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Battles &
Massacres of
the Indian Wars - Page 5 |
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Gunnison Massacre
(1853) - At this site a band of
Ute
Indians
massacred Captain John W. Gunnison's Pacific Railroad Survey party, one of
several sponsored by the War Department's Corps of Topographical Engineers.
Unaware that the Walker War had broken out between the
Ute
Indians
of central
Utah and the
Mormons, Gunnison and seven men set out on October 21, 1853, from their camp at
Cedar Springs, just west of Fillmore,
Utah, to
explore the Sevier Lake country, in the area of Indian hostilities. Four days
later a band of
Ute massacred the
party. Searchers found the bodies and buried them at the site. The massacre
halted surveying activities in
Utah until
the following year, when
Ute hostilities
ended. Lieutenant Edward G. Beckwith resumed the survey and completed it to the
Pacific. A monument marks the massacre site, which is in Millard County, on an
unimproved road, about nine miles southwest of Deseret.
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Coo-che-to-pa Pass from the Gunnison-Beckwith
Exploration Report, 1855, courtesy National Park Service. |
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Walker War
(1853) - When the Mormons began to settle on the hunting
grounds of the
Ute
Indians,
the natives were at first friendly, working out accommodations with
the immigrants and even inviting Brigham Young to send Mormon
colonists to the Sanpitch (now Sanpete) Valley. Relations between the
two groups were helpful and cooperative when they first began to
settle in 1849. However, when the Mormons began to attempt to suppress
New Mexican trade, tensions developed with the
Ute, who had long
depended on the trade, especially that of native slaves, to which the
Mormons strongly objected. Though Young had negotiated a trading
relationship with Chief Walkara in 1850,
the colonists began to interfere in many of the
Ute transactions.
At the same time, the area was being traveled more and more with
non-Mormon trading expeditions and settlers and in a few isolated
instances, some
Ute
Indians
were killed.
The tensions came to ahead on July 17, 1853 when several
Utes were trading
at James Ivie's home near Springville. During the transaction, a
dispute erupted between a Ute man and his wife over her failure to
strike a good bargain. When Ivie tried to intervene, the dispute
turned violent and in the end, Ivie killed an Indian brave named
Shower-Ocats, who was a relative of Walkara.
The
Ute were
outraged.
In response, Captain
Stephen C. Perry of the Springville Militia led a unit into
Walkara's camp the next day to try to
mollify the
Indians;
however, the
Utes demanded the
death of of a white settler in retribution. When their demands were
not met, the
Ute were even
angrier and Perry’s militia fled. The Walker War had begun, which
primarily consisted of
Ute raids against
the Mormon outposts and retaliations by the pioneers. As a result,
Brigham Young directed settlers to move from outlying farms and
ranches and establish centralized forts.
The Walker War ended through negotiations
between Young and Walkara during the
winter of 1853. Casualties during the war equaled about twelve white
settlers and an estimated equal amount of
Indians.
The next summer, about 120 of Walkara's
tribe were baptized as Mormons.
Four Lakes Battlefield (1858) - The clash at this site on
September 1, 1858 marked the beginning of a running engagement that
culminated four days later in the Battle of Spokane Plain. In these
battles, Colonel George Wright revenged the victory of the Spokan,
Palouse, and Coeur d'Alene tribes of eastern Washington against Major
Steptoe in May about 25 miles to the southeast of the Four Lakes
Battlefield. Wright's 600 cavalry men and infantry men, equipped with
the new 1855 long-range rifle-muskets, beat an equal-sized Indian
force, emboldened by its triumph over Major Edward J. Steptoe. The
troops, who did not have a single casualty, killed 60 Indians and
wounded many others. An arrow-shaped stone pyramid in the town of Four
Lakes,
Washington
marks the site of the battle.
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Spokane Plain
Battlefield (1858) – In the wake of the Battle of Four Lakes,
the Battle of Spokane Plain was the last in Colonel George Wright's
1858 campaign in eastern Washington. Ranging over 25 miles and testing
the endurance of the participants, it resulted in another Army victory
over the Yakima, Spokane, Palouse, and Coeur d'Alene tribes. Occurring
on September 5, 1858, the battle began about ten miles west of
present-day Spokane and continued east across the plains until
evening.
After the battle, shrugging off peace overtures, Wright
marched through Indian country singling out the leaders of the war and
destroying their horse herds. The Yakima chieftain, Kamiakin, again
escaped. But, before returning to Fort Walla Walla, Wright hanged 15
war leaders and placed others in chains. Like the Rogue River Indians
of Oregon, the tribes he campaigned against in 1858 never again tried
to stem the flow of settlers by force of arms. Today, a large stone
pyramid commemorates the battle in the one-acre Spokane Plains State
Park.
Between the years of 1855 and 1858 the
Yakama
Indians (spelled Yakima at the time) were living along the Columbia
and Yakima Rivers on the plateau in central
Washington Territory. Living in an area that was "in the way” of white settlers, most
particularly, miners looking for their fortunes, the first governor of
the newly formed
Washington Territory, Isaac Stevens, along with the
Superintendent of Oregon Territory, Joel Palmer, sought to move the
Yakama, as well as the Walla
Walla, Umatilla, and Cayuse tribes onto reservations in 1855. Ceding in
excess of six million acres to the U.S. government in exchange for
$200,000, the
Indians were promised that white miners and settlers would not be
allowed to trespass upon their lands.
However, when gold was discovered in the Colville area and in the Fraser
River area of British Columbia, the miners ignored the rules and
trespassed anyway, sometimes stealing the
Indian's horses and mistreating them. When some of the
Yakama warriors retaliated by
killing miners in isolated incidents, Andrew J. Bolon, the
Indian
sub-agent at The Dalles was sent in to investigate. When, he too was
killed, troops were sent into the Yakima Valley, starting the Yakima
Indian War
in October, 1855.
As the troops continued to flood the region, the
Yakama united with the Walla
Walla and Cayuse tribes and a number of raids and battles took place.
The last phase of the Yakima War, referred to as the Coeur d'Alene War
or Palouse War came in 1858 when a force under the command of Colonel
George Wright was sent in to deal with the
Indians. In September, 1858, Wright’s troops defeated the
Yakama and their allies in
the Battle of Four Lakes near Spokane,
Washington. Though the main
Indian
leader, Yakama Chief Kamiakin
fled to Canada, 24 other chiefs were captured, and then hanged or shot.
The remainder of the tribes were then permanently placed on
reservations.
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From the Rocky Mountain General Store
Native
American Photo Prints -
Vintage photographs of famous chiefs, heroes, and
Indian
life in the 19th century.
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