UTAH.
STATE OF AFFAIRS.
From The St. Louis Republican, Dec. 6.
The last western mail brought us papers from Great Salt Lake City of the 15th and 29th October, two days before the announcement there of the melancholy news of of the murder of " Capt. Gunnison and his party, of which we have already given on account, and to day tarnish fur-ther particulars.
We have looked through these papers to gather up such stems as might be of interest in the States at the present juncture.
In the paper of the 15th it is said that an Indian chasing took place on the 27th of last month, (October) under the command of Major S. Markham. The Indians were found encamped near the mouth of Salt Creek, and after the fir-ing of both parties, in which C. 13. Hancock was slightly wounded, and four or five Indians supposed to be killed, Major Markham withdrew and returned home.
On the 30th Sept. Wm. Nelson, Wm. Luke, Wm. Reed, and Thomas Clark started with two ox-teams, loaded with wheat, to go to Manti to Salt Lake City. They camped about daylight of Oct. 1 at Uinta Spring, just east of Salt Creek Kanyon, where some Indians killed them all and - horribly mutilated their bodies. On the 2d Oct., in a skir-mish at Nephi, eight Indians were killed, and one squaw and two boys were taken prisoners.
On the 4th ult., John B. Warner and Wm. Mills were killed by Indians, 300 or 400 yards above the grist mill, near Manti. An address from President B. Young, occupies several columns of The News, on the subject of Indian affairs, mainly. Many inquiries had been put to him, what would be the result of the present Indian difficulties.
Now the harvest is upon us, I wish to say a few words concerning it. I desire you to tell your neighbors and wish them to tell their neighbors, and thus let it go to the several counties around, now is the time for women and chil-dren to assist in the harvest-fields, the same as they do in other countries, I never asked this of them before ; I do not now ask it as a general thing, but those employed in the expedition South, in the work of defending their brethren from Indian depredations, who have heavy harvests on hand, rather than suffer the grain to waste, let the women get in the harvest, and put it where the Indians cannot steel it. And when you go into the harvest-field, carry a good butcher knife in your belt, that if an Indian should come upon you, supposing you to be unarmed, you will be sure to kill one of them.
Tell your neighbors of this, and go to work men, women and children, and gather in your grain, and gather it clean, leave none to waste, and put it where Indians cannot de-stroy it.
Does this language intimate anything terrific to you ? It need not. If you will do as you are told, you will be safe continually. Secure your bread stuff, your wheat, and your corn when it is ripe, and let every particle of grain raised in these valleys be put where it will be safe, and as much as possible from vermin, and especially from the Indians, and then build forts. Let every man and woman who has a house, make that house a fort, from which you can kill ten where you can now only one, if Indians come upon you. "Bro. Brigham "do you really expect Indians to come upon us in this "City ?” This inquiry, I have no doubt, is at this moment in the hearts of a few, almost breathless with fear. Were I to answer such an inquirer as I feel, I should say it was none of your business: but I will say you are so instructed, to see if you will do as you are told. Let your dwelling house be a perfect Fort. From the day I lived where Bro. Joseph Smith lived, I have been fortified all the time so as to resist 20 men, if they should come to my house in the night with an intent to molest my family, assault my per-son, or destroy my property; and I have always been in- the habit of sleeping with one eye open, and if I cannot then sufficiently watch, I will get my wife to help me. Let an hostile band of Indians come round my house, and I am good for quite a number of them, If one hundred should come, I calculate that only fifty shall be able to go to the next house, and if they use up the other fifty, the third house will be safe.
But instead of the people taking this course, almost every good rifle in the Territory has been traded away to the Indians, with quantities of powder and lead, though they waste it in various ways when they have got it. The whites would sell them the title to their lives for the sake of trading with the Indians.
They will learn better I expect by and bye, for the people have never received such strict orders as they have got now. I will give you the pith of the last orders issued; (viz :) " That man or family who will not do as they are " told in the orders, are to be treated as strangers, yea, "even as enemies, and not as friends." And if there should be a contest, if we should be called upon to defend our lives, our liberty and our possessions, we would cut them off the first, and walk over their bodies to conquer the foe outside.
Martial law not enforced yet, although the whole Ter-ritory is in a state of war, apparently, but it is only the Utah (Indians) who have declared war on Utah (Territory.) Deseret has not yet declared war; how soon it will be de-clared is not for me to say; but we have a right, and it is our duty to put ourselves in a state of self defense.
