THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND UTAH
As a citizen and member of the
Democratic party of the United States, the nomination and
election of the present chief magistrate met with our
hearty approval and co-operation. Since we assumed the
management of the editorial department of this paper, we
have expressed our satisfaction with the policy pursued by
the Executive, and have had neither the occasion nor the
disposition to find fault.
Fully sensible
that the Utah questions is one which presents difficulties
of no ordinary kind, we are not disposed to hastily arrive
at a conclusion of what is the wisest policy to be pursued
by the government, in the prosecution to a settlement of
this disagreeable subject.
The news from the
East by the fast mail shows that the War Department is
taking energetic and efficient measures to solve at an
early day this difficulty.
On the other hand
there are rumors and reports recently received here from
Utah, which perhaps are entitled to some consideration,
that a misunderstanding has occurred between Gov. Cummings
[sic] and Col. Johnson [sic], and that the troops are not
to advance, but that they will soon return East.
Unable to
perceive why any difficulty should have taken place
between the civil and military authorities sent to govern
and preserve order in that Territory, we are not disposed
to give credit to the report, much less to infer that the
President is pursuing a wavering and vacilating course. It
is not presumable, that while the President is occupied in
providing for the forwarding of men and supply trains from
the East, that he is countenancing a movement which must
again leave the government of Utah at the mercy of those
same persons whose acts have compelled the Federal
Government to send an army into the field, and whose
obstinacy has obliged that army to suffer the inclemency
of a winter in the summits of the Rocky mountains, and who
destroyed the few buildings that might have served as a
partial shelter to that army from the storms of winter.
The people of the United States will demand even if the
present congress does not, a rigid investigation into
certain transactions that have occurred in Utah, and which
have been thus far permitted to sleep in almost
forgetfulness.
The massacre of
Capt. Gunnison’s party has been laid at the door of the
Utah Mormons, and justice requires an investigation that
shall either relieve them of the charge, or stamp the
cursed deed upon the foreheads of the guilty in letters of
blood.
The massacre of
the party of emigrants on their way to California in the
past year must be enquired into. No sane man, acquainted
with the character of Indians, with the testimony at
present before the world, will believe that that act, of
more than savage barbarity, was perpetrated by Indians. It
is beyond the power of credulity to believe that Indians
could, or would have done and acted as was reported, by
the Mormons, to have been done by the incarnate devils who
destroyed that party. The extermination of so large a
number of men, without the escape of a solitary
individual, is unheard of in Indian warfare. The
preservation of the children is unprecedented in the
barbarous acts of Indians. The return of those Indians
along the highway that they knew was thronged with
emigrants; and their undisguised entrance into a populous
settlement, with the orphan children as trophies of their
bloody deed, is beyond the limits of credence. If it were
allowable to admit an impossible case, for argument, we
would assume that the plan was concocted and the act
performed by the Indians without the aid or knowledge of
the Mormons. In which case the whole body of Utah
officers, from the Revelator himself, down to the
constable of the town most remote from the scene, are
guilty of murder in its most revolting form. Not only the
officers, but the inhabitants throughout the length and
breath of that Territory, are a thousand time more guilty
that the Indians who imbued their hands with the blood of
our country-men, their wives and their daughters. Months
multiplied by months have passed on, and, until the
present day no effort has been made by these saints to
pursue after, and bring to justice those savages that had
so cruelly murdered scores of their fellow citizens, and
left the mutilated bodies of women to fester in the
mid-day sun. The inhabitants of Utah cannot plead in
excuse that the Indians were unknown, or that they were
too numerous or powerful to be brought to justice, because
they were known, and there are no mighty bands of Indians
in that Territory, while there are resident Mormons in
almost every Indian village in Utah. Neither was it
because the Mormons felt themselves too weak to make the
attempt; for almost immediately after that event they
openly challenged and defied the combined civil and
military powers of the United States. Instead then of
exerting themselves to avenge the horrid deed, they held
up their hands before High Heaven, and shouted Hallelujah,
rejoicing over the diabolical act.
The only
conclusion at which any mind controlled by sound reason,
can arrive, under the circumstances and the testimony thus
far divulged, is that this unparalleled crime of
fratricide was committed by the Mormons. And, we ask,
shall this stigma be permitted to settle down and rest
upon the people of America? Will the Government and the
people of the United States follow the example of Brigham
Young and the people of Utah; and suffer a crime of such
enormity to attach itself to the skirts of our
fellow-citizens, without an effort to clear up this
charge.
It was charged at
the time of the massacre, that it was the work of Mormons.
The Mormons themselves knew that the circumstances were
such as would cause the crime to be imputed to them by the
unprejudiced and impartial ? of
their fellow citizens of the United States.
This party of
emigrants were murdered between the 12th and 15th of
September last, and Mormon, J. Ward Christian, then a
resident of San Bernardino, in communicating the
circumstances, to the
Los Angeles Star,
writes as follows:
It is absolutely
one of the most horrible massacres that I have ever had
the painful necessity of relating.
