THE SAINTS AND THE RED MEN.

Prevalent errors as to the red man—Secret treaties—The policy of the Mormons towards Indians—A Christian heathen—Fighting-strength of Indians friendly to Mormons.

I HAPPENED some time ago to repeat, in the presence of two "Gentiles," a Mormon's remark that the Indians were more friendly towards the Saints than towards other Americans, and the comments of the two gentlemen in question exactly illustrated the two errors which I find are usually made on this subject.

One said: "Oh, yes, don't you know the Mormons have secret treaties with the Indians?"

And the other: "And much good may they do them; these wretched Indians are a half-starved, cricket-eating set, not worth a cent."

Now, I confess that till I came to Utah I had an idea that the Utes were always "the Indians" that were meant when the friendly relations of the Mormons with the red men were referred to. About secret treaties I knew nothing, either one way or the other. But while I was there I took much pains to arrive at the whole truth—the President of the Church having very courteously placed the shelves of the Historian's office at my service—and I found no reference whatever, even in anti-Mormon literature, to any "secret treaty."

The Mormons themselves scorn the idea and give the following reasons: 1. No treaty made with a tribe of Indians could be kept secret. 2. There is no necessity for a treaty of any kind, as the dislike of the Indians to the United States is sufficiently hearty to make them friendly to the Territory if it came to a choice between the one or the other. 3. The conciliatory policy of the Church towards the Indians obviates all necessity for further measures of alliance.

And this I believe to be the fact. Indeed, I know that Mormons can go where Gentiles cannot, and that under a Mormon escort, lives are safe in an Indian camp that without it would be in great peril. I know further that on several occasions (and this is on official record) the expostulations of Mormons have prevented Indians from raiding—and I think this ought to be remembered when sinister constructions are put upon the friendliness of Saints towards the Indians.

From the very first, the Church has inculcated forbearance and conciliation towards the tribes, and even during the exodus from the Missouri River, harassed though they sometimes were by Indians, the Mormons, as a point of policy, always tried to avert a collision by condoning offences that were committed, instead of punishing them. If the red men came begging round their waggons they gave them food, and if they stole—and what Indian will not steal, seeing that theft is the road to honour among his people?—the theft was overlooked. Very often, it is true, individual Mormons have avenged the loss of a horse or a cow by taking a red man's life, but this was always in direct opposition to the teachings of the Church, which pointed out that murder in the white man was a worse offence than theft in the red, and in opposition to the policy of the leaders, who have always insisted that it was "cheaper to feed than to fight" the Indians. In spite, however, of this treatment the tribes have again and again compelled the Mormons to take the field against them, but as a rule the extent of Mormon retaliation was to catch the plunderers, retake their stolen stock, hang the actual murderers (if murder had been committed) and let the remainder go after an amicable pow-wow. Strict justice was as nearly as possible always adhered to, and whenever their word was given, that word was kept sacred, even to their own loss.

Both these things, justice and truth, every Indian understands. They do not practise them, but they appreciate them. Just as among themselves they chivalrously undertake the support of the squaws and children of a conquered tribe, or as they never steal property that has been placed under the charge of one of their own tribe, so when dealing with white men, they have learned to expect fairness in reprisals and sincerity in speech. When they find themselves cheated, as they nearly always are by "Indian agents," they cherish a grudge, and when they suffer an unprovoked injury (as when emigrants shoot a passing red man just as they would shoot a passing coyote), they wreak their barbarous revenge upon the first victims they can find. From the Mormons they have always received honest treatment, comparative fairness in trade and strict truthfulness in engagements, while, taking men killed on both sides, it is a question whether the red men have not killed more Mormons than Mormons have red men.

During the war of 1865-67, I find, for instance, that all the recorded deaths muster eighty-seven on the Indian side and seventy-nine on the Mormon, while the latter, besides losing great numbers of cattle and horses, having vast quantities of produce destroyed and buildings burned down, had temporarily to abandon the counties of Piute and Sevier, as well as the settlements of Berrysville, Winsor, Upper and Lower Kanab, Shuesberg, Springdale and Northup, and many places in Kane County, also some settlements in Iron County, while the total cost of the war was over a million dollars—of which, by the way, the Government has not repaid a Territory a cent. During the twenty years preceding 1865 there had been numerous raids upon Mormon settlements, most of them due to the thoughtless barbarity of passing emigrants; but as a rule, the only revenge taken by the Mormons was expostulation, and the despatch of missionaries to them with the Bible, and medicines and implements of agriculture.

The result to-day is exactly what Brigham Young foresaw. The Indians look upon the Mormons as suffering with themselves from the earth-hunger of "Gentiles," and feel a community in wrong with them, while they consider them different from all other white men in being fair in their acts and straightforward in their speech. In 1847 a chief of the Pottawatomies—then being juggled for the second time from a bad reservation to a worse—came into the camp of the Mormons—then for the second time flying from one of the most awful persecutions that ever disgraced any nation—and on leaving spoke as spoke as follows—(he spoke good French, by the way): "My Mormon brethren,—We have both suffered. We must help one another, and the Great Spirit will help us both. You may cut and use all the wood on our lands that you wish. You may live on any part of it that we are not actually occupying ourselves. Because one suffers, and does not deserve it, it is no reason he shall suffer always. We may live to see all well yet. However, if we do not, our children will. Good-bye."

Now, it strikes me that a Christian archbishop would find it hard to alter the Red Indian's speech for the better. It is one of the finest instances of untutored Christianity in history, and contrasts so strangely with the hideous barbarities that make the history of Missouri so infamous, that I can easily understand the sympathies of Mormons being cast in with the Christian heathens they fled to, rather than the heathen Christians they fled from. Nor from that day to this, have the Mormons forgotten the hint the Pottawatomie gave them, and on the ground of common suffering and by the example of a mutual sympathy have kept up such relations with the Indians, even under exasperation, that the red man's lodge is now open to the Mormon when it is closed to the Gentile.

What necessity, then, have the Mormons for secret treaties With the Indians? None whatever. The Indians have learned by the last half-century's experience that every "treaty" made with them has only proved a fraud towards their ruin, while during the same period they have learned that the word of the Mormons, who never make treaties, can be relied upon. So if the Saints were now to begin making treaties, they would probably fall in the estimation of the Indians to the level of the American Government, and participate in the suspicion which the latter has so industriously worked to secure, and has so thoroughly secured.

The other error commonly made as to the Indians is to underestimate their strength. Now the Navajoes alone could bring into the field 10,000 fighting men; and, besides these, there are (specially friendly to the Mormons) the Flatheads, the Shoshonees, the Blackfeet, the Bannocks, part of the Sioux, and a few Apaches, with, of course, the Utes of all kinds. The old instinct for the war-path is by no means dead, as the recent troubles in the south of Arizona give dismal proof; and a Mormon invitation would be quite sufficient to bring all "the Lamanites" together into the Wasatch Mountains.

That any such idea is ever entertained by Mormons I heartily repudiate. But I think it worth while to point out, that—if the influence of the Mormons on the Indians is considered of sufficient importance to base the charge of treasonable alliance upon it—it is quite illogical to sneer at that influence as making no difference in the case of difficulties arising. But as a point of fact, the Mormons have no other secret in their relations with the red men than that they treat them with consideration, and make allowances for their ethical obliquities; and further, as a point of fact also, these same tribes, "the Lamanites" of the Book of Mormon, "the Lost Tribes," are in themselves so formidable that under white leadership they would make a very serious accession of strength to any public enemy that should be able to enlist them.