Utah Territory I was appointed special agent to receive and take charge of the children survivors of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and received the children above mentioned at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas Territory in August A.D. 1859 and delivered them at Carrollton, Arkansas, in September 1859 and have no doubt of the death of L D Dunlap and [that] he was killed at or near the Mountain Meadows in Utah Territory

Three other family members verified that Mitchell's statement about Lorenzo D. Dunlap was correct. They were Samuel Mitchell, already mentioned, and James D. Dunlap and Adam P. Dunlap,

Lorenzo D Dunlap

brothers of

My great, great, great-grandfather, James Douglas Dunlap, who helped raise three of the orphaned survivors of the massacre, said in his affidavit:

Jesse Dunlap and family left Marion County ... en route for California in April, 1857 and was in company of Capt.John T. Baker and all of his family with the exception of three small daughters, I have no doubt, was killed at or near the Mountain Meadows in Utah Territory. And said Jesse Dunlap left with the following described property belonging to

9Ibid.,p 47

10Carleton and Mitchell, Report on the Subject of the Massacre, p 32

234 Utah Historical Quarterly

him, to wit: nine yoke of oxen worth sixty dollars per yoke, thirty head of catde worth twelve dollars per head, five head of horses worth one hundred dollars each, three wagons, log chains &c worth one hundred dollars each, three guns, pistols and knives worth fifty dollars cash at the time of departure provisions, camp fixins, cooking utensils &c worth four hundred dollars The said Dunlap family contained at the time he left a wife and nine children The three youngest was delivered at Carrollton, Arkansas, in charge of William C Mitchell Special Agent in September A D 1859 and said survivors of said Jesse Dunlap is at this time in my possession The said Jesse Dunlap deceased was my brother

In a short statement William C Mitchell added thatJames D Dunlap had the three children of Jesse Dunlap at his house "which is their home at the time."

In their affidavits Robert H Mitchell and William C Dunlap told how theywere with William C Mitchell, special agent for the U.S government, when he received surviving children from the massacre at Fort Leavenworth.11 These men said they were well acquainted with Jesse Dunlap and knew his outfit, having traveled with him the day of his departure for California in the spring of 1857. They said that the statement made byJames D. Dunlap was correct. An additional affidavit made byAdam P.Dunlap and Samuel Mitchell also verified the accuracy ofJames D. Dunlap's statements.

CONCLUSION

The depositions, while not the only contemporary records of the Arkansas emigrants,12 are some of the best. In reading them one can sense the concern that the affiants felt for the well-being of the orphaned survivors who were bereft of parents and estate and who faced the prospect of great adversity. The depositions failed to accomplish their primary goal of securing government assistance under

11 William C Mitchell to A B Greenwood in Senate Executive Document 42, p 90

12 The following letter from William C Mitchell to fellow Arkansan Alfred B Greenwood, commissioner of Indian Affairs in the Buchanan administration, is one of the best sources of information on the identity of the Arkansas emigrants at Mountain Meadows. It is in Letters Received, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Utah Territory, National Archives:

Sir

As there is no list of the names of the survivors of the Mountain Meadow Massacre of 1857, which was conveyed to their relatives and friends in Arkansas [They are:]

Martha Elizabeth Baker

Sarah Frances Baker

New Light on the Mountain Meadows Caravan 235

some sort of Indian depredations compensation act. Such laws were passed but none is known to have benefitted the Mountain Meadows survivors.

The documents are valuable for the detail they add to the body of knowledge about the emigrant caravan, its composition, and leadership. They also provide some of the best statements of the purpose many emigrants had in making thejourney west and give an accurate account of the property owned by them. It should also be noted that many emigrants are known to have been in the Mountain Meadows caravan who are not mentioned in the depositions Clearly, the documents do not give a complete picture or answer all questions, but they provide a fascinating glimpse of some of those who suffered so long ago as a result of the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

William Twitty Baker

Rebecca Dunlap

Louisa Dunlap

Sarah Ann Dunlap

Prudy Angeline Dunlap

Georgeann Dunlap

Saphrona Huff

Christopher Carson Fancher

Triphena Fancher

Joh n Calvin Miller

Mary Miller

Josiah Miller

Felix Jones

Mariam [Milam] Tackett

William Tackett

All of the above is in the care of their relatives and friends in Arkansas except Saphrona Huff who was taken by her grandfather Brown who lives in Miggs Co Tennessee to Tennessee There was two of those children wounded in the battle Sarah Frances Baker shot through the left ear and Sarah Ann Dunlap shot through the right arm and her shoulder dislocated having no use of it and much less than the other Those children vary in age from ten years to four years old Also included you will find a list of die killed and missing as far as we can obtain them All of the children that was large enough to recollect state that they were never in the possession of the Indians but kept by the whites

I am Yours

Respectfully

The following is the names of those that was massacred at the Mountain Meadow in September 1857 [:]

Capt Joh n T Baker

George W Baker, wife & 1 child

Abel Baker "

Milum Rush

From Carrol County Ark

236 Utah Historical Quarterly

David W. Beller

Allen Deshazo

Melissa Ann Beller

Robert Fancher

Charles R. Mitchell, wife & 1 child

Joel D Mitchell

Lawson McEntire

William &John Prewett, two brothers

Jesse Dunlap, wife & 6 children

L D Dunlap, wife & 5 children

William Wood

Solomon Wood

Richard Wilson

Milam Jones, wife & 1 child

Pleasant Tacket, wife & 2 children

Cinthia Tacket & 3 children

Josiah Miller, wife & 3 children

William Cameron, wife & 5 children

Alexander Fancher, wife & 4 children

Peter Huff, wife & 3 children

The above is correct as far as we have any information

166NE SOUNTY CARAVAN fPHiN Q

NEAR THIS SPRING, IN SEPTEMBER 185? QATHEREO A CARAVAN OF 150 MEN WOMEN AND CHILDREN WHO HERE BEQAN THt IU-rATE 0 JOURNEY TO CALIFORNIA THE ENTIRE PARTY, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF SEVENTEEN SMALL CHILDREN WAS MA8SACRED AT MOUNTAIN MEADOWS UTAH BY AB9QSY 0FM0RM0N8 DISCUI8ED AS <NQtAN8

Above: In April 1857 at least some of theemigrants assembled several hundred yards eastofthis historic markeron Arkansas Highway 7 south ofHarrison. Right: Monumenterected in 1955 in Harrison, Arkansas, by the Richard Fancher Society. Historian fuanita Brooksparticipated in the dedication. Photos by author.

New Light on the Mountain Meadows Caravan 237
Marion Johnson " Benton

Canyons, Cows, and Conflict: A Native American History of Montezuma Canyon, 1874-1933

X o LOOK AT MONTEZUMA CANYON ON A MAP of SanJuan County, Utah, and select it as an important geographic entity might seem facetious. Beyond the Anasazi ruins that dot its length and the tributary canyons that lead from it, there are few significant alterations made by man With the exception of a dirt road that extends its length and a handful of structures built to assist in the livestock, uranium, and oil indus-

article

Remains ofa cabinin Montezuma Canyon.Photoby author. Dr McPherson teaches history at the College of Eastern Utah, Blanding campus A version of this appeared in Blue Mountain Shadows.

tries, little appears to elevate this canyon above dozens of others that surround it

Looks are deceiving. The canyon has been home to the Anasazi, Paiutes, Utes, and Navajos, as well as Euro-Americans in the various guises of cattleman, trader, settler, and miner seeking its resources. Yet recorded history came late in its story because Montezuma Canyon is located in one of the last areas of settlement in the continental United States.

The natural features of the canyon proved useful to human inhabitants. Its flat, wide bottom, winding its way from the San Juan River to a narrow defile as it reaches Blue Mountain, served as a natural thoroughfare for hunters and gatherers as well as stockmen who capitalized on the resources of river and mountain. The water that runs down the canyon encouraged small agricultural plots that depended upon both flood and pot irrigation techniques. Also, the network of canyons that feeds into Montezuma forms a lattice of pathways that extends through southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado

William H. Jackson provided the first detailed account of EuroAmerican entry into the canyon when he and five other men separated from the Ferdinand V.Hayden survey party in 1874.After camping in the scrub oak on Blue Mountain the group found a "practicable" way into the canyon through a narrow valley that widened as the men reached the canyon floor.Jackson recalled that "The ruins were so numerous now that frequently one or more were in view aswe rode along.Arrow points were so plentiful that there was an active rivalry as to which one of us found the greatest number. Broken pottery of all kinds and beads and other trinkets were also collected."1

The next morning as the men broke camp they discovered that their horses had gotten into some Indian corn fields, but since the owners were not around the groupjust continued on its way Eventually a large canyon from the east entered at a right angle to the main course. The travelers took this route and within a few miles came to a large camp of brush wickiups. One man emerged from the site to greet them and was soonjoined by fifteen to twenty warriors who, according toJackson, came

Canyons, Cows, and Conflict 239
'William H.Jackson and Howard R Driggs, The Pioneer Photographer (New York: World Book Co., 1929), p 266

rushing full tilt toward us Shouting their shrill 'hi, hi' and swinging their guns over their heads, they did not stop until they had run right into us and, turning about, surrounded us completely. . . . Crowding around us, all the Indians joined in a noisy chorus of greetings and shaking of hands They appeared to be friendly, however, and finally insisted upon our going to their camp In a spirit of pure mischief or deviltry, they got behind us, and with quirt and lariat, lashed our horses and mules into a breakneck race, never letting up until we dashed among their wickiups. It was a regular stampede all the way.

Old Pogonobogwint [Poco Narraguinip], a Weeminuche Ute, presided over them and as leader offered a lunch of boiled green corn and insisted his guests stay overnight The white men declined the offer, left the camp as hastily as possible, and searched for a way out of the canyon. Two Indians followed the party but were soon lost by a sharp turn up a brushy side canyon. Although Jackson's group climbed out of this side canyon they wandered about for a day before deciding to return to the Indian camp for water and a better route of travel. The Utes greeted them again in a peaceful manner and then returned to their campsite in the canyon bottom The next day, before the party left, the Indians confronted them about the newly discovered damage done to their cornfields by the white men's livestock. Jackson recounts, "We had nothing to give them, and when they got ugly about it, I had the packers rush the train ahead, while Harry and I remained behind to stand them off until we could make a get-away." From there they went to Hovenweep and then on to the La Plata rendezvous site to meet Hayden.

The Jackson party recorded the first account of white incursion into the canyon, but within ten years powerful forces came into play that dramatically altered the hunting and gathering capacity of the Utes and consequently their initial friendliness towards Euro-Americans. Because the scope of this article islimited to the activity that occurred in Montezuma Canyon, only brief mention is made of events of a more general, historical nature Other Ute groups in San Juan County under the leadership of Red Jacket, Narraguinip, Mariano, BridgerJack, Polk, and Posey reacted to the same general deterioration of lifestyle incurred during this and later time periods.2

One of the greatest threats to Ute resources came in the guise of cattle companies searching for free-use public lands. By the 1880s

2Ibid., pp 267-68

240 Utah Historical Quarterly
Canyons, Cows, and Conflict 241 Montezuma Creek Region 0 25

four major outfits ranged thousands of cattle on the grass and brush of San Juan canyon country The two most important were those of Edmund and Harold Carlisle, called the Kansas and New Mexico Land and Cattle Company, and the L.C outfit headquartered on Recapture and Verdure Creek at the head of Montezuma Canyon These were large companies, the L.C. alone selling 22,000 head between 1891 and 1893.3 Herds of that magnitude changed the quality of the environment within just a few years, increasing the conflict between Indians and whites.Although many of the cattle companies would rise to meteoric heights only to fail, there was always another group to step in to keep the cattle business alive.

The Navajos also looked for grazing lands for their sheep herds that sometimes numbered in the thousands. The Navajos' fear of the Utes had abated by the 1880s, and so Montezuma Canyon started to appeal to them as range land. Capt. H. H. Ketchum reported the first Navajo use of this area in 1883when he traveled twelve miles into the canyon from its mouth. There he found four Navajo families with their flocks. Even though it was November and the men were off hunting on Blue Mountain, he told the women to contact their husbands, break camp, and cross the river with their sheep. Ketchum mentioned that the next day he met three families fording the San Juan, but he did not specify that these were the same ones he had talked to previously.4 During the next ten years letters between Indian agents indicate a growing number of Navajos on Ute lands both on and off the reservation

For the Weeminuche living in or near Montezuma Canyon the cumulative impact of these events was overwhelming. With Mormon and gentile settlers creating homesteads at the mouth of Montezuma and neighboring canyons, livestock companies operating at its head and ranging cattle on Blue Mountain and the La Sals, and the government compressing the Muache, Capote, and Weeminuche into a reservation 15 miles wide and 110 miles long, a growing resentment smoldered. The Utes in Montezuma Canyon as well as other Utes, Paiutes, and some Navajo allies reacted to stem the loss of their re-

3 "Cattle Companies," General File, Monticello Ranger District, Monticello, Utah, p 2

4 H H Ketchum to Post Adjutant, Fort Lewis, Colo., December 10, 1883, cited in unpublished manuscript by David Brugge, "Navajo Use and Occupation of Lands North of the San Juan River in Present-day Utah to 1935," in possession of author This work is a compilation of primary sources, as well as commentary by Brugge, located in the Navajo Archives at Window Rock, Ariz., hereafter cited as NUOL

242 Utah Historical Quarterly

sources. Fights at Pinhook Draw, White Canyon, and on the Carlisle range erupted when the tension became too intense.

