Download Struggle over Memory: The Roots of the Mexican Americans in Utah

Struggle over Memory: The
Roots of the Mexican
Americans in Utah,
1776 through the 1850s
Armando Sol6nano
Utah’s mainstream history fails to consider the participation
of Mexican American people in the making of the state. This
oversight prevails even though Utah is an important part of
the Southwest, a territory that belonged to Mexico and one
that figures large in the construction of Mexican American
identity. This inattention is continuously justified by pointing to the small size of the Mexican American population prior
to the twentieth century, and the lack of a massive immigration of Mexicans into the state. Nonetheless, the history of
Mexican Americans in Utah is a significant one. It has been
shaped by the same economic forces and discriminatory practices that affected Chicanos elsewhere in the nation. In fact,
the emergence of a larger Mexican American population in
Utah at the beginning of the twentieth century only reflects
the late incorporation of Utah into the national economy and
U.S. capitalism.
Thus, to understand the history of Mexican Americans in
Utah, we need to focus on the historical, geographical, and
legal status of Mexican Americans rather than on demographics. The limited presence of Mexican Americans in the Utah
territory at the beginning of the century does not disqualify
the Utah territory as part of Mexican American history, as
traced back to the Aztecs. Furthermore, the history of Utah
c a n n o t be fully understood without considering t h e
Aztlan 23:2 Fall 1998
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contributions of Mexican American people. My intentions in
this essay are to show how Mexican American history is intimately intertwined with the history of Utah and to reconstruct
Utah history on more just premises. To begin, I stress the original connections between the Aztecs, the native Utes who inhabited the territory of Utah, and Mexican Americans. Second,
I explore the connections between the Spanish and Mexican
Americans. For instance, when the Spanish decided to explore
Utah’s territory in 1776, they relied on the expertise of Mexican mestizos. Without the assistance of the “half breed Mexicans,” the Spaniards would not have been able to explore the
territory. Third, I look at the hunter and trapper period (18201840),when Mexico regulated the trappers who exploited Mexican resources and traded in Mexico’s prosperous cities. Finally,
to understand why the Mexican American role has been
stricken from Utah’s history, I analyze the notion of Manifest
Destiny and its relationship with the dominant religious ideology of Mormonism. Looking a t the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, and its implications for Utah, allows u s to understand
why the Mormons allied with the United States and organized
a battalion to fight against the Mexican people.
The Uto-Aztecan Connection
The name “Utah”derives from the Utes, the native people who
inhabited the territory before the colonization of Mexico by
Spain.’ These early peoples form the first period of our history of Mexican Americans in Utah. As with other native populations, the Utes’ economic and social system was based on
hunting, gathering, and fishing. Long before Columbus arrived
in America, the Utes were highly skilled and capable of managing their quasi-desert environment. Their cosmology established meaning in the pattern of days, sustained their belief
in the immortality of the soul, and provided them with a vision of the afterlife (Iverson 1991, 105; Tyler 1965, 1; O’Neil
1976, 28-29).
The common linguistic and ethnic background of the Ute
Indians with the Aztecs is paramount to understanding Utah’s
Mexican Americans. The Uto-Aztecan language, spoken for
5,000 years, links the Utes and the Aztecs. In fact, the regional
languages spoken by the Shoshoneans, the Paiutes, the Utes,
and the Hopis are derivatives of the same Uto-Aztecan linguistic tree (Sherzer 1991a). Using the Genetic Classification of
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Mex‘canAmericans in Utah
Language, Joel Sherzer (1991a, 261) has situated the emergence
of the Uto-Aztecan language in what is currently northwestern
Mexico. He concluded that the linguistic features of the UtoAztecan languages do not necessarily come from a common
origin, “but from contacts between and among speakers”
(Sherzer 1991b, 445-49). Thus, the Uto-Aztecan language is a
manifestation of the cultural interchange between Aztecs and
Utes. Such collaboration was manifested in the employment of
similar sounds to identify artifacts such as bows and arrows
and in the use of similar instruments for hunting and gathering. More important, the Uto-Aztecan languages reveal not only
the Utes’ connection with the Aztecs but with other native
peoples of Mesoamerica, including the Mixtecans, Zapotecans,
Mayan, Totonacans, and Tarascans-all from whom contemporary Mexican Americans descend (Chavez 1989, 52). The use
of the Uto-Aztecan languages in Utah’s territory testifies that
many Native American tribes, the Utes among them, have lineages t h a t reach from t h e Southwest, to Mexico a n d
Mesoamerica. The influence of the Aztec culture spread across
the Spanish borderland and unified the historical experience
of the Mexican-American people (Robledo 1951, 28).
