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United States. Office of Indian Affairs / Annual report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, for the year 1855
([1855])
[Indians of the territory of Utah], pp. 195-206
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Page 203
COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. and, after some days successful fishing, they loaded the pack horses of the Indians with a large quantity of fish. The Utah lake and Provo river at this season of the year abound in fish, known as mountain trout, and it is for the purpose of fishing that so large a number of the Utah tribe of Indians resort hither every spring. At the commencement the Indians manifested a very bad feeling towards the settlers, and I have no doubt, had not some measures of a pacific nature been taken, that we would have had a renewal of the difficul- ties which characterized the year 1853. Those first disposed for peace were Tabba, Sanpitch, and Grosepine; the principal leaders of the disaffected were Tintick, Squash, and Autan-quer (Black- hawk.) The chiefs frequently complained that they had now no place of safety where their animals could feed, as in former years, in consequence of so much of the land having been improved and fenced in by the settlers, and requested that a pasture should be made for them bordering on the Provo river near their fishing grounds, where they could fish, at the same time protect themselves and animals from the Shoshonee, or Snake Indians, with whom they are almost constantly at war and in continual dread of; and urging still further, that there would be no necessity for encroaching upon the improved land of the settlers, I agreed to their proposals, and communicated their wishes to your excellency, who instructed me to carry the same into execution. As it is customary for the Indians to stop and camp for some time on their annual fishing excursions at the cities of Springville and Pal- myra, and as the citizens of those places have suffered much from the same cause as those of Provo, and as your excellency has instructed me to make separate enclosures at the above named places, I shall pro- ceed at as early a day as possible to give it that attention which the exigency of the case demands, and report through you to the Depart- ment of Indian Affairs. As I am not yet informed where the Indians will make their selections for the pastures at the different settlements, and as I shall give them that privilege, according to your instructions, I cannot at this time determine whether it will encroach upon the im- provements of the citizens or not, but will endeavor to give that infor- mation in my next report, also an estimate of the expenses attending the same. The principal chiefs of the Utahs are now on a visit to the Navajoes. They informed me that they would return about the first of September, when the matter will be finally determined upon. I would also call the attention of the department to the present, as well as the future, condition of the Indians for the coming year, in regard to provisions. It has been customary heretofore with the Indians in this sec- tion of the Territory to depend in a great measure upon the settlements for a large share of their living, and which has heretofore been liberally granted to them; but from the almost total destruction of the crops in the more southern sections of the Territory by grasshoppers, as well as the long continued and unprecedented drought, necessity forbids an exten- sion of their former liberality, I would therefore recommend to the de- partment to empower their agent in this section of the Territory to pro- vide the Indians with wheat, flour and some cattle, which will in a great measure prevent them from committing depredations upon this and adjoining sections of the Territory. Measures should be immediately 2;103
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