It is difficult to separate the Indians in Montezuma from those living nearby, but one personality definitely lived in this canyon and had a faithful following—a Weeminuche named Johnny Benow. He and his associates made life miserable for the cattlemen. Edmund Carlisle wrote to the Southern Ute agent, saying his charges were at Paiute Springs (near present-day Monticello) and in Cross Canyon (which enters into Montezuma Canyon), "killing many cattle and burning the grass and timber Unless something is done to check them, theywill do very serious damage. The citizens talk of organizing and killing off these Utes. . . . Benow is the leader at Cross Canyon and Narraguinip and Mancos Jim appear so out here [Monticello area]."5

InJuly 1884 the government sent a troop of cavalry, augmented bya detachment, to Montezuma Creek to protect the cattlemen being robbed by Indians. An earlier fracas ended with the death of a Ute over the ownership of a horse. The Indians retaliated by driving off a herd of horses; the cavalry and cattlemen pursued them and a fight ensued in White Canyon.6 Edmund Carlisle identified Benow as a participant in this fracas and complained that some cowboys later saw Benow riding one of Carlisle's favorite horses. The rancher then requested "a fair recompense from the government for the heavy losses my company has sustained from depredations of the Ute Indians,"estimated at this time as over 150 head of horses.7

Each spring, summer, and fall trouble arose. Agents sought help from the military to bring the Utes back to the reservation. Talk of secret organizations formed bycattlemen and settlers to rid themselves of the Indianswascommon One of these vigilante groups exterminated a Ute family of six camped on the Dolores River Chiefs on the reservation did not have the power to maintain control of their charges and occasionally denied Ute involvement in altercations. OnJuly 20, 1887,a company of infantry set up camp on the North Fork of Montezuma Creek to maintain the peace and stayed there until October 9, 1887.8

5 Edmund S. Carlisle to William M. Clark, October 1, 1884, Consolidated Ute Agency Records, Federal Records Center, Denver, Colo., hereafter cited as Consol Ute Agency

6 See Don D Walker, "Cowboys, Indians, and Cavalry," Utah Historical Quarterly 34 (1966): 255-62

'Edmun d S Carlisle to William M Clark, December 30, 1884, Consol Ute Agency

8 Larabee to Thomas McCunniff, June 17, 1889, Consol Ute Agency; "Report of BrigadierGeneral Crook," Report of the Secretary of War, 1887, 50th Cong., 1st sess., p 133

Canyons, Cows, and Conflict 243

Although no incidents occurred, correspondence indicates the reason for some of the problems. One letter stated that

a number of Ute Indians under the leadership of Ben-ar [Benow] living in the Blue Mountains in Utah is not on the Agency rolls The Indians referred to are a band of wild Indians that have never been brought under the influences of civilization; . . . [they] have the appearance of extreme poverty, look half-starved, are nearly naked, and are subsisting upon rations issued to the Southern Utes.9

The Indians on the reservation offered to accept their brethren on the tribal rolls, but Benow chose to remain in the twilight zone, visiting the agency while maintaining residency in the Montezuma Canyon area. During the 1880s and again in the 1890s this canyon, part of San Juan County, came close to being incorporated into the Ute Reservation, but vocal white opposition stopped these attempts.10 The situation for the Utes did not improve A military report of 1894 stated that a group of about 95 Utes and 80 Paiutes under Benow refused to come in to the reservation.11 They realized what was happening on the eastern part of the Southern Ute Agency where whites took unallotted lands not filed on by Indians, where Ute culture deteriorated through the processes of education, missionary efforts, and agent control, and where agriculture rather than hunting became the only practical lifestyle. Indeed, large deer drives and outof-season hunting by the Utes put intense pressure on the herds. Letters from settlers, game wardens, and government officials to the agents stressed the harm done to the diminishing wildlife.

In 1895 the government approved a new agency at Navajo Springs [near present-day Towaoc], "yet upon this vast tract of land, no water has been provided to even cultivate an acre of land, and during the summer the Indians are compelled to take to the mountains with their stock so as to find a sufficient supply of water to quench their thirst."

12 Little surprise, therefore, that in 1896 "the great majority" of the Weeminuche were "largely in the blanket and divide their time be-

9 ibid

10 See Gregory C Thompson, "The Unwanted Indians: The Southern Utes in Southeastern Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly 49 (1981): 189-203; Gregory C. Thompson, "Southern Ute Lands, 1848-1899: The Creation of a Reservation," Occasional Papers of the Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College, March 1972.

11 Copy in Frank Moss Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, p 55

12 Report of Agent in Colorado—Southern Utes, RCIA, 1898, p 140

244 Utah Historical Quarterly

a love of teaching, she privately wrote of the stress that accompanied life in the classroom. Early in her teaching career she wrote, "I don't like the first [grade] at all I am mad." And two Fridays in succession she wrote, "Blessed day, I love thee." "School out. Hooray." In a 1939 entry she wrote, "Mae and I are counting the days. Only 168 left." She expressed gratitude when the Beehive girls she taught at church failed to attend Mutual. After what must have been an exceptionally difficult day in the classroom she penned, "I certainly had a hell of a day."When school was dismissed each fall for a two-week "Beet Vacation" (to harvest sugar beets),Virginia would again write, "School out. Hooray." The stress that teaching caused is evidenced by the fact that shortly after commencing her work in the classroom she began to suffer occasionally from colitis. One October she wrote, "Have colitis to celebrate lastyear's attack."These attacks decreased substantially after she became a librarian.

Though teaching may not have been entirely pleasant for her and may also have significantly added to the tension in her life, she was nonetheless an extraordinary instructor, as the writer can personallyattest She waswitty, interesting, always prepared, and demanding She maintained discipline and order in her classroom, even after she had "mutilated her face" in a sleigh riding accident and went to school the next day looking "like Scar Face and Frankenstein"— evidenced by the fact that the children only laughed respectfully. She sometimes referred to her students in the Heber Elementary School as "Little Hellions" and was somewhat relieved in 1939 when her administrator suggested she become a librarian.

Virginia's love of books, her affection for people, and her helpful attitude all contributed to her success as Cache County's librarian. Books made her comfortable, and she enjoyed sharing her love for the printed page with those who entered the doors of the building that became her second home. Having never married, however, she returned home to Cornish almost every Sunday and after the roads were paved moved back to Dreary Acres, commuting to her work in Logan for the remainder of her career. She began working in the library on August 1, 1941, and within four days had "all the fiction straightened." Within two weeks the biographies were alphabetically arranged. After three years as assistant librarian she replaced Dora Wright as librarian, a position she held for almost three decades

As librarian she organized a lecture series emphasizing the hu-

The Life and Times of Virginia Hanson 345

ported deaths. Births during the same period totaled eight. A year later their agent prophetically warned "that a clash will eventually occur is demonstrated by the fact that on several instances, serious conflicts have been narrowly averted."15

In Montezuma Canyon the Indians acted out part of this prophecy. During the fall of 1907 four cowboys, Dick and John Butt, Johnny Scott, andJake Young, allfrom the KT outfit, were driving cattle from Tin Cup Spring toward Nancy Patterson Park The cowboys destroyed a brush fence made by the Utes and moved their cattle to greener pastures. The Indians, who included Johnny Benow, Polk, Posey, Wash, and Mancos Jim, were camped at Nancy Patterson As the cows approached their village the Indians mounted horses, waved blankets, and yelled, turning the cattle back down the trail where one cow fell to its death. Both groups became increasingly irate and exchanged hot words over the cowboys' claim to Ute pasturage. Benow drew his rifle while Dick Butt moved forward with quirt in hand. Cooler heads prevailed as one of the cowboys grabbed Butt's reins, turned the group's horses around, and followed the cattle down the canyon. Butt wanted to try again the next day, but his companions refused to become entangled in the dispute.16

Aflurry of letters followed, providing a glimpse of Ute life aswell as attitudes towards them.J. F. Barton, one of the owners of the KT, wrote to the governor of Utah,John C. Cutler, asking that something be done to remove the "Colorado Utes" from SanJuan County. Barton considered the incident in Montezuma Canyon representative of the Indian problem that had been "worked on for several years."17 The unstated problem was how to obtain use of Ute grasslands. U.S. Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah also contacted the governor, advising him and the commissioner of Indian Affairs, Francis E Leupp, that "They [Indians] have a perfect right to go from one place to another the same as any other citizen."18

In the meantime, Sheriff J. H. Wood from Monticello started an investigation he hoped would bring the offending Utes to justice. When he arrived in the canyon with his posse he found the families

15 Report of Agent for Southern Ute Agency, Annual Report of Department of the Interior Fiscal Year Endingfune 30, 1901, p 205

16Jake Young interview by Amasa Jay Redd as cited in Lemuel Hardison Redd, Jr., 1856-1923, Pioneer-Leader-Builder, comp and ed by Amasa Jay Redd (Salt Lake City: Published Privately, 1967), p 103, hereafter cited as LHR

11]. F. Barton to Gov. John C. Cutler, December 23, 1907, LHR

18 Reed Smoot to John C. Cutler, January 17, 1908, LHR

246 Utah Historical Quarterly

and their livestock but no leaders. The Indians claimed that their agent had said they could live off the reservation, which to Wood and the others in San Juan County smacked of dereliction of duty. The sheriff asserted that the Indians leased their reservation lands to Colorado stockmen and then came to Utah to "prey upon the property, especially sheep and cattle, of the citizens of this county."19

The Utes, however, had acted to maintain their holdings for what they considered justifiable reasons, and, interestingly, a number of whites agreed For instance, in September 1908J S Spear, the superintendent of the Fort Lewis School, visited Montezuma Canyon and reported his findings. He talked toJohnny Benow, who said that the Indians had lived in the canyon all of their lives and that itwasfar better than being on the reservation. They grew small crops, had about 1,500 sheep and goats, were prosperous, and were "well spoken of except by those who have filed complaints."20 Spear suggested that the reason for the disputes was that conflict provided a convenient excuse to remove the Indians and obtain range lands—even though he believed the members of Benow's band had not given any trouble to white citizens.

Although no verbatim transcript exists of Benow's interview, Spear provided a summary. After Benow denied killing cattle or horses, he said that the Mormons were trying to drive him out of the canyon by fencing the land The Utes had retaliated by doing the same, evoking threats to put them on the reservation. Benow refused to move. Superintendent Spear closed by generally agreeing that the Indians had as much and probably more right to be there than the settlers.21

The next ten years brought more bad publicity to the Utes. The 1915 confrontation between Polk's son, Tse-Na-Gat or Everett Hatch, and the people of Bluff was characterized locally as a full-scale war and encouraged growing animosity between races. 22 Tse-Na-Gat's trial and subsequent acquittal in Denver, along with the visit of an Indian rights activist named M. K. Sniffen, who wrote a report that insisted the Indians were mistreated and maligned, only added fuel to the fire.

Canyons, Cows, and Conflict 247
9J H Wood to John C Cuder, January 17, 1908, LHR °F E Leupp to John C Cutler, January 11, 1908, LHR 1 Ibid., statement by Johnny Benow 2 See Forbes Parkhill, The Last of the Indian Wars (New York: Collier Books, 1961)

ByJanuary 1917 thefederal government decided tofind outfor itself why there was continuing unrest. Special investigator Maj. James McLaughlin arrived onJanuary 1andremained foreighteen days,interviewing theIndians atTowaoc, Montezuma Canyon, andBluff His findings, as an unbiased source, show clearly the destitute conditions and thefear felt byBenow andothers in the canyon.

McLaughlin had hoped that the Utes would journey to the agency tomeet with him,butJames C.Wilson, an assistant of Samuel Rentz, who owned a small trading post and home in Montezuma Canyon, wrote a letter on behalf of the Indians saying that the trip would be toogreat ahardship. These Utes, heinsisted, were afraid to go to the agency; many were sick, most were without sufficient clothing, many were walking barefoot in the snow and living in shelters made out of "oldrotten canvas full of holes," and their horses were too worn to travel.23 They were, however, very anxious to talk with McLaughlin.

The inspector departed the agency and first bumped down McElmo Canyon byauto and then bywagon upYellowjacket Canyon

248 Utah Historical Quarterly
Left to right: Anson Posey, Posey, fess Posey, Tse-ne-gat, and Polk. USHS collections. 23James C. Wilson to Agent A. H. Symons, January 5, 1917, James McLaughlin Papers, Microfilm #8, Denver Public Library, Denver, Colo., hereafter cited as McLaughlin Papers

and across Cahone Mesa to the Rentz trading post where he arrived onJanuary 9for a two-day stay He met with all of the adult male Indians living in the canyon whose total population he estimated at 160, with another 50 around Bluff. All of the Utes were enrolled members of the Ute Mountain Agency at Towaoc but all refused to live on the reservation because they felt the Indians there were unfriendly to them and would not share the land with its insufficient water Spokesmen from the Montezuma group includedJohn Benow, who assumed the chieftainship; George Brooks, a medicine man; and old Polk. The seven-hour conference provided an opportunity to air past grievances in a peaceful atmosphere. Posey and his Bluff contingent met with McLaughlin a few days later and expressed the same anxiety about moving to the reservation.24

The settlers in Bluff also talked to the inspector and gave him a list of suggestions that came as no surprise Calling the Utes a "lawunto-themselves," the settlers proposed that they should be put on the eastern (farthest) end of the reservation, their leaders moved away from the main body of people, and that this roundup be conducted in the winter when the Indians were less mobile.25

Although McLaughlin appears to have made a favorable impression on both Benow and the Mormons, later correspondence indicates that he viewed the ultimate solution to the problem to be the removal of the Utes to Colorado. Agent A. H. Symons later talked with Benow, who was waiting for the commissioner of Indian Affairs to visit and ensure the Indians' rights to remain. Symons, who knew that the opposite might occur, asked that his replacement be given the responsibility of moving them so that it could be blamed on the military and not him. His explanation: "If a new man were in charge here, they [Utes] would not attach the blame to him and would start with a clean slate."26 The move did not occur for a number of years, however.

The Utes in Montezuma Canyon had further troubles, this time at the trading post of Samuel Rentz. Polk, his son Tse-Na-Gat, and their band were camping in the vicinity of the post Polk went to the store to redeem a belt he had pawned but questioned the amount of goods he had received. Rentz acquiesced to the Utes' claims. A few

Canyons, Cows, and Conflict 249
24James McLaughlin to Indian Commissioner Cato Sells, January 18 and 20, 1917, McLaughlin Papers 25 Undersigned of Bluff to Maj James McLaughlin, January 12, 1917, McLaughlin Papers 26A. H. Symons to Maj. James McLaughlin, February 3, 1917, McLaughlin Papers.

days later Polk and his son entered the store to eat dinner and became increasingly boisterous in their demand for bread and coffee. Although out of baked goods, the cook made more and served it to the Indians who crumpled it in their hands and tossed it under the table. Rentz ordered them to pay for their meal and get out, whereupon Tse-Na-Gat reached for a pistol in his boot, only to go down under the blows of the trader Polk tried to help his son bygrabbing a knife from the table, but he too went down. The white man then threw them out of the store and listened to their threats of vengeance as theywent to camp.

