Utahs Black Hawk War

Chief Black Hawk played an important part in the story of the Ogden family and where they would take their trunk and eventually settle.

Here are some “Bullet Points” to help the reader understand the tensions of the times:

The Black Hawk War wasn't really a war in the traditional sense; it was a series of skirmishes between Indians and settlers between the years 1869 and 1871. Like nearly any other conflict involving peoples of different cultures it had two essential elements; an abundance of tinder ready to ignite, and a spark that would set it off.

• The Tinder, was the encroachment upon the food, customs, and lands of the native people.  Settlements throughout northern Utah and growing settlements in southern areas of Cedar and St. George left the central area of Utah, comprised of the Sanpete and Sevier Valleys, as the last Indian lands in the state.  Not to cast blame, but it is obvious that settlers continued to alter the natural environment by logging, redirecting streams for irrigation, recklessly over-fishing rivers, and killing deer, elk, and other game. As both Indian and non-Indian competed for the land, tensions grew exponentially.
• The Spark.  During a conference between whites and Indians held at Manti the following incident is recited: “A local named John Lowry, believed drunk at the time, told the Chief to keep quiet, when someone yelled,  ‘look out he's getting his arrows!’ Lowry jerked the Chief (by his hair) off of his horse, and was about to abuse him, when some men stepped in and broke them up."-Indian Depredations in Utah - Peter Gottfredson. 

Thus the tinder was ignited by a drunken Lowry.  Tensions heightened, cattle were stolen, and a young Indian brave, newly named Chief Blackhawk, led the Indians against the settlers in what we now call the Blackhawk War.  Whites were ambushed and killed resulting in a backlash where settlers in turn hunted and killed Indians, including villages of women and children.  The settlers of Richfield were but many who were evacuated to fortified communities such as Manti for safety.  Not until the “red savages” were beaten into submission in 1871 were people allowed to return to their former towns.

Peter Gottfredson

Perhaps one had to live and experience the times to find any honor in the behavior of the white people in the Blackhawk War.   In a reunion of the veterans of the war, held almost 20 years later in 1894, John Lowry, the man who had probably ignited the conflict, spoke in praise of himself and his actions.  He boasted of his heroic action in pulling the chief from his horse by his hair and said, “I am confident that many lives were saved, because it put the people on their guard”.  No comment is made regarding his state of sobriety when making this claim.

Peter Gottfredson, who spent much time living closely with both whites and Indians, wrote a chronicle of the conflicts entitled “Indian Depredations in Utah.”  Gottfredson was a astute observer of interactions between the two cultures and his book is considered to be an accurate chronicle and reflection of the times and the conflicts.