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Nephi massacre

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Coordinates: 39°42′31″N 111°50′10″W / 39.7085°N 111.8361°W / 39.7085; -111.8361
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Nephi Massacre[1]
Part of Wakara's War
Cabin near the site of the Salt Creek Fort, where the massacre took place.
LocationNephi, Utah
Coordinates39°42′31″N 111°50′10″W / 39.7085°N 111.8361°W / 39.7085; -111.8361
Date2 Oct 1853
TargetGroup of Goshute Western Shoshone people[2][3]
Attack type
Mass execution
WeaponsGuns, blunt weapons
Deaths7 males, ages 10–35[3][2]
PerpetratorsMembers of the LDS Church
MotiveParanoia towards Native American people during Wakara's War

The Nephi massacre was an 1853 incident when a group of Mormons invited a group of peace-seeking Goshute Native American men, woman (singular), and children into their fort in Nephi, Utah and executed the seven men and took the remaining three as prisoners.[4]: 138—139  The white settlers were acting in retaliation for the recent deaths of four Mormons in the Fountain Green massacre done by a different nation of Native American called Ute.[3][2][5] The settlers were from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) commonly called Mormons.[4]: 138—139 

The murder of the Goshute men occurred in the midst of a series of skirmishes dubbed Wakara's War between Native Americans and Mormons in the present-day Utah region.[3] LDS settlers at Salt Creek Fort in present-day Nephi, Utah invited the group of people inside the fort, took them prisoner, shot them in the back of the head,[3][4]: 158  and buried them in a mass grave.[7] One woman and two children from the group were taken prisoner.[8]

Accounts from local personal journals

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Adelia Almira Wilcox, whose husband had been killed by Native Americans two weeks before, wrote in her memoir that those killed in the Nephi massacre were, "shot down without even considering whether they were the guilty ones or not .... They were shot down like so many dogs, picked up with pitchforks [put] on a sleigh and hauled away."[9]

According to another local woman:

This barbarous circumstance [of the Fountain Green massacre] actuated our brethren, counseled by ... President Call of Filmore [sic], to do quite as barbarous an act the following morning, being the Sabbath. Nine Indians coming into our Camp looking for protection and bread with us, because we promised it to them and without knowing [whether] they did the first evil act in that affair or any other, were shot down without one minute's notice. I felt satisfied in my own mind that if Mr. Heywood had been here they would not have been dealt with so unhumanly [sic]. It cast considerable gloom over my mind.[10]: 270–271 

— Martha Spence Heywood, Journal

Background

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See also: Mormonism and violence

During the summer of 1853 violence erupted between Native Americans in what is now Utah Valley in Mormonism's largest denomination, the LDS Church. The series of killings were initiated over land and resource disputes. These conflicts are referred to as Wakara's War (also called Walker's War).[3]

Mass grave discovery

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In 2006 the remains of the slain Utes were discovered in an area of Nephi called Old Hallow during a construction excavation.[11][8]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Stettler, Jeremiah (September 15, 2006). "Skeletons found in Nephi may reveal details of 1853 massacre". Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved May 7, 2023. [The archaeologist] has found nothing to change the history of the Nephi massacre. Rather, he has evidence to suggest that seven men, ages 16 to 25, were killed that day and thrown in a mass grave.
  2. ^ a b c "Nephi Indian grave yields details of 1853 killings". Deseret News. LDS Church. Associated Press. June 8, 2007. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Rood, Ronald (2012). "Massacre in Nephi: Archaeology of a Mass Grave". The Beehive Archive. Salt Lake City: Utah Humanities. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d Rood, Ronald J. (2017). "The Archaeology of a Mass Grave from Nephi, Utah and One Event of the Walker War, Utah Territory. Excavations at 42JB1470, Nephi, Utah". In Kiarszys, Grzegorz; Zalewska, Anna Izabella (eds.). Materiality of Troubled Pasts: Archaeologies of Conflicts and Wars. Szczecin, Poland: University of Szczecin. ISBN 978-83-943365-3-0 – via ResearchGate.
  5. ^ a b Carter, D. Robert (February 18, 2006). "Frontier violence traumatized both colonists and Indians". Daily Herald. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  6. ^ Wimmer, Ryan (December 13, 2010). The Walker War Reconsidered (Master of History thesis). Brigham Young University.
  7. ^ [4]: 137–138 [6]: 145 [5]
  8. ^ a b Trauntvein, Myrna (August 9, 2006). "Skeletal remains found at construction site in Nephi". Nephi Times-News. Nephi, Utah. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  9. ^ Christy, Howard A. (January 1, 1979). "The Walker War: Defense and Conciliation as Strategy". Utah Historical Quarterly. 47 (4): 395–420. doi:10.2307/45060728. ISSN 0042-143X. JSTOR 45060728. S2CID 254442937.
  10. ^ Bagley, Will (October 17, 2019). The Whites Want Every Thing: Indian-Mormon Relations, 1847–1877. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806165813.
  11. ^ Trauntvein, Myrna (June 27, 2007). "Native American remains reveal evidence of being executed". Nephi Times-News. Nephi, Utah. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
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