Tse-Na-Gat returned and took a shot at Rentz from one of the canyon walls. Later Polk arrived at the post with his war paint on and demanded $100 reimbursement for damages. Navajos nearby eventually settled him down. Rentz, fearing retribution, took his family to Dove Creek and then went to Monticello to report the incident to the sheriff. The trader lodged no formal complaints, believing that in a few months the Indians would be moved to the reservation and cease to be a problem.27

Yet, other whites who worked with the Utes on a daily basis valued their friendship Henry McCabe was just such a man Having herded cattle in Montezuma Canyon and its tributaries since 1910, he expressed his appreciation, bordering on admiration, for the Utes, fostered by the understanding that his cows were ranging on their lands. He often asked their permission, tendered payments of meat and skins, and made friendly visits to the Indians in the canyon. His stories illustrate the Utes' lifestyle and also give a humane assessment of them asa people

McCabe told of camping one fall in the north part of Cedar Park where he stored 1,500 pounds of oats, plus sugar, flour, honey, and canned goods under a sheltering overhang He left the food unguarded when he went to Dolores on aweek-long trip but returned to a well-worn path in the eight to ten inches of snow that had fallen. The Utes, who were camping a quarter of a mile away, were curious about the contents of the cave, but not one of them had entered or disturbed a thing.

Another time, a Ute named Short Hair showed his admiration for McCabe by taking one of his Indian ponies and placing it in the white man's horse herd. Nothing wassaid,just a mutual acceptance of

27 "Old Polk and Son Again on Warpath," Times-Independent, September 18, 1919, p. 1.

250 Utah Historical Quarterly

friendship. McCabe later went so far as to suggest that the Utes served as guards to warn if anything were to bother his cattle.28

Not all was peace, however, as friction occasionally raised its ugly head. In 1915 the KT outfit was camped in Montezuma Canyon when eighteen Utes approached it. The leader suggested to the foreman that since the cowboys hadjust killed a cow for supper and there was usually meat left over the white men should give the Indians some. The foreman bluntly told the Utes, "Yes, we leave it for the coyotes and the skunks We think more of them than of you." The Indians departed quietly up the trail, found some cattle, and shot one for supper. Most of the men in the cow camp approved of what the Utes had done and believed that the foreman was too scared to say anything to the Indians.29

McCabe also points out that the friction in Montezuma Canyon was not just between Indians and whites. By 1910 several thousand head of cattle belonging to many different outfits wintered in the area of Lower Cahone, Montezuma Creek, Alkali Point, and places where different tributaries empty into the main drainage.30 These areas provided excellent winter feed until they became overstocked and the cattle began to starve. A tug-of-war for ranges occurred between many of the outfits but not because the boundaries were unclear; most of the men recognized where their grazing rights began and ended Rather, they seized opportunities to get more grass and brush for livestock, or in some casesintruding wasjust the more convenient thing to do.

Ute tribal ownership in Montezuma and adjacent canyons was quickly drawing to a close. By the 1915-23 period the two distinct groups of absentee Utes were divided into Polk's band living in Montezuma and Posey's group in the Allen Canyon-Cottonwood Wash area. 31 They shared familial ties Posey, for instance, had married Polk's daughter; but occasional animosities remained between the two men. Polk's band was generally characterized by the settlers as a peaceful group that kept to itself, while Posey continued to irritate the white residents of SanJuan County.

Conflict occurred on such a frequent basis that by 1923 the

28 Henry McCabe, Cowboys, Indians, and Homesteaders (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1975), pp 183, 188-89.

29 Ibid., p 184

30 Ibid., p 295

Canyons, Cows,
251
and Conflict
31 Fern O Shelley, "The Life Story of William Edward Oliver, 1858-1935," family history in possession of author, compiled 1980, p 15

so-called Posey War erupted as the final solution to the Ute/Paiute "problem."32 The total event was blown out of proportion by those involved, but itserved asan excuse to force land allotments on the Utes. Hubert Work, secretary of the interior, issued an order in April 1923 that both groups would stop their nomadic life and settle on individual land holdings. Moab's Times-Independent reported,

Old Posey's band, consisting of about 100 Indians will be given parcels of land located on or near Allen Canyon while Old Polk's band, numbering about 85 men, women, and children will be allotted land along Montezuma Creek The two bands which are not friendly, will be located some distance apart.33

The number of allotments in Montezuma Canyon varied. Ira Hatch, who owned and operated a trading post in this area, estimated that there were twenty-three Ute camps in Montezuma and Cross canyons. 34 Today there are no Ute allotments in the former and only a few in the latter, the tribe having bought many of the individual holdings.

While the Utes were losing their grip on the canyon the Navajos were successfully extending their control. Undoubtedly, small groups of Navajos had lived in the canyon before 1900. One man, Dishface, insisted that hisresidency went back to 1888,while others were not far behind in their claims.35 The general influx of population occurred after 1900, however, when Navajos with their herds of sheep roamed in search of water and grass In 1905 the Navajo agent stated that 250 Indians lived in a triangle of land that started at the mouth of Montezuma Creek, extended east to the Colorado border, south to the San Juan River, and back to Montezuma Creek.

Conflict between the Navajos in this area and the Bluff livestock owners intensified asrumors spread that the land wassoon to become part of the reservation. The cowboys hauled off fences that protected crops, burned wood used to construct hogans, and prevented Navajo sheep from using certain waterholes. ByMay 15, 1905, it was too late;

32 See Robert S McPherson, "Paiute Posey and the Last White Uprising," Utah Historical Quarterly (1985): 248-67.

33 "Government Allots Farms and Livestock to San Juan Paiutes," Times-Independent, April 19, 1923, p 1

35 A W Simington to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, July 23, 1923, NUOL

252 Utah Historical Quarterly
34 Mr and Mrs Ira Hatch interviewed by Floyd A O'Neil and Gregory C Thompson, September 10, 1970, Doris Duke Oral History Project, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, p

the government had added the land to the reservation by Executive Order 324A.36

Eight years later an estimated 3,000 Navajo sheep grazed this range, many of them infected with scabies contracted from white herds north of the reservation Traders reported that their wool was so infested with lice, ticks, and disease, that unless sheep dipping operations started immediately, the Navajos would become destitute.37 With scabies spreading to herds both on and off the reservation, the government established sheep dipping stations in strategic locations, at least one ofwhich was at the mouth of Montezuma Creek Friction continued into the 1920s. While the Navajos and Utes appear to have worked out an unofficial boundary at the intersection of Cross Canyon and Montezuma Canyon, with the Navajos remaining to the south, problems with the Bluff cattlemen continued.38 Evan W. Estep, superintendent of the Shiprock Agency, noted that

the outside stockmen are crowding the Indians just about as hard as it is possible to crowd them and avoid trouble. . . . The present offenders are the younger stockmen and apparently the younger Mormons are not of the same caliber as their fathers were. 39

The underlying assumption was that the Indians did not have the same right to the public lands as the white man. The solution to the problem again tied in with the Posey conflict; so when A. W. Simington registered allotments for the Utes he did so for the Navajos as well Of the thirteen family heads who filed for allotments in 1923 the average length of previous occupancy was fifteen years, with a median of fourteen years, the shortest occupancy being two years and the longest thirty-five years. The amount and type of improvements made on the lands varied, but most had at least one hogan, from three to five acres of planted agricultural land, irrigation ditches, and a corral for livestock.40

The quality of life of these people is partly captured in the life history of Old Mexican as told in A Navaho Autobiography by Walter

36 William Shelton to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 1, 1905; Harriet Peabody to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 28, 1905, NUOL.

"Supervisor Rosenkrans to Davis, January 7, 1914; Freeland to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, January 12, 1914, NUOL

38 McLaughlin to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 20, 1917, NUOL

39 Evan W Estep to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 9, 1921, NUOL

40 Brugge, NUOL, pp 170-76

Canyons, Cows, and Conflict 253

Dyk His occupation in Montezuma started in 1893 when he selected a site two miles above its mouth He stepped off approximately two and a half acres of land, dug a ditch "four hundred steps long from the river to the farm," and planted melons, squash, and corn that he traded to Navajos and Utes. He made a second, larger farm near the mouth of McElmo. The Montezuma site served as a winter camp for his family and range for his sheep. It was particularly convenient because in 1911 the government constructed a sheep dip at the mouth of Montezuma Wash where he and his extended family dipped their 2,200 sheep.41

Some serious affronts to the Navajos began in 1928 when a new series of quarrels arose between them and the cattlemen. Sixteen additional Navajo families wanted to file for allotments, and the agent encouraged them to do so Ayear later thirty-seven families, comprising 200 individuals, were using the public domain.42 The superintendent at Shiprock, B P Six, realized that if each person were given 160 acres it would amount to 32,000 acres, sufficient to graze only 3,200 sheep based on the estimated carrying capacity of the land. If it took 200 sheep to sustain an average Navajo family, then at least 74,000 acres were needed.43 Six suggested that this opportunity be made available to the Indians.

The ranchers reacted by having county officials pass legislation that provided for the "elimination of abandoned horses" and the taxing of sheep found off the reservation. Even more blatant were the tactics ofJack Majors, a cattleman who lived in Montezuma Canyon. He had his Mexican workers herd his livestock over Navajo ranges, burn their dwellings and corrals, and kill their sheep, goats, and horses. On one occasion he forced some Navajos from their home by hanging a dead coyote, a religious symbol of evil,from the hogan ceiling. The Indians fled in horror.44

On March 12 and 13, 1930, the Blanding stockmen, Navajos, and Superintendent Six held a meeting to review the use of lands in the Montezuma Canyon and Recapture Creek area. The whites wanted to preserve their winter ranges by ensuring that the Indians would not be grazing their sheep on them in the summer while the cattle were

41Walter Dyk, A Navaho Autobiography (New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1947), p 151

42 B P Six to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 7, 1929, NUOL

43 Ibid.

44 Shelley, 'The Life Story of William Edward Oliver," pp 7-8

254 Utah Historical Quarterly

on National Forest lands in the mountains. The group reached an amicable, verbal agreement, giving the Navajos 75,000 acres for their use if they remained off the whites' winter ranges. Six felt this was a fair solution and recognized that the stockmen of Blanding were well organized and controlled most of the water holes and springs on the range. He also felt, however, that they had been kind and considerate to the Navajos and were "far above the average white communities in the near neighborhood of Indian reservations."45

Contentment with the gentleman's agreement did not last. Starting in September the stockmen and government officials held more meetings to define a fenced border to separate the range lands They eventually reached an understanding that exchanged the 75,000 acres promised earlier for a section of land whose line extended up Montezuma Creek for twelve miles from the already established border of the reservation and then in a southeasterly course to the UtahColorado line.

This agreement denied future opportunities for the Indians to take out allotments beyond this line, but homesteads already established were honored.46 Fourteen Navajo families lived on the newly acquired lands, while fifteen others lived outside Yet it appears that none of them was consulted during the negotiations. Seventeen white homesteads laywithin the Navajo area, twelve of which had little or no improvements on them. Three of these were made in 1931 and ten in 1932 in an apparent attempt to block Navajo acquisition.47 Until these lands were officially added to the reservation in March 1933 conflict persisted.48 The Navajos, Ira Hatch—the trader in Montezuma Creek—and Arthur Tanner, a trader in McElmo, all reported independently that white homesteaders had killed about seventy Indian horses, destroyed hogans by using the wood for fencing, and denied the range to livestock during the winter of 1932.49 Many Navajos living on McCracken Mesa were relocated to the newly defined area after white ranchers exerted continuing pressure on officials. Approximately twenty-five years later the government officially

45 Six to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 20, 1930, NUOL

46 Charles Redd to Congressman Don Colton, November 17, 1930; Memorandum of Agreement, July 15, 1932, NUOL

47 Statement by Superintendents Mark Radcliffe and E R McCray and S J Jensen, Stockman, September 29, 1932, NUOL; Brugge, NUOL, p. 202.

48 U.S., Senate, "Addition to the Navajo Indian Reservation in Utah," Report 1199, 72d Cong., 2d sess., February 10, 1933, pp 1-4

49 Statement by Radcliffe et al., September 29, 1932

255
Canyons, Cows, and Conflict

added McCracken to the reservation in a land exchange made necessary by the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam. Charges and countercharges decreased in frequency aswhites and Navajos settled down to live within the newly established boundaries. A general peace had finally come to the Montezuma Canyon area. Thus the history of this canyon has played an important role in the lives of Native Americans in SanJuan County. Serving as a refuge for the Utes, it provided the only feasible alternative to an inadequate reservation built on unfulfilled promises Some of the Indians chose to hang on to their old lifestyle as long as possible, even though living as a hunter and gatherer had become infeasible by the late 1890s. Livestock, small gardens, and handouts from the settlers helped the

256 Utah Historical Quarterly
u... <ifp ...#•••
Inset: fohnny Benow sitting on physician's carat Yellow Jacket, Colorado. Below: Johnny Benow Canyon, a tributary of Montezuma Canyon. Photo by author.

Indians to eke out a bare existence on the public domain The cattlemen of Bluff and Blanding saw them as direct competitors for the ranges and managed to remove them from Montezuma Canyon by either placing them on the reservation or by having them accept allotments in nearby canyons. Now the only traces of Ute occupation in this area are the names it bears, most notably a small tributary canyon named afterJohnny Benow

The Navajo story is slightly different. Because of their aggressive infiltration in the early 1900s they were able to secure through numbers and positive agent action a portion of the canyon. The cattlemen did not like the Navajos any more than they liked the Utes, but no single explosive incident occurred upon which the Navajos' expulsion could be predicated They did not have a reputation as "renegades," nor were they associated with any one symbol of discontent, as Posey had become for the Utes. Additionally, they had agents who spent time trying to secure lands for them.

The main problem, in both instances, lay in the values and ethnocentrism of the white men. All sides committed wrongs in the conflict, but the relentless pressure exerted by stockmen for the public domain eventually forced the Utes out and entrenched the Navajos on a relatively small, fenced portion of the canyon While complaining about the "nomadic" Indians who wandered about with their herds, the cattlemen failed to realize that they werejust as nomadic.

Some whites recognized that they were using Indian lands, but the majority viewed the Indians as a nuisance to be removed even if they were the first ones on the range The law specified that Native Americans had as much right aswhites to be on the public lands, but this was conveniently overlooked in favor of emphasizing that they had an area specifically set aside for their use, a reservation. To homestead or graze livestock elsewhere should be unauthorized. If this line of reasoning were extended to the white cattlemen then no one could have used these public lands

Montezuma today isstillvery much a part of the SanJuan County economy. Large cattle ranches cover much of the canyon floor. Oil exploration companies and pumping stations discover and mine their treasures from under the soil Until fairly recently uranium mines burrowed into the canyon walls and gave birth to a network of roads to some of the most inaccessible of places. And the Navajos still have

Canyons, Cows, and Conflict 257

their fenced boundary But from the canyon's history comes perhaps the most interesting and important contribution—an opportunity for people to examine themselves and their past in order to reach a greater understanding.