The few families that settled is Cedar Valley at the point of the mountains, were instructed to leave there last spring, they have gone back again upon their own re-sponsibility, and now want to know what they must do. They have been told to do just as they have a mind to.
Those who have taken their wives and children in the kanyons to live, have been told to remove them into the City ; and if you want to make shingles, or do any other work that requires you to remain there, have your gun in a situation that an Indian cannot creep up and steal it from you before you are; aware, that you can be good, for a few Indians if they should chance to come upon you
If I wished to live away from the body of the people, my first effort should be directed toward building a good and efficient Fort. When new settlements were made in the eastern countries they built them of timber, and they were called "Block Houses." I would advise that every house in new settlements should be made good for all the Indians that could approach it, with an intention to tear it down. If I did not do that, I would go to where I could be safe, I would take up my abode with the body of the people. I would take my family there at least. By taking this course every person will be safe from the depredation of the In-dians, which are generally committed upon the defence-less, and unprotected portions of the community.
I know what the feelings of the generality of the people are, at this time they think all the Indians in the mountains are coming to kill off the Latter day Saints. I have no more fear of that, than I have of the sun ceasing to give light upon the earth. I have studied the Indian character sufficiently to know what the Indians are in war; I have been with them more or less from my youth upward, where they have often had wars among themselves. Let every man, woman and child that can handle a butcher knife be good for one Indian, and you are safe.
I am aware that the people want to ask me a thousand and one questions, whether they have done it or not, touch-ing the present Indian difficulties; I have tried to answer I them all, in my own mind, by saying it will be just as the Lord will.
How many times have I been asked in the past week, what I intend to do with Walker. I say let him alone, se-verely. I have not made war on the Indians, nor am I cal-culating to do it. My policy is to give them presents and be kind to them. Instead of being Walker's enemy, I have sent him a great pile of tobacco to smoke when he is lonely in the mountains. He is now at war with the only friends he has upon this earth, and I want him to have some tobacco to smoke.
I calculate to pursue just such a course with the Indians, and when I am dictated by existing circumstances, and the Spirit of the Lord to change my course, I will do it, and not till then.
If you were to see Walker, do you think you would kill him? You that want to kill him, I will give you a mission to that effect. A great many appear very bold, and desire to go and bring me Walker's head, but they want all the people in Utah to go with them. I could point out thou-sands in this Territory who would follow these Indians, and continue to follow them, and leave the cattle to be drove off by the emigrants, and the grain to- perish, and thus subject the whole community to the ravages of famine and its consequent evils. I have been teased, and teased by men who will come to me and say: "Just, give me " twenty five, fifty, or a hundred men, and I will go and "fetch you Walker's head." I do not want his head, but I wish him to do all the Devil wants him to do, so far as the Lord will suffer him and the Devil, to chastise this people for their good.
I say to the Indians, as I have often said to the mob, go your length. You say you are going to kill us all off. You say you are going to obliterate the Latter-Day Saints, and wipe them from the earth. Why don't you do it, you poor miserable curses ? The mob only had power to drive them to their duty, and to remember the Lord their God, and that is all the Indians can do. This people are wordly minded; they want to get rich in earthly substance, and are apt to forget their God, the pit from which they were dug, and the rock from which they were hewn, every man turning to his own way. Seemingly the Lord is chasten-ing as until we turn and do his will. What are you will-ing to do ? Would you be willing to build a fort and all go in it to live ? I tell you, you would have a hell of your own, and devils enough to carry it on. Do you suppose you will ever see the time you would do that, and live at peace with each other, and have the spirit of the Lord enough to look each other in the face, and say with a heart fell of kindness, "Good morning, Mary," or "how do you do, "Maria?" You will be whipped until you have the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ suffiently to love your brethren end sisters, freely, men, women and children! Until you can live at peace with yourselves, and with every family around you; until you can treat every child as though it were the tender offspring of your own body; every man as your brother, and every woman as your sister; and until the young persons treat the old with respect due to their parents, and all learn to shake hands with a warm heart, and a friendly grip, and say God bless you from morning till evening; until each person can say "I love you all; I "have no evil in my heart to an individual; I can then "send my children to school with yours, and correct your "children when they do wrong, as though they were my "own, and I am willing you should correct mine, and let "us live together until we are a holy and sanctified so-"ciety."
In another place we are told that Walker—the same chief who murdered Gunnison and his men—has made all the Indian bands in these mountains fear him. He has been in the habit of stealing from the Californians and of making every train of emigrants that passed along the Spanish trail to California pay tithing to him. He finally began to steal children from those bands to sell to the Spaniards, and through fear of him he has managed to bring into subjection almost all the Utah tribes. Last February he fell in with a small band of Piedes, killed off the whole of the men, took the squaws prisoners and sold the children to the Mexicans.
