I hope we can begin to tell the real story by educating our children and mending broken relationships associated with the western Utah migration.

Chris, thanks for providing the link to Elder Eyring’s statement. You’re right that it’s certainly relevant here.

Ben, I wasn’t aware of that Battalion monument. Do you think you could send me the picture via email? The vandalism is interesting. Some of the markers on the trail leading to the outlook to Mountain Meadows similarly have been defaced, with someone scratching off “Indians” from the inscription that identified Mormons and Indians as the perpetrators. Although it’s impossible to know who did it or their motivations, I think we can safely assume that the vandal disagreed with the monument’s message and defacement was the most permanent way to protest it and provide a counternarrative of sorts. The Custer National Monument sports several bullet holes that similarly contest the stated intent of the obelisk.

This doesn’t directly relate, but your post reminded me of a monument Catherine and I saw last year. When traveling through northern new mexico, we found out that there was a monument dedicated to the Mormon Battalion. It took a while to track it down, but when we finally did we found a large obelisk made out of rock with an accompanying plaque. On the plaque it talked about how bravely the battalion marched through, fending off the vicious “savages” along there way (mind you, this monument was probably only a few miles from one of the local reservations). I think it was erected in the mid 20th century.

If I was more computer literate, I’d add the photo I took of the memorial: since that time, someone has gone and (understandably) scratched out the “savages” on the plaque.

For too long, Pioneer Day celebrations in Utah featured reenactments of Indian raids, kidnappings, and battles, and the Sowiette monument does provide a nice reprieve from other, more explicitly violent, commemorations.

I spent this last week participating in a handcart pioneer trek with the youth in our Stake here in Virginia. While (thankfully, IMO) there were no staged attacks by “Indians” along the way (which I’ve heard of other congregations in the West doing in the very recent past), in a testimony meeting on the last night, more than one youth described the hardships endured by the Mormon pioneers as including “attacks from wild Indians.”

Elder Eyring’s comments, together with Elder Jensen’s, and those combined with my own anecdotes from this weekend, provide at least some evidence that Mormon-Indian violence still maintains a prominent place in Latter-day Saints’ conscience at both an institutional and grassroots level (with the institutional church taking the more progressive and culturally-sensitive stance on the issue). It would be wonderful to see those institutional efforts trickle down to the rank-and-file membership.

Here is an interesting little article about some controversy around the Sham Battle in small town Utah back in 2001 involving a Stake President named Lucero and his refusal to advertise the Sham Battle in ward programs.

Actually, the “Sham Battle” as they call it apparently still goes on today. The 2009 city newsletter has a contact number for those interested in participating.

Thanks for the post!!!

“Regardless of how one views the equities of Indian-Mormon relations in those times, the end result was that the land and cultural birthright Indians once possessed in the Great Basin were taken from them,” he said. “What we can do, the least we can do from a distance of 160 years, is to acknowledge and appreciate the monumental loss this represents on the part of Utah’s Indians. That loss and its 160-year aftermath are the rest of the story.”