258 Utah Historical Quarterly

U Until Dissolved by Consent...":

The Western River Guides Association

-IBSP'I 1* P ID:!
Partyofriverrunners cooks breakfast in GlenCanyon oftheColorado River ca. late 1940s. Statetouristpublicityphoto in USHS collections. Mr. Webb is assistant manuscripts curator, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. A version of this paper was presented at the Utah State Historical Society's 1991 Annual Meeting.

I N THE YEARS FOLLOWING WORLD WAR II RIVER RUNNING on the Green and Colorado rivers underwent fundamental changes. Before the war river running had been the province of rugged men in engineer boots and wooden boats who went down the rivers on scientific expeditions or business ventures. There were exceptions to this—Norman Nevills's tourist excursions on the San Juan, Bus Hatch's guided fishing and hunting trips on the Green—but for the most part running a wild river was not something done by the average person on a lark.

After the war this began to change. First and foremost of the changes was technological, the appearance of inflatable boats in the form of surplus military rafts. No longer did a river runner have to be a carpenter as well as a boatman. Rubber boats were cheaper, sturdier, and could hold more passengers and gear than the standard wooden boat of the time. A person could buy an inflatable 7- or 10-man raft for as little as $25, equip it with a wooden frame and oars or, even easier, get paddles or an outboard motor, and have a river craft that could and did handle any sort of situation from the calm waters of Glen Canyon to the turbulent rapids of the Grand Canyon.

The next major change reflected changes in American society as a whole. Freed from wartime restrictions on travel, tourists from all over America spilled into the scenic lands of Utah and Arizona in increasing numbers Whole families packed up their newly bought cars and headed west A surprisingly large number of them, intrigued by prewar stories of daring rivermen that appeared in national publications such as Life and Atlantic Monthly, wanted to try river running. There were a few outfitters in place who could handle this nascent boom in river travel. Some had been there before the war, such as Norm Nevills of Mexican Hat, Utah, before his untimely death in 1949, and Bus Hatch of Vernal, who had begun running the Green as early as the late 1920s and the Colorado not much later. Others were just starting out, like Don Harris, a USGS engineer who took his first trip with Nevills, Harry Aleson, an eccentric who started on the lower Colorado, and even a woman, Georgie White, who with a couple of surplus 10-man boats started her "share-the-expenses" trips in the Grand Canyon.1 Still others offered trips of one sort or another—Al

1 Georgie was a true pioneer in more than one sense In the mid-1950s when she started her trips a boat trip down the Colorado was viewed as entirely unsuitable for a woman even as a passenger, let alone as a guide (An exception to the above was Norm Nevills who pioneered taking women on long river trips Indeed, Nevills preferred women passengers, saying that they were the "best men" on the trip.) Georgie got her start in the 1940s when she and Harry Aleson floated the lower portion of the Grand Canyon in life jackets, not once but twice!

260 Utah Historical Quarterly

The Western River Guides Association 261

Quist, Roy DeSpain, and John Cross. Although trips were somewhat primitive, with monotonous canned food, bulky equipment, and uncertain access to the rivers, they met an ever increasing demand.

In this transitional postwar period a large percentage of the river runners on the Green and the Colorado lived in or near Salt Lake City. It was centrally located between the Colorado River and Idaho rivers like the Snake and Salmon, and it was the only big city where someone could be assured of finding ajob to support a river habit. It was only logical, therefore, that in Salt Lake the Western River Guides Association would get its start.2 In the winter of 1953-54, during the off-season when river runners can only dream about their favorite canyons, camps, and cataracts, a group of men got together in the old Red Feather building in Salt Lake City to talk about their favorite pastime.3 They were a disparate group, their only common bond in those days being their love of river running. Don Hatch was a school teacher, Don Harris and LesJones engineers. Al Quist had worked for the Boy Scouts Council and the United Fund, while his friend Malcolm Ellingson, or Moki-Mac as he was soon to become known, worked for many years at Hill Air Force Base. Others were attorneys, postmen, and mechanics, ranging from those who had gone down a river once to those who were even then second-generation river rats.

Out of those meetings grew the Western River Guides Association Its first bylawswere drawn up by Howard H Smith, the first executive secretary, and Bob Ryberg, an attorney member of the group They were dated February 24, 1954, and provided for the usual election of officers, schedules of meetings—the last Sunday of February and the last Sunday of October—resignation of officers, and termination of membership. Foreshadowing its turbulent future, the bylaws also provided a means whereby the association could self-destruct: Article II stated, "The association shall exist until dissolved by consent of a majority of the registered members." Its reasons for existence were given as discussing "vital questions pertinent to the group in regards to the guiding of trips on the rivers, and to take proper action as is deemed necessary by the group"; and safety, "proper camping methods (sanitation-garbage, etc.)," exchange of ideas, information, and so on. In many of its goals, the WRGA was ahead of its time. Such

2 Unless otherwise noted, all information about the WRGA was found in the Papers of the Western River Guides Association, MAN B-403, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City sDetails about the early days of the WRGA are from an interview with Don Hatch, July 2, 1991

issues as river safety and equipment standards were not recognized by government river managers until decades later

Far from these high-sounding principles and declarations, however, early WRGA meetings were usually social events rather than planning sessions. Meetings were soon moved to the garage of Anchor Marine on Redwood Road in Salt Lake or held at the home of a member, such asJack Curry, Dee Holladay, or Don Harris The boatmen would gather mainly to swap stories of the past season's river runs, talk about future trips, and discuss ideas about equipment and techniques. River running was still very much in transition from the days ofwooden boats and cork lifejackets; the advent of the inflatable raft, as well as other equipment like surplus life vests and waterproof rubber bags, had turned the small river community upside down. Some members of the group were ardent wooden boat supporters and declared that rubber boats were a passing fad and unmanly besides. Advocates of the inflatable craft would dismiss the wooden boat holdouts as old fogies unwilling to face up to the wave of the future. River runners tend to be an individualistic, opinionated lot anyway; fueled bycopious quantities of beer and deeply held convictions, they often debated loudly and long.

Soon an issue arose that all members of the WRGA could rally around It was the beginning of a long series of issues that found members putting aside differences and facing a common foe—the Bureau of Reclamation. When construction of Glen Canyon Dam began in the late 1950s, the cofferdams, blasting, and tunnels blocked the river at the dam site, about 15 miles above the traditional takeout, Lees Ferry. That left over 150 miles of Glen Canyon that could be run, but since there was no other practical exit the whole canyon was effectively closed to river runners. Glen Canyon was just reaching the height of its popularity as a scenic and easy stretch of the Colorado, and the WRGA was soon clamoring for the Bureau of Reclamation to open a road into the canyon above the dam site so that groups could still float the river.After some debate about the best place Kane Creek was finally decided upon, and the bureau agreed to build a road into that remote spot. WRGA members continued running trips down Glen Canyon right up until the gates on the dam were closed and even for a while afterward The association had won its first battle During the next decades, however, not all such debates were to be so easily resolved

262 Utah Historical Quarterly

The 1960s saw a boom in river running, with thousands of passengers taken down the Green, the Colorado, the SanJuan, and the rivers of Idaho and California. There was a corresponding growth in the membership of the WRGA in both the guide and outfitter categories Government agencies also began to pay increasing attention to river running from both the recreational and the natural resource management standpoints. In a sense, by actively promoting river running as a sport, the WRGA helped create the problem of increasing government regulation of the rivers. The more people on the river, the greater the certainty that someone in government would want to regulate the sport.

In the 1950s river running had been free and easy. Regulations were loosely enforced at best and often nonexistent. When Hatch River Expeditions wanted to run the Grand Canyon, for instance, they would notify Lynn Coffin, the ranger at Lees Ferry, a few days in ad-

The Western River Guides Association 263 "'• s ::'=il>:*:It:.s Sit-Sis**--
Piute FarmsRapids oftheSanfuan River. Photo byChristyG. Turner, courtesy of Museum ofNorthern Arizona.

vance Coffin would meet them at the ferry, write out a permit, and send them on their way Other stretches of river, such as Desolation Canyon on the Green or the San Juan River in southeastern Utah, lacked even that formality; there were no rangers, no permits, no obstructions at all save the rapids themselves.

Utah was the first state to establish regulations concerning river running. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the legislature and the Public Service Commission created rules concerning river safety, sanitation, permits, fees, and quotas. The National Park Service followed suit, requiring river outfitters in Dinosaur National Monument and Grand Canyon National Park to obtain concessions, pay fees, and have insurance.

Relations between the WRGA and the various regulatory agencieswere generally good at first with the association serving as an advisor to the government agencies setting up standards for boats, life jackets, campfires, garbage disposal, and sanitation. The membership of the WRGA provided a natural reservoir of knowledge about the river. Don Harris andJack Brennan, officers of the WRGA and owners of Harris-Brennan River Expeditions, and that perennial river critic, Otis Marston, worked with the National Park Service on a system of rating rapids using a 1-10 scale LesJones, a civil engineer and WRGA officer in charge of "maps and reconnaissance," created scroll maps ofwestern rivers that the association made available to members, park rangers, and the public.4

Growth in membership brought new problems to the WRGA— the foremost an increasing split between those in two of the categories of membership, guides and outfitters Guides were employees but not owners,while outfitters, who were often guides aswell, owned the concessions and companies According to the bylaws only those holding guide memberships could vote; if an outfitter wanted a say he had to also register as a guide and pay two sets of dues. The dues were minimal, but the principle waswhat counted. On the other hand, the outfitters exerted greater influence on WRGA policies and rules and dominated the leadership of the association. Athird category, general membership, consisted mostly of private river runners or regular passengers on commercial trips, individuals who were neither outfitters

264 Utah Historical Quarterly
4 Jones's maps of the Colorado, the Green, the Salmon, and many other western rivers were based on solo trips in his homemade canoes The hand-drawn maps are virtual works of art in their detail and are today highly prized by river runners

The Western River Guides Association 265

nor guides but simply people who loved river running For the most part they divided their loyalties between one of the two factions Guides tended to be younger and showed more interest in running the river than in managing a business One older member noted in 1969 that the "younger generation of'boatmen' are rather 'hippie' inclined, use pot, etc." A significant number were Vietnam veterans escaping from the war to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Outfitters, on the other hand, often were older, had become more conservative, and had a much greater stake in the business of river running—not just rapids and runs but profits and losses, bottom lines aswell as eddy lines. Many guides felt that they were being forced out of the association by the outfitters, and some quit. Virtually all outfitters were active river guides as well, and the lines should not be too clearly drawn. Still, tension between the two factions boiled over on occasion, and it caused a great deal of soul-searching in more than one individual.

Most WRGA members set aside their differences, however, during the annual meetings in Salt Lake City. When the group grew too large to meet in someone's house, the WRGA booked space in various hotels such as Little America or the Rodeway Inn.5 During the day members attended business meetings and sessions dealing with some river-related topic such as river safety and rescue, insurance, and government relations. The association almost always invited officials from the National Park Service, Forest Service, and other management agencies to attend the annual meetings. There were featured speakers, honored guests, and a gala banquet One of the favorite traditions occurred on the first night of the meeting when old and new river films were shown and old and new stories exchanged and embellished. The association provided free beer, and the resulting parties could continue well into the morning. Members often dressed in their river clothes, greeted each other like long-lost friends, slapped each other's backs, and worked deals in the corners Boats, names, launches, and user-dayswere traded back and forth in a generally convivial atmosphere of smoke, loud voices, and beer fumes. In fact, some members began to worry about their rowdy image in conservative Utah, but such fears rarely stopped the gaiety. It did cost them one charter member, however; LesJones, a faithful Latter-day Saint, quit the association because ofwhat he called "extreme drunkenness."

5 Don Hatch noted with a laugh that they felt they had made a step upward in respectability when they began to meet in the Chuck-A-Rama restaurant on Fourth South Hatch interview

In 1973 WRGA members chose Boise, Idaho, as the site of their first meeting to be outside of Salt Lake City There are many historical connections between pioneer river runners in Utah and those in Idaho; simply put, virtually everyone who ran the Green or the Colorado from the 1930s on also ran the Middle Fork of the Salmon, the Main Salmon, and the Snake. Idaho also had its own native river runners, such as Don Smith, Prince Helfrich, and Kyle McGrady, and its own guides association, the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Itwas mainly composed of horse packers and fishing guides until the 1970s when Idaho river outfitters began to dominate the organization. The success of the Boise meeting established the precedent that the spring meeting would usually be held in Salt Lake City and the fall meeting elsewhere.

The greatest test of the solidarity of the WRGAalso came in 1973 when the National Park Service unveiled its management plans for the Green and the Colorado. Basically the same, the plans for Dinosaur National Monument and Grand Canyon National Park differed in details. The Grand Canyon Management Plan wasmore strict and caused greater controversy in the WRGA It placed a moratorium on new river outfitters, with the number frozen at 21. Someone wanting to start a river business now had to buy out an existing concession. The plan established new rules for disposal of wastes, camping places and practices, types of required equipment—first-aid kits, lifejackets, oars—the length of time a party could stayon the river, and the size of parties Much thought and a great deal of paperwork by the river outfitters and members of WRGA aswell as the NPSwent into the provisions of the management plan. For instance, several folders of correspondence, plans, and other documents in the WRGA papers describe the types of toilets to be used along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, where they would be placed, and who would take care of them. Finally, the Colorado River was proposed for wilderness designation, and environmental studies were launched

There were other provisions; for the most part the WRGA cooperated fully with the NPS and had even anticipated the government requirements by many years. Many members viewed a moratorium on any new concessions in apositive light, for it simply meant less competition for what they sawasan increasingly tighter market The manner in which the rules were put in place angered some. When existing outfitters were told to file for a permit or lose their privileges, some

266 Utah Historical Quarterly

did and some did not Those who refused or neglected to file lost their permits. Many members of WRGA were outraged by these NPS actions, but a widely held attitude among river runners—derived from the awesome, individual responsibility felt in guiding a boat through big rapids—is expressed in the saying, "You snooze, you lose." In other words, a person is responsible for his own actions, whether in the middle of a big rapid or in a park ranger's office As for the provisions about improved camping, sanitation, and safety practices, all outfitters were of course interested in keeping the river and the canyons clean and in making sure that their trips were as safe as possible.