But the Governor says that the Indians are on the de-crease ; that tribes numbering 150 when he first came there were reduced to 35, and that some other little tribes in the Southern part of the Territory were nearly extinct. Walker, he says, is hemmed in. He dare not go to Cali-fornia and he dare not go East to the Snakes, nor to the North, for they would kill him.
In the "Tenth General Epistle to the Saints," it is said that the Mormon emigration over the plains has mostly arrived, the rear company being a few miles from the city.
Active preparations were making to wall in the cities and all the considerable settlements throughout the Terri-tory.
In The News of the 29th, we find the following resumé of events in the previous two weeks:
TO THE SAINTS.
Now is the time for action. Look to all your grain and vegetables of every description ; see that everything is se-cured against the frosts of winter, so that nothing waste. Our Heavenly Father is not pleased when he gives his children a gift and they do not take care of that gift and make a good use of it. Our Father has given us sufficient to feed and serve all in Deseret, the coming year, and until another harvest, and if we don't take care of it, who will be to blame? Our Father will not cry at our hunger, if he does at our sins, follies, neglect, and wastefulness.
Wall in your forts, your cities, or your towns, as you have been instructed from the proper source, and accord-ing to your abilities, and not think to wall in land for ten thousand inhabitants, when you cannot do it for ten. This is the sum-mum-bonum, the total of the whole matter, according to the letter and spirit of the instructions you have received ; make yourself safe, few or many, and live at peace among yourselves. Let no man, because he is clothed with a little brief authority, presume that he can "oppress" his neighbor with impunity. Do as you would be done unto ; and if you do it not, trouble will be on your track before you are aware of it.
Let every individual look for the safety of the whole, so far, as in his power, and he will be safe himself, and become a savior unto others. This is what we are here in the Valley of the Mountains for, by direction of the Al-mighty ; and if we fill not our missions here, we are not fit for any other mission.
"All is peace, why those cautions?" Yes, all is peace. A quietus, like a vessel becalmed on the ocean, is now spread over Utah. The Indians are quiet. The public mind is calm. There is no political strife. No desolating sickness is raging in our midst. "Why these cautions ?" A good reason why. In the time of peace and plenty is the time to prepare for war and famine; and for the knowledge and action thereon many nations have been overthrown. Let this never be said of the Latter Day Saints. Brethren, take care of your women and children; put them in forts or some safe place, and behave your-selves, or you may be called to part with them, as was David, King of Israel, and then the time may come when you will know what hell is. Be wise while you have the opportunity of exercising your wisdom.
Think not because a few Elders have been thrust out from Prussia, China, &c., and have returned to make their reports, that the work of God has stopped or his kingdom come to an end. This is but a beginning of what is to be. All ears are to be made to tingle, but many thrones will be upset, and kingdoms revolutionized before that day comes. Look to your garden seeds, that ought to be sown; haul in your wood before the kanyons are full of snow; say your prayers night and morning from pure hearts; seek direction from the heavens in all things; be diligent in business, and never say "I have nothing to do," while the labor of one hundred thousand men and women are want-ed in the Valley, and no one can be had a moment.
Look after the widow and fatherless and see that they are provided for as well as yourselves, not forgetting the families of those whose heads are gone on missions. Re-member the eye of God is upon you continually, and if His servants should not see you do wrong, He will, and He may whisper in their ears when you do not know it.
A wall will soon be called for, around Great Salt Lake City, which will be entrusted to the Bishops of their sev-everal wards to execute. Let them give an example to the Saints throughout the Territory, by their prompt and energetic movements ; and let all their wards, arid every individual thereof, say amen and act accordingly.
Let all Saints who have just arrived in our midst, stop their grumbling and fault-finding. We have done, and are doing the best we can for you. We have given you provi-sion until it appears some think they are to be fed always, freé gratis for nothing, without any recompense or reward; and if they do a day's work—no ! we did not mean so!—if they spent a day on our premises, and get meat and bread, they are doing us a great favor, letting work alone, only to stand in the garden and suckle the hoe or spade. We wish such to go on to California. Work one half as you had to work in foreign land's, and you shall have good wages; but do not suppose that you have come here for our benefit, unless you shall benefit us by your labors, and then we will do you good all the day long; for we have nothing but what we worked for.
Our Father in the heavens bless all the Saints, in the name of Jesus: amen.