Indeed, Mexican Americans often identify themselves as
an Indian and mestizo people. For Mexican Americans in Utah,
Indian ancestry is further claimed because of the geographical location of the state in the mythological Aztlan. For Mexican Americans, Aztlan is the northern homeland from which
the Aztec people traveled to Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) in search
of a place to build their civilization. To be sure, the historical
location of Aztlan is a contested topic. Cecilio Robledo (1951)
situated it in the northern gulf of California. In the Codice
Ramirez, Aztlan was located in the territory of New Mexico
(Orozco y Berra 1944, 24). Alexander von Humboldt asserted
that Aztlan was somewhere in the present-day states of Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming (Orozco y Berra 1944, ch. 7).
Clavijero (1968, 65) deduced that Aztlan was located in the
region north of the Colorado River and Utah. Following this
observation, Fray Geronimo de Zarate Salmeran, a seventeenth-century Franciscan, claimed that the ancestral home
of the Aztecs was situated at Lake Copala, in present-day Utah
(Hammond 1979,65).
Beginning in the 154Os, the Spaniards called the actual
Utah territory Lake of Copala, “the mythical home of the Mexicans, Aztecs, or Indians” (Tyler 1954, 343). This ancestral
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connection between the Utes, the Aztecs, the Mexicans, and
the Mexican Americans, is strengthened with the recent discoveries of Cecilio Orozco, an anthropologist who places the
origin of the Aztec/Mexica civilizations in Utah. The root of
the Nahuatl/Aztec civilization, Orozco argues, “has its center
in Utah where the Green River, the Colorado, and the San Juan
meet to go through the Grand Canyon” (Orozco 1992).In Utah,
then, Mexicans started the great migration to the south, in
about 502 B.C., and eventually settled in the valley of Mexico
where they saw the eagle devouring the serpent. The founding of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) soon followed. As evidence,
Orozco points to the similarities between figures on the Aztec
Calendar carved in Mexico in 1479 and pictographs etched in
500 B.C. in Sego Canyon near Thompson, Utah.2In this sense,
the history of Utah should include a history of the origins of
Mexican Americans. Mexican Americans of Utah will then appear closely connected to the rest of the Chicanos in the Southwest. Furthermore, it will illuminate the dynamics between the
two mythological forces that had inspired both the Mexican
Americans and the Mormon people in their perceptions of
Utah’s territory: the myth of Aztlan and the myth of Zion.
Mexicans and the Spanish Explorers
Mexican Americans’ place in Utah history is further exemplified by the contributions of Mexican mestizos during Spanish
explorations. Initial contact between the Utes and Spaniards
can be traced to the early 1600s, when the Utes controlled
the plains of Colorado, two-thirds of Utah, and the northern
territory of New Mexico. But not until 1776 did the government of New Spain authorize the friars Silvestre Velez de
Escalante and Francisco Atanacio Dominguez to explore the
territory. As during other Spanish explorations, Mexican Indians traveled with the Spaniards as guides, interpreters, and
keepers of their horses and mules. Five Mexican-Indian “half
breeds” accompanied Escalante and Dominguez for 1,800miles
and five months of exploration. Without the guidance of
Lorenzo Oliveras, Lucrecio Mufiiz, Andres Mufiiz, J u a n de
Aguilas, and Simon Lucero, Escalante’s journey would have
not been “one of the most remarkable explorations in North
America” (Creer 1947).
Besides looking for a route to connect Santa Fe and
Monterey, the expedition aimed to convert the Indians to
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Mexican Americans in Utah
Christianity. In their first contact, the friars explained to the
Utes that they “had not come with the idea of conquering the
l a n d (Auerback 1943, 39-40). Andres Mufiiz, one of the Mexican interpreters, confessed to the Indians that the intention
“was to seek the salvation of their souls and to show them the
only way in which they might attain this salvation” (Warner
1995, 66).
Not surprisingly, the Spaniards gave Spanish names to the
places and Indians they converted along the way. Figure 1 lists
some of the Spanish names given by the Spaniard and Mexican pioneers, and shows how the Mormons changed them later
in the century.