Other provisions of the management plan, however, created so much intense debate that the very existence of the WRGA was threatened The offending provisions dealt with the different views of the sport held by the commercial river outfitters who took passengers for hire and the private river runners who wanted to do it on their own without a guide. When the management plans were implemented a ceiling was set on the number of people who could go down the river in a given year as well as on the number of launches from any one place on any one day The "boater-user-days" (one person on the river for one day) and the launches were divided among the outfitters and the private river runners (usually known simply as "privates"). Until the early 1970s over 90 percent of river traffic in the Grand Canyon was commercial, so the outfitters naturally got the lion's share of both user-days and launches Many outfitters prospered in this new, less competitive climate

Few private individuals had the expertise, not to mention the equipment, to run a difficult and remote stretch of river like the Grand Canyon until the late 1960s and early 1970s. First, there simply were not that many people on the river; not until almost 1950 did the number of people through the Grand Canyon exceed a hundred. Nor were boats and equipment easy to obtain. The supply of surplus inflatable boats and other equipment was exhausted early on, and most other needed items had to be either scrounged or fabricated by the river runners themselves. By 1973 this had changed. Some domestic manufacturers, such as UDISCO, Campways, and Rubber Fabricators, began making boats specially for river running; and an emerging cottage industry allowed private individuals to buy rowing frames, oars, lifejackets, waterproof bags, special coolers, and so on As more and

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The Western River Guides Association

more people went on river trips, more and more of them wanted to experience it themselves. This was a sign of the times; the late 1960s and early 1970s were the peak of the back-to-the-earth, do-it-yourself, self-sufficient movement in America As an earlier private river runner, Ellsworth Kolb, had put it, they "did not wish to be piloted down the Colorado by a guide. Wewanted to make our own trip in our own way If we succeeded, we would have all the satisfaction that comes from original, personal, exploration."6

As the number of people with the equipment and experience needed to run a river on their own grew, mutterings arose in WRGA meetings about the percentage ofriver time given to each side. Outfitters felt that their livelihood was being threatened by talk of a greater share of river time for privates, while the privates felt that they were being unfairly frozen out—grandfathered out of the river, since most of the commercial outfitters were there first. Debate at the annual meetings often grew heated. Harsh wordswere sometimes exchanged, and members were "shouted down" at meetings In the Grand Canyon Management Plan the Park Service came down on the side of the privates and called for a greater share of the user-days and launches for individuals This outraged many outfitters, who felt betrayed bythe agencies they had worked socloselywith in the past. The NPSwas roundly condemned bymany outfitters but supported by the privates.

Naturally enough this debate split the Western River GuidesAssociation right down the middle. At the February 1974 meeting a Private Permit Action Committee was formed from members on both sides of the debate. The following November, at the meeting in Reno, Nevada, the committee presented its findings in the form of majority and minority reports—an indication of how divided the members were. The majority report called for an increase in the percentage of time allotted to the commercial operators to 98 percent of all launches and user-days; the minority report called for a redistribution of user-days to a 65 percent commercial-35 percent private ratio, favoring the private river runners The WRGA leadership voted unanimously in favor of the majority report, and the president of the association referred to the views of the minority committee members—the "Joe Munroe forces," named after their leader—as "the incessant wail-

268 Utah Historical Quarterly
6Ellsworth Kolb, Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico (New York: Macmillan, 1914), p. 9.

ing of a few extremists."7 In turn, general members of the association were dismayed by the "polarization" within the WRGA and the leadership's "strident letters . . . which seemed a veritable battle-cry against non-commercial runners."

Despite a lawsuit by the Wilderness Public Rights Fund and the Sierra Club against the outfitters in the WRGA and the National Park Service, the matter dragged on into the 1980s without any real decision. The NPS finally decided to leave the allocations of user-days and launches in the Grand Canyon essentially unchanged. The hot feelings engendered on both sides of the issue in the WRGA, however, took a long time to cool.

As soon as the debate over user-days began to fade another provision of the plan, the proposal to ban the use of outboard motors on boats in the Grand Canyon, stirred up even more dissension within the ranks of the WRGA. Motors over a certain horsepower were already banned 8 —which did not bother the WRGA, since outfitters usually used smaller motors—but this proposal would ban all motors. The outfitters wanted motors because they added an element of safety by making larger boats more maneuverable in the dangerous rapids of the canyon They also made it possible to carry a larger number of paying passengers down the river at a much faster speed than a rowed boat. This allowed a larger number of trips per season, giving a greater profit margin, cutting down on overhead, and allowing a river business to survive.

Wilderness advocates, the Sierra Club, the private river runners, and some small outfitters (who stood to gain from a planned redistribution of available user-days), all supported the plan. Those who favored boats equipped with rowing frames and oars found the motorized rigs noisy, smelly, and obtrusive and claimed they were ruining their wilderness experience To reach the conclusion that motors should be banned the Park Service took a select group of people down the Grand Canyon, some on oar boats, some on motor rigs The groups switched boats in mid-canyon and at the end of the trip were interviewed by park rangers. Most of them found the motor rig expe-

7 President Al Harris to WRGA membership, May 23, 1975, WRGA Papers

8 The up-runs (going up-river from the bottom of the canyon to the head) of die Grand Canyon—which had started in die 1940s, continued throughout the 1950s, and culminated in 1960—had utilized boats equipped widi powerful, loud motors Complaints to the Park Service about the noise, smoke, and general disruption of the canyon poured into park headquarters, and following the only successful up-run—die jet boat run of 1960—the NPS banned high-horsepower motors and up-runs altogether

The Western River Guides Association 269

rience unpleasant and not in keeping with wilderness values that the Park Service was trying to promote The management plan goal was to

Provide a wilderness river-running experience in which the natural sounds, silence, sights, and full beauty of the canyon can be experienced, relaxed conversation is possible, and the river is experienced on its own terms To accomplish this objective, the use of motorized boats from Lees Ferry to Separation Canyon will be phased out over a 5-year period. 9

The plan also contained a provision for some 11,500 user-days to be allocated for "administrative and research trips" and called for an increase in patrols from 3 per year to 39. But to the outfitters the ban on motors hurt the most. Outraged by the methods the Park Service had used to reach its conclusions, the WRGA outfitters claimed that if they had been running the research trip the passengers would have had a good time! Not only was the Park Service telling the outfitters that they had to share the river with privates, now it was telling them how to run the river.

The WRGA reacted swiftly; the proposed action struck at the river runners' pocketbooks, psyches, and even egos—a not-inconsiderable factor The leadership quickly voted to oppose the ban, again unanimously. Again harsh words echoed in WRGA meeting halls, and some members left the association because of it. One WRGA member, Gaylord Staveley, who was also a member of a splinter group called the Professional River Outfitters, wrote a 16-page comment on the Environmental Impact Statement accompanying the NPS proposals that amounted to a ringing manifesto of freedom from Park Service plans and planners. Staveley's document, copied and distributed to members by the WRGA leadership at association expense, further alienated members who supported the ban.

Finally, Sen. Jake Garn brought congressional pressure to bear on the Park Service on behalf of the outfitters and the leadership of the WRGA. Some provisions of the plan were finally implemented, but for the most part it became a dead issue after 1980. Again the WRGA had won a fight with the Park Service, but this time it had cost a great deal of goodwill inside the organization. Debate over both issues within the association—allocation of user-days and motors vs.

270 Utah Historical Quarterly
9 "Summary of Proposed Action of the Final Environmental Statement for the Colorado River Management Plan, Grand Canyon National Park,"July 1979 WRGA Papers

The Western River Guides Association 271

oars—reflected a deeper division in the WRGA:who controlled the association, the guides or the outfitters. In the end neither issue was entirely resolved, although motors were not banned from the canyon. 10 And divisions within the Western River Guides Association remained for the rest of its existence

The debate over the Grand Canyon Management Plan typified what was happening within the association, but it was not the only source of conflict. As the association matured it began to show signs

Canyonlands

Expeditions outfit, probably in the Grand Canyon. Al Morton photo in USHS collections.

10 Divisions on die river itself still exist Commercial motor rigs are often derisively called "baloney boats" by private river runners even diough it is the "baloney boats"—not the Park Service—that are usually on die spot to provide much needed rescue service in the canyon

of strain brought on by too many people competing for the same resource, namely the rivers themselves. Besides the Grand Canyon, other stretches of the Colorado and the Green came under scrutiny from the Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and various Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming agencies all of which were preparing management plans. Much to the disgust of the WRGA even the U.S. Coast Guard tried to get into the act, declaring that since river runners used boats they fell under Coast Guardjurisdiction. Additionally, on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho the so-called Sam Warren edict stated that it would be the policy of the U.S Forest Service to favor private river runners over established professional outfitters. Fueled by fears of monopoly on the river, other topics of animated discussion included whether outfitters could buy or sell other river concessions.

Even while all this discussion was going on the WRGA continued to grow Membership reached over a thousand by the mid-1970s despite the defection of disaffected members or the attrition brought about by increased competition among outfitters. Meetings were now held in many other places besides Salt Lake City, such as Durango, Colorado; Flagstaff, Arizona; Jackson, Wyoming; and Sun Valley, Idaho. This reflected the growth of state chapters of the WRGAaswell as the advent of many local organizations loosely tied to the WRGA, including the Idaho Outfitters and Guides, Professional River Guides, Colorado River Outfitters, and the Utah Guides and Outfitters. Far from being a Utah/Grand Canyon club, as it had been in the early days, WRGA members now came from all over the West: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, California, New Mexico. Additionally, the association sent feelers out to other organizations, such as the British Columbia Guides Association and outfitters groups in the eastern United States.

Annual meetings were still major social events, but the differences among the membership revealed by the debate over the Grand Canyon Management Plan also manifested themselves in the social arena Increasingly, some members disapproved of the rowdy drinking sessions that characterized the meetings. They felt that the organization needed to become more professional and sober in order to deal with the government on its own terms Bill Belknap, a long-time river runner, publisher, and outfitter, tried during his tenure as WRGA president in the early 1970s to clean up the association's act.

272 Utah Historical Quarterly

He limited the practice of supplying free beer to the first night of the convention, introduced a resolution banning rock and roll music from the meetings, tried to get everyone to pay attention to the rules and attend business meetings, and generally to shape up. In this he was largely unsuccessful and finally gave up in disgust.11 The truth was that a sizeable portion of the membership quite simply did not want to give up the social aspect of the association. To them the proper function of the WRGA was to provide excuses forjust such occasions when they could bring some of the river they loved into their off-season lives.12

Just about everyone agreed that the association had gotten too big to be run solely by volunteers. The executive secretary for many years, Art Woodworth, took it upon himself to keep the association going. Unpaid except for an occasional free trip down the river, Woodworth (who was neither an outfitter nor a guide, simply a man who loved river running) kept the books, wrote checks, put out the newsletter, and kept track of memberships Working out of a room in his Salt Lake City home, Woodworth answered inquiries from all over the country about river running and kept up a constant correspondence with the succession of presidents and officers of the WRGA about finances, plans for conventions, and disputes between members One officer referred to Art as the peacemaker of the organization, and it was true that most members referred questions about rules and bylaws to him. Since retired, Woodworth was the unsung hero of the WRGA; without him the organization would most likely have fallen to pieces long before it did.

Some members realized that they could not depend on volunteers like Art forever. Patrick Conley and Don Hatch, presidents of the WRGA in the early 1980s, felt that the association needed to change with the times in order to meet the challenges of the new decade. At the February 1979 meeting substantial changes in the bylaws were approved by the membership. These included a clarification of the outfitter status, an effort to increase the membership by enlisting passengers, and hiring an executive director and a paid staff. This last item was the most important, for the leaders of the WRGA felt that an executive director could improve the newsletter, head the

The Western River Guides Association 273
11 Personal communication from Vaughn Short, June 2, 1991 See also WRGA Papers 12 Dave MacKay interview, July 4, 1991

expanded membership drive, serve as a lobbyist with government agencies, act as a public relations agent for the WRGA and river running in general, and chair the convention committees.13

The first executive director, hired the next year, was a former Western River Expeditions boatman, Carl Norbeck. Trained in public administration, he quickly shook many of the kinks out of the way things were run by the WRGA. But Norbeck left after a year to accept a position at Yale University, and WRGA leaders next hiredJerry Mallet, another former boatman and an experienced fund-raiser and organizer aswell. Under his leadership the WHR.GAbecame more professional, gaining a greater voice with government management agencies and becoming more involved with larger environmental issues. More significant in the long run, Mallett and some WRGA officers also established contacts with the association's counterpart in the eastern U.S., the Eastern Professional River Outfitters Association (EPROA), with the aim of combining forces

Some members of the WRGA did not like the new direction taken by the leaders of the association. It seemed to be becoming less a river runners' organization than an environmentalist group, and they resented this shift in emphasis to larger issues outside the river. Others objected to the proposed expansion and amalgamation with other outfitter groups. During this period the WRGA lost many older members who either quit in protest or simply stopped paying dues and attending meetings Because these disaffected members were by nature not the type to assert leadership in an organization they felt increasingly distant from, the contacts with other groups and the shift toward an environmentalist slant continued.14

After several years of informal meetings, with all the diplomacy of warring sovereign nations maneuvering around a peace table, the WRGA and the EPROA met at what was billed as Confluence '89 in New Orleans. During this lengthy meeting several thousand river runners from all over the United States met for discussions, equipment displays, and parties. Despite the obvious temptations and distractions enough business was transacted to allow a plan to be drawn up whereby the two organizations would unite under a larger umbrella encompassing all outdoor-oriented associations in the U.S., called

13 Report to membership by President Patrick Conley, September 1980 WRGA Papers

274 Utah Historical Quarterly
14 MacKay interview Among those who left when die association began to change were the Quist brothers, Clair, Richard, and Bob, who still operate Moki Mac River Expeditions

America Outdoors. The respective memberships were given one year to mull it over, with the final approval coming at the next meeting, a joint conference held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in December 1990. After the plan was approved by the members, the organizations surrendered their identities The turbulent life of the Western River Guides Association was ended. 1 5

