this settlement was given the name of Fort Utah. Within the space enclosed by the stockade was a mound, the top of which was levelled, and on a platform built thereon were mounted several twelve-pounders for the purpose of intimidating the Indians. But the Indians were not to be thus intimidated. In the autumn they began to steal the grain and cattle of the white men, and one of their number being killed while in the act of pilfering, hostilities broke out and the fort was soon in a state of siege.
Indeed, ill feeling on the part of the Indians had begun to show itself the previous year. Vasquez and Bridger wrote to Brigham on the 17th of April, 1849, that the Utes were badly disposed toward Americans, and that chiefs Elk and Walker were urging the Utes to attack the settlements in Utah Valley. The brethren were advised to protect themselves, but if the Indians were friendly, to teach them to raise grain, and "order them to quit stealing." Brigham was persuaded that Bridger was his enemy, and expressed the conviction that he and the other mountaineers were responsible for all the Indian trouble, and that he was watching every movement of the Mormons and reporting to Thomas H. Benton at Washington.[1] Alexander Williams and D. B. Huntington were empowered by the council to trade exclusively with the Indians on behalf of the community.
On the 31st of January, 1850, Isaac Higbee, of Fort Utah, reported at Salt Lake that the Indians of Utah Valley had stolen fifty or sixty head of cattle or horses, threatening further depredations, and asked permission to chastise them, which was granted. General Daniel H. Wells then called for volunteers from the militia, and on the 4th of February Captain George D. Grant started with a company for Utah Fort, followed soon after by Major Andrew Lytle.
- ↑ 'I believe that old Bridger is death on us, and if he knew that 400,000 Indians were coming against us, and any man were to let us know, he would cut his throat . . . His letter is all bubble and froth . . . Vasquez is a different sort of man.' Hist. B. Young, MS., 1849, 77.