The company
consisted of 130 or 135 men, women and children and
including some forty or forty-five capable of bearing
arms. They were in possession of quite an amount of stock
consisting of horses, mules and oxen. It appears that the
majority of them were slain at the first onset made by the
Indians. The remaining forces formed themselves into the
best position their circumstances would allow; but before
they could make the necessary arrangement for protecting
themselves from the arrows, there were but few left who
were able to bear arms. After having corralled their
wagons, and dug a ditch for their protection, they
continued to fire upon the Indians for one or two days,
but the Indians had so secreted themselves that, according
to their own statement, there was not one of them killed
and but few wounded. The emigrants then sent out a flag of
truce, borne by a little girl, and gave themselves up to
the mercy of the savages who immediately rushed in and
slaughtered all of them, with the exception of fifteen
infant children, that have since been purchased with much
difficulty by the Mormon interpreters.
I presume it
would be unnecessary, for all practical purposes, to
relate the causes which give rise to the above described
catastrophe, from the fact that it will be attributed to
the Mormon people let the circumstances of the case be
what the may.
From the
foregoing extracts, although written by a Mormon, and for
the purpose of publication, we affirm that there is
sufficient proof to satisfy every unprejudiced mind
conversant with Indian character, that the deed was never
performed by Indians. Further, we state with full
confidence, that the emigrants knew at the time, that the
attacking force was Mormon. No body of Americans,
surrounded and reduced to such extremities, by enraged and
savage Indians, would ever have thought of sending a
little girl with a flag of truce, and more especially when
these men were from Arkansas, where every inhabitant is
familiar with the character of the Indian. But knowing
them to be Mormons, and partly American, and not believing
that they had lost all feelings of humanity, the would, in
a case of extremity, make use of such a messenger as would
be most likely to awaken their sympathy.
If the murderers
had been Indians, they never would have killed, on the
field, all tha (sic) females. This party consisted almost
entirely of families, and there must have been as many or
more young women as there were infants. Indians would not
have killed these; but would have carried them off as
captives. Neither would they have preserved the infant
children. The American history is full of instances where
the brains of the infant have been dashed out in the
presence of the parent, while the mother has been led into
captivity. On the contrary, if they were Mormons, there
were strong reasons that would urge them to adopt the
course pursued by those murderers. The children would soon
be of service to them. They would in a few years be men
and women, and Mormons; while they could not spare the
life of a grown person or youth, no, not even the young
and lovely females, because the risk of subsequent
exposure and detection of participation in the harrowing
deed, was too imminent.
This article has
already exceeded our usual limits, or we would transcribe
from the
Star the statement made by Messrs. Powers and Warn,
published in that paper in October last. These men were
the first, except Mormons, that passed along the road
after the massacre, and relate many circumstances that
fix, in the most positive manner, the complicity of the
Mormons in that tragedy.
We saw and
conversed with Mr. Powers and Mr. Warn, of their arrival
in this city, and it was at that time our deliberate
opinion derived not from prejudice, but from the testimony
that there were no Indians engaged in the affair, but that
those Indians seen on the road by the men named above,
were Mormons in disguise.
Both the
editorials and the statements made in the
Star at the
time, imputed the act to the direct agency of the Mormons.
A public meeting was held in this place, at which
resolutions were passed declaring the conviction that the
atrocious (sic) act was perpetrated by the Mormons and
their allies, and this belief was published to the world.
The
representatives of the people of the entire Union, as well
as those of the inhabitants of California, saw and read
the history of this astounding crime, and what have they
done or proposed ? in the
premises? We have not seen that the subject has been urged
upon, or has been brought up in Congress, save and except
by Mr. Gwin. And the matter was not such as that, in his
unaided hands, Congress could be induced to take any
effective action.
That there has
been a positive coldness, excited only to a slight
lukewarmness, manifested in Congress by the California
delegation, we think cannot be denied.
That hundreds of
our fellow-citizens, while journeying over the domain of
the people, should be so wantonly murdered, whether by
Indians or Mormons, more than eight months since, and no
steps taken either by the authorities of the Territory
where it was committed, or by the Federal Government to
investigate the occurrence, is an outrage upon humanity,
and a scandal to ourselves and the Government.
Had this outrage
been committed by the Chinese, or the cannibals of the
Southern ocean, the halls of Congress would have echoed
back in indignation of the representative of an incensed
people, and our own California delegation would have cried
for vengeance, and not have ceased until the manes of
their fellow-countrymen had been appeased by an offering
of blood, which should have satiated the god of justice.
There is no
conceivable method by which these subjects can be
investigated in Utah, but by the presence of an army which
shall over awe the guilty, and protect those who would aid
and assist in discovering the perpetrators. If they were
Indians, thre (sic) is greater reason for bringing home
the act to them, as, until this is done, the onus must
rest on the Mormons. Justice, as well as our own good
name, requires that they should not rest under so foul an
imputation. But if they are guilty, the blood of our
unburied sister, has ascended up to Heaven, and is
demanding retribution.
If the performers
in this outrageous tragedy were whites who masked
themselves as Indians, that their darkened countenances
might approximate the blackness of the crime which they
committed, let them be pursued by long-suffering justice,
until the vital air we breathe shall not circulate through
the nostrils of one of the wretches; let them be forever
hung upon the highest peaks of the overhanging mountains;
let their bodies ever remain suspended in the frigid
atmosphere of the mountain tops, as an example from ocean
to ocean of retributive justice, and a warning to future
and unborn generations.
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