Throughout its forty-year history the Western River Guides Association found itself caught in the grip of two different forces; if the WRGA were an individual it could almost be called schizophrenic. The common bond shared by those who loved rivers, rapids, and canyons and liked to associate with fellow travelers drew the membership together. At the same time, deep (and in the end, irreconcilable) differences of philosophy among the membership split the association apart. On the issue of who should have a greater voice in decisions affecting river runners, the guides or the outfitters, the members could never agree. The user-day debate, motors vs. oars, even something as simple aswhether there should be free beer at the social events, were all symptoms of this larger division. Moreover, although the outfitters might unite against the private river runners and government managers, they also were businessmen, competitors for a fixed natural resource. Their professional and personal jealousies often negated any solidarity they might have gained in dealing with common enemies

The Western River Guides Association did accomplish many things, however, and too much emphasis should not be placed on the divisions within the organization. The association was instrumental in setting standards for river safety, equipment, and procedures. In this and in many other matters the leadership of the WRGA anticipated government regulations by many years; and when the various river management agencies needed advice on things ranging from what type of boat could safely run the Grand Canyon to how deep the hole for a pit toilet should be, they turned to the WRGA Despite differences in philosophy the members, guides and outfitters alike, united against threats to rivers such as the proposed dams in the Grand Canyon, the McPhee Dam on the Dolores River, the New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus River in California, and many others. Dismayed by the peak-power proposals of the Bureau of Reclamation for the Glen Canyon Dam, the WRGA helped lay the groundwork for the

The Western River Guides Association 275
15 Personal communication from Sue Holladay, July 8, 1991

the Glen Canyon Environmental Studies that are being conducted today and promise to change the entire philosophy of management of dammed rivers by the Bureau of Reclamation. Members of the WRGA introduced thousands of Americans to the joys of river running, the thrill of a rapid well-run, and the peace of a riverside camp. And they left fond memories of many enjoyable meetings over the years, times that are still talked about wherever river runners gather For these accomplishments, more than any debates, however heated, the Western River Guides Association should be remembered

276 Utah Historical Quarterly

I Wanted to Be a Chaplain: A Reminiscence of World War II

AFTER SERVING AS AN ARMY CHAPLAIN IN EUROPE during World War II, Gene Campbell returned home to become one of Utah's most distinguished historians. A professor of history at Brigham Young University for twenty-four years, he received many awards, including the Utah State Historical Society's most prestigious honor, Fellow, for his lifetime contributions to the research and writing of Utah history

Born in Tooele on April 26, 1915,Gene wasloved by students and col-

Eugene E. Campbell. USHS collections. Dr. Campbell died on April 10, 1986. This article was extracted from an interview conducted by Richard Maker onfuly 17, 1973, as part of the Charles Redd Centerfor Western History, Brigham Young University, LDS Chaplains Oral History Project. A transcript is on file at the Harold B. Lee Library, BYU.

leagues for his appreciation of people and for his liberal and humane approach to life. In this account of his experiences as a Mormon chaplain during the war he reflected on how his attitudes and outlook on life were shaped by those experiences. When the United States entered World War II Gene and his family were in Wayne County where he was a seminary teacher for the LDS church He registered for the draft there

I had volunteered for the Chaplains Corps and had qualified, but the quota of Mormon chaplains had been met. At that time the army was not drafting married men with children. They didn't call them up until it was really necessary. I was finally called to take a physical exam for the Chaplain Corps and went to Fort Douglas for it There were only two or three others there and they treated us very nice, just like gentlemen. The very next week I received a call to take a physical examination for the draft board, and again I went up to Fort Douglas, but this time there were many men being drafted and they treated us like dogs I knew then that I wanted to be a chaplain. I didn't want to be drafted. I had a master's degree, I had been on a mission [for the LDS church], and had taught seminary. I felt that I was as well qualified as any Mormon to become a chaplain

I finished the school year and was working at Utah Copper in Magna for the summer. I received a telegram one day that was addressed First Lieutenant Eugene Campbell I was told to report to Fort Douglas and take the oath that the officers are required to take. I went to Fort Douglas, took the oath, and got an officer's uniform. Despite the fact that I had received citizens' military training some years earlier, I felt like .. . an imposter wearing a uniform

It isn't easy to go there as a civilian and then walk out a first lieutenant. I couldn't remember whether you saluted inside a building or not. I walked down the streets of Salt Lake and enlisted men saluted me, and I really was puzzled as to what I should do I received a transportation allowance, boarded a train in Salt Lake and it took two or three days to get to Chaplains School at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

At Harvard they held the school in a building called the Germanic Museum. We had worship services every morning in the Harvard Chapel. We were quartered in Perkins Hall, a barracks-like affair with upper and lower bunks, four of us to a two-room unit I was put in with three very interesting men

Jim Summerville was a Roman Catholic priest from Brooklyn. I think women would look on him as being quite handsome. He was a cocky, selfassured, personable guy.

Then there was Llewelyn Runyon from Minnesota who was a Methodist minister. He was a gentle person and highly moral. He was what

278 Utah Historical Quarterly

I thought of when I thought of an ideal Protestant minister He was sensitive and intelligent I greatly admired him even though I thought he was the least manly of the guys.

Jim Franklin .. . a Baptist preacher from Tennessee . . . was quite a character. He didn't have too much education. He [had] received what he felt was a call to preach. His congregation felt that he was qualified and so he was recommended by his church He had some college training at one of the Baptist seminaries He was a chain cigarette smoker, and Jim Summerville, the Catholic, smoked cigars most of the time.

They asked me about our youth program and how we had recreation halls as part of our chapels and a full program of recreation, including athletics, dancing, drama. When I said dancing the Baptist preacher jumped up and said, "You mean to say that you foster an evil like dancing right in your chapel?" I said, 'Yes, I don't think it's evil." Then he said, 'You are a hypocrite, criticizing me for a little habit like smoking while you actually espouse a great evil like dancing." I soon learned that everyone didn't see things quite the same way. I began to have my eyes opened a little and have my vision broadened somewhat.

During the six weeks that we were at Harvard I came to have a genuine affection and respect for each one of those men I believe that they also felt that way about me We finished our session together and all of us felt that we would be heading for some combat area. It was either Llewelyn or Franklin that said that he felt that it had been a genuine religious experience, and he would like to have us all kneel and pray together with locked arms and hands We did and it was a moving experience for me

I was assigned to the 71st Infantry Division which was preparing to go overseas for a combat assignment I survived the trip fairly well However, I have always been subject to motion sickness and got somewhat seasick In fact, one day I had a hard time finishing a sermon. I was holding services down in the mess hall, and with all those odors plus the rocking of the ship, I began to feel sick and . . . cut the sermon short and headed for the upper decks

We landed in Le Harve, France, late at night. We had to carry our duffle bags and what else we had off the boat. The weather was terrible. We slogged through mud, sleet, and snow to some trucks, got in, and were taken somewhere. It seemed as if we drove all night. . . . The next morning

. . . we were just dumped in a field of mud and rain and snow at Yerville, France, which is part of Normandy. We pitched our tents and had noon Krations for breakfast, some hard crackers and some cheese That night cold, hungry, miserable, and facing combat I asked myself what was I doing there. I began to wonder why I ever volunteered.

After our unit had been there for about three weeks we received or-

/ Wanted to Be a Chaplain 279

ders to move to the front, which was still in eastern France. We finally ended up in the town of Bitche, which sounds a lot like bitch, and, as you can imagine, the GIs called it that We were let out in what looked like a bombed-out chapel. We threw our bedrolls down there and went to sleep. When we woke up we found that we were in the bombed-out ruins of a Catholic university called the University of Bitche Soon the GIs were going around singing "We are the loyal sons of Bitche."

I could speak some German. I had taken a couple of years of German at Snow College and . . . had reviewed it while working on my master's degree I held a church service in the local Lutheran chapel which had been partly damaged. The ministers had fled and weren't holding any services there, so I got permission to hold a service for the men in the chapel. Some of the townspeople asked if they could attend I told them they could, and I gave a little prayer and speech prepared in German I had a similar experience in a neighboring town which had a lovely little chapel. I got permission from the mayor to hold services in their chapel, and he asked me if the townspeople could attend I said to him, "I'm a Mormon, not a Lutheran." He said, 'You preach the Word of God and we're hungry for it." I told the mayor that they could attend and enlisted the help of a local schoolteacher to help with my talk and with some singing. By the time the service was to start there were about thirty or forty GIs present but not a single civilian. I thought they had got the word that I was a Mormon, but I went out to the door to see if anybody was coming. There were a couple of little kids playing around the courtyard and I asked, "Where are all the people? Were ist die LeuteV The little boy answered, 'You didn't ring the bell." I asked, "Do you know how to ring it?" He did, and in about three minutes the whole community was there. They were dressed in black, wearing their best clothes, their go-to-meeting clothes. We had quite a service; we sang "AMighty Fortress." I talked to them a little in German and we had prayer. It was quite a rich experience for me. When I went to the back of the room as we normally do at the end of the service to shake hands with the people on the way out, they started pressing money into my hand They expected to pay for the service There was also a little basket on each side of the door and they were putting money in that. I tried to stop them, but I couldn't. I don't know how much money was put in the baskets, but I didn't touch it Finally, when all the people left the chapel, the mayor and two or three other officials returned and gathered up the money and said to me, "We'll take care of this."

In another town we threw our bedrolls on the floor of a beer hall as we were expecting to attack the next day or two, but we ended up staying there for three days . . . [and then] I moved into the biggest house in town

280 Utah Historical Quarterly

with some other officers. The house belonged to the factory owner. It was a beautiful three- or four-story brick mansion with a private swimming pool, a steam laundry, a cellar full of wine, and elevators that went to the upper bedrooms. It was really quite a place.

It was at Easter time that we were there, and on Good Friday I thought that I had better hold a service. I got the word around that there would be services held in a room above this beer hall. It was a big open hall and I had it decorated with flowers

. . .Right in the middle of my sermon a warrant officer who had never been to church before came staggering in accompanied by a sergeant They both had been hitting the wine cellars and were just as drunk as could be. They walked right up to the front and sat down in the very front row. The seating was makeshift, with chairs, and I wasn't far away. I continued to talk [for] three or four minutes [and then] this doggone warrant officer got sick and the vomit splashed on my boots, he was so close. Then they got up and walked out. He was very embarrassed the next day when he realized what had happened. They had just wandered into church and didn't know what they were doing

When I got back to the officers quarters I discovered that the special service officer, Major Mann, had found [out] that we had liberated a group of Russian workers that had been working at the local factory. They were mainly girls who had been brought from Russia to work in the German factory Major Mann had arranged for a truckload of them to come to the officers quarters for a party When I heard about the party I thought to myself, boy, this is going to be a rough one. The men were all starting to drink and I didn't know what to do. I thought that the best thing for me was to go up to my room and at least stay out of it I was heading for the elevator when the inspector general of the division, a lieutenant colonel, called to me and asked where I was going. I told him that I wasn't going to be involved in the party. He said, "Chaplain, I command you to stay here and keep this party straight." I had shared some other experiences with him and we had a pretty good relationship. I said, 'You know I can't do that." He said, "I command you to try," and then he said to me as a friend rather than an officer, "I'm asking you to stay." So I stayed.

The truck arrived with a load of Russian girls. Most of them hadn't had a good meal for many months probably Some of them had had no contact with their homes for two years They didn't know whether their parents were still alive or not. The one thing that was in my favor was that no one could communicate very well. Most of the girls knew some German so if any of the guys wanted to talk to the girls, they had to communicate through me which was a real limitation They gave the girls some food The girls had made a two-stringed instrument. . . like a guitar so that they

/ Wanted to Be a Chaplain 281

could accompany each other [as] they sang and danced. Our special services officer found a guitar somewhere and gave it to them as a gift They also had a little concertina There was a lot of singing, and the guys started teaching them how to do dances like the Virginia reel and the conga They made a conga line through the house It turned out to be a real nice affair At eleven o'clock I said to Major Mann, "It's time to take those girls home." So he rounded them up and put them in the truck and took them back to their barracks

We were still heading north towards Berlin when I got orders to report to our headquarters in Fulda. I headed for Fulda in myJeep. I got to within ten miles of the city where a bridge was blown out. I talked to a farmer who was working in a field. He said there was a smaller bridge on a dam and he showed me where it was My driver and I were all alone We had a carbine with us, and that was the total amount of protection we had We were under the impression that the whole region was under American control Patton sent his tanks down the main highway and took the main cities, and then the infantry regiments like ours would come in and occupy the cities [Patton] would push on ahead and the infantry regiment would move forward on each side of his tank force and capture the little towns That way we would sweep across Germany So the city of Fulda had been taken and the 26th Infantry Division occupied it We were assigned to clean up the little towns on one side of the thrust I crossed a bridge, came into a little town, and noticed that people were hanging out their sheets I knew that this is the way Germans air their bedding They do it almost every day I heard some small arms fire but it didn't seem like it was very close We even had a flat tire in one town and we stopped and fixed it We went through another town and finally drove into Fulda but couldn't find the 71st Infantry Division We found the 26th Division Headquarters, and finally got to talk to the commanding officer He asked, "What are you doing in here?" I answered, "I had orders to come here as this is where our headquarters was supposed to be." He said, "There has been a delay and they are not in here yet. By the way, how did you get here?" I showed him on the map and he laughed and said, "Congratulations, chaplain, you just conquered two towns." Actually, I was the first one to go into those two towns. I didn't know that, of course; they were surrendering when they were hanging out those white sheets. I thought they were just airing their bedding. I asked him what would be the best way to get to my headquarters and he said, "You need to go on the other side of the river." He gave me directions, and we headed back. On the way back I passed our artillery outfit which was setting up for a night attack. I saw German soldiers lying dead with their heads blown off. It was horrible. . . .About 10 kilometers back . .. I found one of our infantry divisions . . . marching off for a night attack. I

282 Utah Historical Quarterly

had been all through that area and didn't even know that it was German territory.