A s soon as the friars reached the central part of Colorado,
they began to rely on Ute guides more. Silvestre and Joaquin
were the most prominent of these guides and showed an accurate knowledge of the country, people, and languages spoke
in that region. The friars’ immediate task was to teach the
Utes how to speak and pray in Spanish. Given the difficulties in concept and grammar, the friars in, cooperation with
Silvestre and Joaquin, taught the Utes to use short names
in their prayers:
We told them that if, during the interval until we
came, they suffered some hardship by way of illness
or enemies they were to call upon God by saying,
“God, the true One, Help us, protect us.” Then seeing how they could not pronounce these words correctly, we told them to say only, ‘Jesus, Maria, Jesus
Maria.’ These they began repeating with ease, our
Silvestre very fervently excelling them in it, and during all the time we were making preparations to leave
they did not cease repeating these holy names.
(Warner 1995, 69)3
Though “half breed” Mexicans and Utes were the translators, guides, and interpreters for the Spaniards in Utah, their
names and actions have been buried in what Carey McWilliams
(1961) called “the fantasy heritage.” Fantasy heritage glorifies
the Spanish history while obliterating the contributions of the
Mexican people. Echoing McWilliams’s sentiments, David
Weber stated:
Although the leaders of Spain’s exploring expeditions
a n d colonizing expeditions were usually persons
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Place Names Given by
Spaniards and Mexicans
...
La Vega de Santa Cruz
Rio de San Damian
Rio de San Cosme
Sierra Blanca de 10s Lagunas
Las Golondrinas
San Eustaquio
Ojo de Santa Lucia
Valle de la Purisima
San Mateo
San Lino
Rio de San Lino
Rio de Aguas Calientes
Rio de San Antonio de Padua
Rio de Santa Ana
Laguna de 10sTimpanogos
Arroyo de San Andres
Valle de las Salinas
Ojo de San Pablo
Rio de San Buenaventura
Valle de Nuestra Sefiora de la Merced
Rio de San Antonio de Padua
Dulcisimo nombre de Jesus
Rio de San Nicolas
Santa Ana
San Paolo
Ojo de San Paolo
Rio Santa Ysabel
Valle de Zisneros
Laguna de Miera
Arroyo del Tejedor
Vegas del Puerto
San Anoneges
Valle de San Jose
Rio de las Piramides Sulfueras
Cerro Negro
San Eleuterio
(Warner 1995, 147-49).
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Changed by the
Mormons to . .
.
“Stirrup” bend of Green River
Uinta River
Duchesne River
Uinta Mountains
Swallows (Rabbit Gulch)
Red Creek
Deep Creek
Strawberry Reservoir
Water Creek
Palmyra Campground
Diamong Creek
Spanish Fork River
Provo River
American Fork River
Utah Lake
Peeteetneet Creek
Juab Valley
Burrison Ponds
Green River
Utah Valley and Utah Lake
Provo River
Camp near Spanish Fork
Hobble Creek
Dry Creek
Payson Creek
Camp South of Payson
Sevier River
Round Valley
Blue Lake, Swan Lake, Clear Lake
Beaver River
Meadow of the Gateway
Black Rock
Cedar Valley
Virgin River
Black Hill
Brown Knoll
Mexican Americans in Utah
born in Spain of pure Spanish blood, the rank and
file of those groups consisted of persons born in
Mexico, usually of mixed blood, whose culture combined Indian and Spanish elements. These “Spanish” pioneers were neither Indian nor Spanish, but
Mexican. (1973, 12)
This fantasy heritage is especially active in Utah history
given that Francisco Atanasio Dominguez, a friar born in
Mexico City, was the leader and decision maker for the expedition (Warner 1995, xii). Eleanor B. Adams put it very succinctly: “Dominguez was the man in charge and the one
ultimately accountable to their superiors” (Adams 1976, 53).
Yet, most historians gave all the credit to Escalante, the Spanish priest and Dominguez’s junior partner (Mooney 1992, 5).
Velez de Escalante received the historical accolades because
of the higher recognition he enjoyed among the Spanish ecclesiastical authorities; Dominguez, on the other hand, was an
unknown and his mission in the borderlands was considered
suspicious. To rectify this misinterpretation, Walter Briggs
stated: “Let there be no mistake: Dominguez, not Escalante,
led the expedition” (1976, 29). Similarly, few historical records
mention the mestizos guides who helped make the DominguezEscalante expedition a success.