When I heard that Munich was taken I went a little out of my way to go there and see Dachau I saw the exterior of the great concentration camp and then went into Munich I went down to the Marianstrasse to the famous city hall with its famous glockenspiel. There wasn't a soul around but when we drove out south of Munich we came upon a small unit of German soldiers marching Boy, was I frightened! But soon I noticed that they didn't have any guns I discovered that they were just sixteenyear-old kids that had been drafted into the German army. When the Americans came through they turned them loose and told them to walk to their homes

After Munich we went down to the Austrian border and crossed the Inn River into Austria. This was not too far from Hitler's birthplace, Braunau. I discovered later that he was born on the Austrian side of the Inn River Then, as we pushed across Austria, we liberated two concentration camps. One . . . called Gunskierchen lager ... a new camp. . . . was in the woods and was filled with Jewish inmates from the Balkans. The other . . . Ebensee was in one of the most beautiful regions in the whole world, the Salzkammergut region of Austria Ebensee was an older concentration camp located on the side of a mountain. They had built four caverns under an old stone quarry as a camouflage in which they were building the V-2 rocket It had an elaborate electrical plant It also had a concentration camp where the inmates that worked there lived When they got too sick to work the Germans disposed of them. They had a two-furnace operation which burned the bodies. When I arrived, bodies were stacked in the room like cordwood and there was a half-burned body in the furnace A Dutch physician who had been given the job of running the furnace was still there. This was a mixed camp containing Dutch and French citizens. They were mostly political prisoners, whereas the first camp we liberated was made up strictly ofJewish refugees from the Balkans In both places there were some horrible things to see.

The Ebensee Camp contained hundreds of inmates They were like skeletons. Some of them were lying around on the ground and some of them were walking around, their minds just as blank as could be . . . [and they were] stark naked. It was pretty cold the last of April up in the Austrian Alps not to have any clothes on

About a month after the war ended I was holding a service in Augsburg. It was the largest group that had attended one of my services. Major General Wyman, the division commander, the assistant division commander, and another two or three generals were there, plus some other highranking officers I had a fine service prepared We had a brass quartet in

/ Wanted to Be a Chaplain 283

our band which was really good Everything went well However, the sermon I had prepared was on forgiveness. . . .We had been under great pressure and tension and the things that we had done and said to others in our outfits we should be able to forgive. I said that in the ultimate sense we had to forgive our enemies too if we were truly Christians We had to find a way to forgive the German people. The next day the commanding general, General Wyman, called me into his office and said, "That was quite a sermon you preached yesterday." When he said "quite a sermon" I didn't know whether that was good or bad That was the way Churchill always addressed a baby's mother: "That's quite a baby you have there." He told me that he didn't consider it an appropriate sermon for our situation. He said, "Do you realize that we are one of the divisions alerted to go toJapan? We havejust begun to fight; we have the hardest part in front of us; we can't be talking to these men about forgiveness." He told me that his father had been a Methodist minister and his brother was married to a Mormon. He was a very warm congenial man He said, "I suggest you pocket that sermon for a few years until we get out of this mess."

I was uncomfortable at first in the role of an officer. I liked the recognition, better pay, better quarters, and the other benefits. It was awfully hard for me to act as a religious leader and to be classified as an officer For example, I would sit at the officers table with the officers, and we had better food or special privileges such as being able to go to the head of a long line at the theater. It was hard for me to reconcile my concept of a Christian person with the army's hierarchy I tried to break it down I tried to stand in ... a long line with the enlisted men, but I soon got the word that the men didn't appreciate that. I was an officer and that was not where I ought to be I was part of the "enemy." I finally was able to accept my role as an officer I would try to be available for the men that needed a chaplain and . . . for emergencies such as trouble at home. Of course, as a chaplain Iwas also helpful in batde situations and in times of death. . ..

Generally, I tried to help the morale of the men. I promoted activities such as athletics and songfests. . . . My particular background enabled me to be more effective [at that] than other professional Protestant ministers because I had been an athlete. . . . [and] could stand rough talk without getting excited.

The war was a great adventure for me. I believe that the war was one of the greatest events in history. I [had] felt it was passing me by, and [then] to have the kind of experiences that I had seemed kind of wonderful. I treasure the memory of it. I wouldn't want to do it again, most of it anyway, but it was a rich experience for me.

284 Utah Historical Quarterly

Following

Here's the picture: a castoff Trailways bus loaded with Frisbees, Hackeysacks, guitars, Walkman stereos, a chuck box full of concoctions with names like Mystery Macaroni and Scrap Salad, and a class of apathetic Colorado College nature writing students and their professors wander through three national parks along the Colorado River for a week or two while the students compile notes toward a final essay about their experience. Eventually the vortex of this journey whirls toward that lowermost level of Hell: Moab, Utah, with its macho-posturing river guides, its mountain-biking Yuppies, its rednecks in souped-up Jeeps, and its Sierra Clubbers searching for a spiritual experience on the slickrock Professor James C. Work tells the story well enough for me, but it would take a Dante or a Fellini to tell it ultimately, if only there were a Dante or a Fellini who cared.

The professors' task is pretty imposing: to orchestrate a series of circumstances in which their grown-up teeny-bopper charges can hope to experience something authentic and to get it on paper To that end, they get them up at 4 a.m. to hike to Delicate Arch by sunrise, they teach them to meditate, they force them to go off by themselves to write in their journals,

and, mysteriously, they instruct them in the etymology (in Latin and Middle Dutch, no less) of the words "Landscape Arch." We are not told how the final papers turn out, but two of the professors, comparing notes during the Delicate Arch hike, agree that progress, at least to that point, is slow

As if teaching these kids to write is not enough, there is a Den Mother self-denial aspect to the professors' job that amplifies its burden With fishing kids out of the river in Cataract Canyon, doctoring dehydration in Canyonlands, the godawful food, the godawful guitar-banging, and the ultimate deprivation—no liquor—it is obvious that writing teachers' salaries do not come easily

What does Nature say, anyway? I do not pretend to know, but it appears to me that if it does have a message, it yields it up with considerable reluctance. Moses spent forty years in the desert; Jesus spent forty days What are these kids going to find out in forty hours, in a series of government campgrounds, in between sessions of Hackeysack kicking and guitar picking? Well, they can make a start; and perhaps that justifies programs like this one, though I suspect these organized epiphanies evoke some pretty synthetic emotions. Teaching nature writing, or any other serious subject

Where the River Begins: A Personal Essay on an Encounter with the Colorado River. By C (Provo, Ut.: Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, Brigham Young University, 1991.vi + 95 pp. Paper, $8.95.)

for that matter, involves trying to build a mature way of looking at the world while starting from some pretty profound immaturity. Maybe this is an effective way of doing that, but no clear confirmation of it emerges from the book.

Work writes well, but the personal

encounter with the river promised in the subtitle keeps getting submerged in encounters with students I'd like to see what he can do when he gets off by himself

Writing WesternHistory: Essays on Major WesternHistorians. Edited by RICHARD W. ETULAIN (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991. x + 370 pp. Cloth, $37.50; paper $17.50.)

Creating the West: Historical Interpretations, 1890-1990. By GERALD D NASH (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991 xii + 318 pp Cloth, $29.95; paper, $15.95.)

As western history celebrates something of a four-year long centennial with the closing of the frontier in 1890 and the delivery by Frederick Jackson Turner of his seminal speech to the American Historical Association at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago on July 12, 1893, on the significance of the frontier in American History, these two books published by the University of New Mexico Press offer an excellent summary of western historiography from Turner's time and before to the present

Published in 1991, the two books could have been issued as a set, and both are "must reading" for serious students of western history They are the products of distinguished professors of western history at the University of New Mexico Richard Etulain, the editor of Writing Western History, dedicates his book to his ".. . colleague Gerald D Nash, historiographical pioneer," who is the author of Creating the West. The two books offer contrasting but complementary approaches to historiography. Etulain's Writing Western History is macrohistori-

ography as it presents essays on ten major historians and their impact on the field of western history written by eleven leading western historians of today Creatingthe West is microhistoriography as it places in an interpretative context the hundreds of historians and scholars who have written about the West.

The ten historians discussed in Writing Western History are Josiah Royce, Hubert Howe Bancroft, FrederickJackson Turner, Frederic Logan Paxson, Walter Prescott Webb, Herbert Eugene Bolton, James C Malin, Henry Nash Smith, Ray Allen Billington, and Earl Pomeroy Etulain would like to have also included Francis Parkman, Theodore Roosevelt, Bernard DeVoto, Frederick Merk, John D Hicks, Oscar O Winther, John Caughey, Paul Gates, J. Frank Dobie, and Wallace Stegner It is too bad he could not Even though the book would have approached 700 pages in length, it would be twice as useful and valuable

Writing WesternHistory is one of at least four major books dealing with western historiography and published

286 Utah Historical Quarterly
GARY TOPPING SaltLake Community College

Book Reviews and Notices 287

in the last decade Two of these books, Michael P. Malone's Historians and the American West published in 1983 and Roger L. Nichols's American Frontier and Western Issues: A Historiographical Review published in 1986, include essays by leading western historians on the historiography of various topics and themes in western history such as Indians, Mormons, the fur trade, mining, transportation, politics, urbanization, and ethnic groups The third book, John R Wunder's Historians of theAmerican Frontier: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook published in 1988, includes shorter essays on fifty-seven individual historians

Utah historians will find two essays of particular interest, Charles S. Peterson's "Hubert Howe Bancroft: First Western Regionalist" and Donald E. Worcester's "Herbert Eugene Bolton: The Making of a Western Historian." Peterson is the only Utah contributor to the volume; his essay on Bancroft describes the man and the process that produced the first history of Utah, published in 1889 Bolton is of interest because his study of the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante Expedition, the last of seventeen books he wrote, was published by the Utah State Historical Society in 1950 under the title Pageant in the Wilderness: The Story of the Escalante Expedition to the Interior Basin, Including the Diary and Itinerary of Father Escalante. Bolton, a student of FrederickJackson Turner, was mentor for several Utah historians, including Andrew Love Neff, LeRoy R Hafen, Leland Hargrave Creer, Milton Reed Hunter, and Gregory C. Crampton, who completed Ph.D. degrees under his direction at the University of California at Berkeley

In Creating the West Professor Nash indicates that during the past hundred years historians have considered

the West from four perspectives: a frontier, a region, an urban civilization, and a mythical Utopia. The purpose of his book "is to provide a succinct interpretive synthesis of these efforts since 1890" (p viii) The four perspectives form the framework of the book with single chapters on each perspective except for the West as frontier which is covered in two chapters, 1890 to 1945 and 1945 to 1990 Each chapter is carefully organized with two major components: a chronological treatment by historians of the topics and a summary of how other scholars—notably anthropologists, geographers, political scientists, sociologists, novelists, and others—have viewed the American West.

While the purpose of the book is to describe how scholars have interpreted the West, a secondary theme is to remind us that any interpretation is based on the scholars' "own social, economic, and cultural backgrounds, their geographical location and their environment [and that] Although some in each generation believed that they had found the key to an understanding of the true dimensions of the subject, that eventually came to constitute a self-deception Essentially, they were engaged in replacing one set of myths with another—those that seemed more satisfying to their own generation" (p. 259).

Nash discusses external forces such as the agrarian experience, the urban experience, the Great Depression, war, disillusionment, environmentalism, global awareness, and their impact on each generation of scholars who have written about the American West He reminds us that historians work in the context of their personal values and beliefs, the larger community and society of which they are a

part. Yet Nash also warns historians against abandoning the struggle for historical objectivity in favor of becoming relativists and social critics His call for restraint in keeping moral and political views from coloring the writing of history is an approach that is preached in the classroom but, as he points out, not always followed in writing western history

It could be argued that Creating the West is a defense of Frederick Jackson

Turner, his followers, and other disciples of the "old" western history and an attack on the "new" western history. However, those who read the book carefully will find that Professor Nash is not condemning any group or approach except those who would use the writing of history for the pursuit of other ends

As part of the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of World War II Allen Kent Powell has assembled fifty-six personal accounts by Utahns of their wartime experiences. His purpose was to capture individual recollections so that we all might better remember and commemorate individual human sacrifice and contribution to America's war effort. To accomplish this, he carefully selected accounts that are both colorful and detailed.

These reminiscences give the reader an intimate feel for various wartime experiences on the battlefield or at sea, in hospitals or at home, and from internment camps to the war industries. The diverse experiences of people from various cultural, ethnic, and occupational groups make these recollections representative of a broad cross section of Utahns and the impact of the war on their individual lives.

Naturally, given the purpose of the work and the nature of the responses, the remembrances are not all of equal interest or quality. Nevertheless, over-

all, the recollections contain elements of heroism, adventure, despair, sacrifice, bereavement, humor, disaster, death, destruction, man's inhumanity to his fellow man, elation at survival against all odds, and joy over personal and collective accomplishments that provide plenty of interest for the reader

The general, broad events of the war, depicted through die eyewitness accounts of individual Utahns, are well known to the historian and probably to most readers, but the detailed involvement of individual Utahns provides a valuable personal quality to our understanding of these events Through the eyes of fellow Utahns we have a compelling testimony of what was honorable and what was terrible about World War II.

Utah Remembers World War II is an attractive volume, well conceived and presented so that it is a worthwhile addition to the personal library of Utah's lay citizens.

2c?c? Utah Historical Quarterly
Utah Remembers World War II. By ALLAN KENT POWELL (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1991 xiv + 271 pp $29.95.)