It is also important to note that the interaction between
mestizos and the native Utes in 1776 was limited. This lack of
interaction impeded the cultural amalgamation of Utes and
mestizos, and later impeded the identification of mestizos as
Indians. In this way, Mexican Americans in Utah lost an opportunity to connect themselves with the ancient and modern
Indians of the region (Forbes 1973, 70-76). Nonetheless, Mexican American forebears played a crucial role in the exploration
of Utah. In turn, the Spanish-Mexican exploration opened new
avenues for the government of Mexico, which eventually reclaimed the territories and people living in its northern region.
Trappers, Traders, and Mountain M e n
After the period of geographic exploration came the period of economic exploitation, during which Americans and Mexicans interacted to shape the history of both Utah and Mexico. Between
1820 and 1840 in Utah history, the fur trader, trapper, and
mountain man arrived in the Great Basin due to Spain’s waning
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power and Anglo-Americans’ determination to expand their influence into the Spanish settlements of New Mexico and Chihuahua, Mexico (Ulibani 1963).In September 1810, Mexico started
its war of independence against Spain and reclaimed all Spanish possessions. Twelve years later, William Becknell opened the
Santa Fe Trail, thereby initiating new trading opportunities previously restricted by Spanish law (Hunter 1946).From Santa Fit,
the traders could travel to Chihuahua, the most important trading and mining center in Mexico. Becknell became the first frontier man to enter Mexico in 1824, with the intention of trading
horses and mules-and liberating Mexican trade policies.
The continuous arrival of American trappers and trading
caravans considerably increased the trading operations and
the interactions between Mexicans and Americans. Trappers
soon found themselves in disputes with the Mexican government who accused them of illegal gambling, and trespassing
such Mexican laws as hunting beaver without permits, smuggling goods across the borders, and obtaining passports to
leave the country but remaining within the limits of the territory. Mexican officials were also preoccupied with a potential
uprising of indigenous populations in Sonora and Chihuahua,
who were trading guns and ammunition for skins. Simultaneously, the Mexican government complained that the trappers were encouraging the Mexicans not to obey the laws of
their country, and treating all Mexican institutions with open
and irritating contempt (Cleland 1976, 150).
The most important source of rivalry between Mexicans
and traders were taxes imposed by the Mexican government.
To protect themselves against this “arbitrary and unwarranted
taxation system, the traders invoked the protection of the
United States and demanded commercial treaties, consular
agencies in Mexican trade centers, and tax exemptions on
items imported to the United States (Ulibarri 1963, 90-103).
By 1832, the Great Salt Lake was a familiar place for trappers a n d traders. Fur companies like those of Joseph
Reddeford Walker camped in the Salt Lake valley and immediately claimed the territory for the United States:
Most of this vast waste of territory belongs to the Republic of the United States. . . . Our government
should be vigilant. She should assert her claim by
taking possession of the whole territory as soon as
possible-for we have good reason to suppose that
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MexicanAmericans in Utah
the territory west of the mountain will some day be
equally as important to the nation as that on the
east. (Zenas 1839, 49-50)
By 1832, hundreds of traders and trappers were crossing
the Mexican border without permits or authorization. Several
trappers became Mexican citizens, as was the case with J u a n
Rowland, Carlos Beaubien, Antoine and Louis Robidoux, Jose
Ricardo Campbell, David Waldo, William Wolfskill, and Ceran
St. Vrain. When adopting Mexican citizenship, David Waldo
proclaimed: “I renounce allegiance and obedience to any other
nation or foreign government, especially the one to which I
belonged . . . and I bind myself to support effectively the constitution, decrees, and general laws of the United States of
Mexico” (Waldo 1831).Antoine Robidoux became president of
the J u n t a de Ayuntamiento in New Mexico, and erected the
first trading post in Utah, the Fort Uintah.
Even though the territory of Utah belonged to Mexico in
182 1, trappers, traders, a n d explorers hurried to declare it
the property of the United States. In 1824, this dispute flared
u p when a company of fifty-three American, Canadian, a n d
Spanish men fought over the control of the Salt Lake Valley
with Peter Skene Ogden, a British trapper from the Hudson
Bay Company. Denying Mexican ownership of the land,
Ogden claimed that the land belonged to the Indians a n d the
Indians belonged to the Spaniards (Miller 1954, 137-139).