It is fitting that the sesquicentennial of Fremont's first western expedition (1842) should so nearly coincide with the publication of Rolle's biography. Public awareness of Fremont's role in the history of the West is usually restricted to some knowledge of his three expeditions under government sponsorship. Professor Rolle provides an excellent overview of these journeys as well as Fremont's subsequent privately funded explorations, his role in obtaining California for the United States, his early opposition to slavery and emergence as the first presidential candidate of the newly founded Republican party, his role as commander of the western army in the Civil War and as governor of Arizona Territory, and his successes and failures as a mining, land, and railroad promoter. Intertwined with these major historic events is the life of Fremont and his wife Jessie. In fact, the examination ofJessie's role in Fremont's writing, political activity, and financial activities is one of the most interesting aspects of the volume

Well organized and written, the book is especially useful for its discussion of the repeated controversies that dogged Fremont's career both during his life and thereafter Accusations of incompetence, insubordination, ineffectual leadership, and braggadocio are examined, but the reader is ultimately left with an unclear idea of the relative truth of the accusations. The author treats Fremont's life "with a cautious psychiatric approach" (to quote the dust jacket blurb), but his "cautions approach" includes a strong presumption of its utility in explaining history (see p. 325 n.12, for example) The author concludes that

many of Fremont's actions were the result of his illegitimate birth and fatherless youth that left him a perpetual adolescent, seeking adult male mentors (among whom his wife's father, Sen Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, was most important) but constantly rebelling against them

The book would be stronger had the author worried less about explaining Fremont's actions with Freudian concepts and provided more analysis of the milieu in which they occurred and their subsequent impact. Conclusions that "had it not been for the character flaws that Fremont so clearly demonstrated" (p 106) or that "lack of judgment became compulsive, an imprudence that he could not alter" (p 123) are interesting and may shed some light on the repeated controversies of his life, but they do little to explain the importance of his actual role in the exploration and settlement of the West. A greater discussion of Fremont's contribution to the American infatuation with the West (and particularly California) and his contributions to understanding the geography of the region (whether original or a collation of others' knowledge) is needed

The book's physical appearance is attractive, with clear and highly readable type The page numbering scheme is a minor distraction as the editors have chosen to paginate only alternate pages and to place no pagination on introductory sections or chapter openers, resulting in several consecutive pages with no numbers. The lack of a single map is a glaring oversight in a book that deals so extensively with exploration and travel

The author's choice of adjectives

Book Reviews and Notices 289

to describe Jessie may offend some "General Jessie," "mid-life obesity," "gaunt visage," or "weary, wrinkled and shriveled" are some examples. Examination of the pictures upon which the author bases his assessment of Jessie suggests that his descriptions reflect his own perception and are meant to support his conclusion that the "character flaws" of Fremont resulted in a life of hardship for the strong-willed Jessie

In spite of these criticisms, Rolle's biography is an excellent addition to the library of anyone interested in the

West. While not resolving the question of Fremont's actual contributions, it does provide an excellent overview of his life and times. Those unfamiliar with Fremont's fifty-year involvement with American exploration, war, and politics will be pleasantly rewarded by this eminently readable book, but serious students of Fremont may conclude that we still need more research if we are to fully understandJohn Charles

The battle between the Sioux Indians and the United States Cavalry at Wounded Knee in 1890 is a subject that has invited interpretation and speculation from many quarters over the years. The controversy surrounding this event is almost legend, and the name 'Wounded Knee" is perhaps one of the best recognized symbols of American Indian Rights activism in modern times Eyewitness at Wounded Knee brings to this arena an unusually clear, unbiased account of the confrontation The strength of this book, and indeed, much of its charm, lies in die willingness of its authors to do what photo-historians do best—let the pictures speak for themselves.

The battle at Wounded Knee occurred on December 29, 1890, when the Seventh Cavalry attempted to disarm a Sioux Indian village on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota An increasing climate of suspicion had developed between the cavalry and the Sioux, fueled by the initiation of the Ghost Dance, a

prayer dance that celebrated the coming of a Messiah from the West to aid the Indians in their plight Many of the Sioux felt that this dance would provide protection to the tribe and rid them of the white man's interference The nearby white settlers and Indian agents mistakenly believed this to be an offensive rather than defensive posture on the part of the Sioux Within this environment of mutual distrust, the firing of a single Indian gun triggered the wholesale slaughter of Indian men, women, and children, with associated casualties on the side of the cavalry.

The guns at Wounded Knee have been silent for over a hundred years, but the controversy still continues In this excellent book three historians combine their efforts to give a balanced look at the conflict, based on painstaking research into original source material

The initial chapter by Richard Jensen, "Another Look at Wounded Knee," gives a clear picture of the In-

290 Utah Historical Quarterly
H JACKSON Brigham Young University Eyewitnessat Wounded Knee. By RICHARD E.JENSEN, R. ELI PAUL, and JOHN E. CARTER (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991,xii + 210 pp. $37.50.)

dian perspective of the conflict. This account uses many primary sources of information to piece together the social and economic factors leading up to the conflict and corrects many factual errors of prior interpretive accounts of the battle.Jensen provides a compassionate view of this event, portraying it as a desperate attempt by the Sioux to preserve the last vestiges of their religious and social freedom

R. Eli Paul's chapter, "Your Country is Surrounded," re-examines the changing role of the military with the advent of the dual technologies of the railroad and telegraph While giving an accurate picture of historical events from the white man's viewpoint, this chapter also shows how the new speed and mobility provided by the telegraph and railroad altered both Indian and U.S military strategy. The final written chapter, "Making Pictures for a News-Hungry Nation," byJohn Carter, gives a fascinating look at the photographers who documented the Wounded Knee tragedy and its aftermath. Surprising stories are related of photographs stolen from other photographers, deliberately mislabeled, and in some cases posed or even faked in order to increase sales The entrepreneurial aspects of photo-journalism in the late 1800s are here beautifully described and documented This chap-

ter also relates similar stories of newspaper reporters and relic hunters at the scene.

Fully two-thirds of the book is taken up with beautifully reproduced photographs retrieved from many collections across the United States. Most of the photographs have detailed captions, many with additional anecdotes that blend well with the textual material Numerous footnotes and references add to the value of this book as a source for those interested in further study of the subject.

Despite being written by three different authors, the book holds together surprisingly well with minimal repetition or contradiction. The combination of written text and photographs provides a very readable, balanced account of Wounded Knee And, despite its strict adherence to primary source material and extensive footnotes, this book would be easily understood by both the experienced historian and the casual reader without prior knowledge of the events of Wounded Knee. It is this blend of facts, photographs, and historical perspective that makes this book worthy of a place on the shelves of any student interested in the history of the Old West or its photographers.

This handsome volume is the result of an interdisciplinary conference held in Edmonton at the University of Alberta in 1987 to commemorate the arrival of Mormon settlers in western Canada in 1887. Seventeen of the "key papers," as selected by an editorial

committee of sociologists and historians, are included The editors are of course aware that the Mormon presence in Canada did not in fact begin in 1887 and that there are several "presences" and several histories Not the least of these is the history of Mor-

Book Reviews and Notices 291
The Mormon Presence in Canada. Edited by BRIGHAM Y. CARD et al. (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1990. xxvi + 382 pp. $30.00.)

mon beginnings in eastern Canada in the 1830s—according to Richard Bennett, a story of "plucking not planting." Converts were encouraged to gather with the Saints in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and, finally, in the Great Basin However, as Gordon Pollock has shown in a forthcoming study, Mormon communities in the Maritimes flourished a decade longer than suggested by Bennett—so much so that in Nova Scotia the Strangites thought it worth their while to make an appeal to Mormon congregations Bennett's suggestion "that the seeds of future and spectacular growth in the church in the British Isles were sown in the Canadian missionary work" (p 31) needs to be pursued further, as does the early history of Mormonism in the Maritimes and Upper Canada, which is underrepresented in this volume.

That is not to deny, of course, that the arrival of the Cache Valley pioneers in southern Alberta in 1887 was a story of major significance for the Mormon presence in Canada In the popular mind that migration was occasioned primarily by the need of polygamists to escape persecution by the United States government. While there is much truth in that argument, Leonard Arrington also points out the growing population pressure in the Mormon heartland, informing his readers that between 1876-79 more than a hundred new Mormon settlements were established beyond the boundaries of Utah As for polygamy (explored in excellent essays by Jessie Embry and Carmon Hardy), Mormon settlers in Alberta quickly learned that the Canadian government—unlike the Mexican government—was not about to turn a blind eye to marriage practices that were as much against the law in Canada as in the United

States Nevertheless, in the long run, Mormon settlements in Canada proved more successful than in Mexico, partly because of greater cultural affinity between English-speaking western Canadians and Mormons, partly because of government policy that strongly encouraged settlement by experienced agriculturalists, and partly because of a policy of multiculturalism that extended to other groups—points ably made in the essays by A. A. den Otter, Brigham Y Card, and Anthony Rasporich. In a sensitive essay, Maureen Ursenbach Beecher points to the contribution of Mormon pioneer women as another major reason for success.

Dean Louder explores the limits of cultural diversity, observing that English-speaking Mormons in Canada, unlike their Francophone co-religionists, have an identity problem because church headquarters sees them as similar to Americans—a perception resented by Canadian Mormons Finally, differing cultural perceptions are illustrated by Armand Maus, an American scholar, who questions the applicability of the concept of ethnicity to Mormon culture, and Keith Parry, a Canadian, who sees it as useful for illuminating aspects of Canadian Mormonism.

By way of summing up, this book represents an auspicious beginning for the study of Mormon culture in Canada. At the same time, by highlighting the multifaceted and complex nature of the subject, this volume points to the need for further study before scholars can attempt an authoritative synthesis

292 Utah Historical Quarterly

wmQM |JMK Book Notices

Wounded Knee 1973: A Personal Account by Stanley David Lyman.

Edited by FLOYD A O'NEIL , JUNE K LYMAN, and SUSAN MCKAY (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991 xxxx + 180 pp $30.00.)

In 1973 Stanley Lyman, Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendent of the Pine Ridge Reservation, faced the seizure and occupation by the American Indian Movement of the small community of Wounded Knee, South Dakota The militants chose this hamlet, the site of a wanton massacre of Sioux by the cavalry in 1890, to symbolize the need for a change in government/Indian relations.

Led by Dennis Banks, Russell Means, Clyde Bellecourt, and other activists noted for belligerence, the occupying force faced Dick Wilson, elected head of the Oglala tribal government, members of the Pine Ridge community, the BIA, FBI,Justice Department, and a conglomeration of law officers The radicals remained in their position for seventy days, resulting in the death of two men, the looting and destruction of private property, and the expenditure of thousands of dollars. It accomplished little

Lyman's account of this "second" tragedy provides an insider's view of the multifaceted in-house fighting between government agencies and tribal factions as they face the enemy

to their front. It is as much a study of the bureaucratic turf wars as it is the militants' left-handed approach to foster change. In a day of activist concern over the heated issues of society, this book is a timely reminder of the complexity of finding appropriate solutions.

Cheyenne Autumn. By MARI SANDOZ Reprinted. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992 Cloth, $25.00; paper, $9.95.)

In 1878 a band of Northern Cheyenne under the leadership of Dull Knife and Little Wolf set out on a 1,500-mile odyssey that ranged over the western states from Oklahoma to Wyoming Approximately two-thirds of the 284 people who fled the disease and poverty of Indian Territory were women and children, but like the men they longed to return to their homeland and a more stable and independent way of life. Hounded by soldiers, settlers, and scouts, the group evaded capture for months until Dull Knife's people escaped their incarceration in a barracks only to be slaughtered in the January snows of Nebraska Eventually Little Wolf also surrendered but was allowed to remain in the north country as white attitudes mellowed from vindictiveness to sympathy.

This book is more than a study in heroics Told with the pathos for

Fr>%M

which Sandoz is famous, the Cheyennes' view fosters an empathy for Native American values while questioning the sanity of nineteenth-century Indian policy. CheyenneAutumn, in this reprint edition, isjust as cogent now as when first published forty years ago. It is required reading for those interested in western history, Native American history, and the effects of government policy on its charges

Crazy Horse: The Strange Man ofthe Oglalas. By MARI SANDOZ. Reprint ed (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992. Paper, $11.95.)

The University of Nebraska Press is to be commended for keeping Mari Sandoz's classic in print for fifty years This anniversary edition contains an excellent introduction by Stephen B Oates who relates the conditions under which the author wrote the book, howit has been received, anditsplace in the literature concerning the Sioux. For readers who are not familiar with this text and areinterested in therise and fall of a tragic figure andhispeople during the Sioux Wars (1850-70s), this book ishighly recommended.

Medicine in the Beehive State, 1940-1990. Edited by HENRY P PLENK (Salt Lake City: Utah Medical Association, LDS-Deseret Foundation, and University of Utah Medical School, 1991. xx+ 586 pp $35.00.)

The history of medicine in Utah during the past half-century is a subject broad in scope and of consider-

able importance in understanding the state's role in contemporary science and technology Medicine in the Beehive State focuses on the Utah medical community that comprises physicians (both clinical practitioners and teachers) in the University of Utah Medical School and associated hospitals, institutes, and laboratories.

The book includes an early (1942-52) history of the Medical School and forty-five chapters on various medical and surgical specialties and topics such aswomen physicians, artificial organs, and even the "Recollections of a Coal Camp Doctor" byJ. Eldon Dorman, ophthalmologist and former member ofthe Board of State History

The City of Trembling Leaves. By WALTER VAN TILBURG CLARK (1945; Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1991. xviii + 690 pp. Paper,

Clark's bignovel about coming of age in Reno, originally published by Random House in 1945, has been reprinted with a brief foreword by Robert Laxalt that recalls his friendship with Clark. Part of the novel's continuing appeal for readers is its strong evocation ofplace Reno—the city of trembling leaves—and its surroundings provide more than a setting for a story of adolescent aspirations; they are central to Clark's vision ofthe characters he has created.

The Life ofAndrew Wood Cooley: A Story of Conviction. By MYRTLE STEVENS HYDE an d EVERETT COOLEY (Provo, Ut.: Andrew Wood Cooley Family Association, 1991.xxvi + 287 pp )

294 Utah Historical Quarterly

Andrew Wood Cooley was a typical Mormon pioneer in many respects, and his life's story will have a familiar ring to anyone well read in nineteenth-century Utah family histories. The usual elements are there—conversion to the faith, polygamous marriages, church service, community building, and time in the penitentiary But there are unique elements too, and a history enthusiast need not be from the Cooley family tree to enjoy and learn from this fine biography.

Most of Andrew Cooley's Utah experience was spent in the Brighton area of the Salt Lake Valley, west of the Jordan River and south of Salt Lake City, but he spent time in Grantsville, Huntsville, and Batesville (present-day Erda) as well Primarily a farmer, he also taught school for a time, manufactured charcoal, and dabbled in merchandising and other ephemeral enterprises. He never achieved significant prosperity but was nevertheless recognized as something of a community leader and a solid family man

Thoroughly researched and well written, this book could serve as a model for family association biographies. It is carefully footnoted, arranged into chapters ofjust the right length, indexed, and illustrated. It reflects an attractive economy of style, both in terms of content and

layout, and is a handsome example of bookmaking. Davis Bitton's foreword is an exceptionally nice feature and will serve to further beckon the reader.

A Mormon Bibliography, 1830-1930: Indexes to A Mormon Bibliography and Ten Year Supplement Compiled by CHAD J FLAKE and LARRY

W DRAPER (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992 xii + 208 pp. $25.00.)

This is another series of useful indexes to Flake's original bibliography, A Mormon Bibliography, 1830-1930. This index was compiled to provide access to the corpus of Mormon publications by title and to merge the two volumes of the bibliography (the original bibliography and the ten-year supplement) by providing a tool that will lead users to desired material in either volume In addition to merging the two volumes by creating an index by title, the authors also created indexes by year and language. The chronological index provides scholars with blocks of material to survey the publications of a specific decade or even shorter periods. It also gives a view of publication trends or fluctuations in publishing activity over the entire hundred-year period.

Book Reviews and Notices 295

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UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

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BOARD OF STATE HISTORY

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