J o h n Gardner, Ogden’s opposing commander, questioned
Ogden’s claim:
Do you know in what country you are? To this I
[Ogden]replied I did not as it was not settled between
Great Britain and America to whom it belonged, to
which he made answer that it was, that it had been
ceded to the latter. (Cleland 1976, 319)
The altercation took a serious twist when the Americans
stormed the British camp and tore down the British flag. They
demanded that Ogden move his party from the vicinity and
avoid raising his flag in American territory (Miller 1954, 138).
The ambiguity concerning U.S. boundaries stemmed from
the lack of clarity in the Louisiana Cession Treaty. The United
States claimed more land than the French or the Spaniards
were willing to cede (Ulibarri 1963). Nonetheless, the AdamsOnis or Transcontinental Treaty of 1819-1821 gave the
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Spaniards the official ownership of the land. Spain accepted
the 42nd parallel-from the Colorado Rockies to the Pacific
Ocean-as its northern boundaries. This region included the
present territory of Utah (Tyler 1981).
J u s t when the Adams-Onis Treaty was signed, Mexico declared its independence from Spain and the land that Spain
possessed became part of the Mexican territory. The Ute Indians moved rather freely and the Mexicans never reclaimed the
land from the Utes, Paiutes, or Shoshones. Simultaneously,
no European-American threatened Ute, Paiute, or Shoshone
claims on the land until the arrival of the Mormons in 1847
(Tyler 1981, 5).
During this era, not only were the trappers busy shaping
Mexican policy and U.S. land claims, but Mexicans were active in Utah. To develop new trade routes, a company of sixty
Mexicans, under the supervision of Antonio Armijo, opened
roads to connect New Mexico with California (Jill 192 1, 46466). Between 1805 and 1853, the relationship between Mexicans and Utes was based on the lucrative and illegal Spanish
slave trade (Creer 1947, 28-42; Bancroft 1889,475-77), which
violated the laws of the Mexican constitution. The decade of
the 1840s, however, was preeminently the epoch of American,
not Mexican, expansion. With the signing of the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the United States annexed the
Mexican territory of Utah and the present Southwestern United
States (Del Castillo 1990).
The involvement of Mexicans in the region makes it necessary to look at Utah’s history in a new light. Subsequent
settlers capitalized on the findings and contributions of the
Indians and the Mexicans who helped explore the region (Roberts 1930,22 1).John Francis Bannon (1970,230)has stressed
that nowhere in the Borderlands was the Anglo-American a
pioneer. Rather, they reaped the benefits of three hundred
years of experimentation, adaptation, and innovation by Spaniards, Mexicans, and Indians (McWilliams 1961, 133).
Utah and Manifest Destiny
The next era in Utah history is also shaped by American and
Mexican interaction, specifically by the arrival of Mormons in
the territory. Armed with the ideology of Manifest Destiny,
Anglo-Americans believed that expansion into the Southwest
was obedience to a divine call to populate and advance
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Mexican Amencans in Utah
democracy on the North American continent (Horsman 1981;
Merk 1963; Graebner 1955).But what really drove the AngloAmericans to take over the Mexican territories? Mario Barrera,
for one, argues that the ideological principles of Manifest Destiny masked political and economic interests (Barrera 1979).
And what of Manifest Destiny in Utah? Because the term Manifest Destiny is nonexistent in the annals of Utah history, could
Utah be an exception to the call for expansion? Or is the idea
of Manifest Destiny subsumed under the religious ideology of
Mormonism? Why did the Mormons chose Utah? Why did they
immigrate to the Mexican lands? For historian Hubert H.
Bancroft, the Mormons had no options because they were persecuted: they simply threw themselves “upon the mercy of
savages”living in Utah (1889,218).But Klaus J. Hansen (1981)
argues that the Mormons had alternatives: Texas, Oregon, and
California, among others. In fact, Thomas Ford, governor of
Illinois, advised the Mormons to conquer California, not Utah.
I would suggest a matter in confidence. California
now offers a field for the prettiest enterprise that has
been undertaken in modern times. It is but sparsely
inhabited, and by none but the Indian or imbecile
Mexican Spaniards. I have not inquired enough to
know how strong it is in men and means, but this
we know that if conquered from Mexico, the country is so physically weak and morally distracted that
she could never send a force there to reconquer it.
(Golder 1928, 37)
But, to avoid conflicts with the Mexican government, “who
did not look favorably toward North American immigration,”
the Mormons decided to settle in Utah, a less contested place
and safely removed from Mexico (Hansen 1981, 81-85;
Bringhurst 1986, 75). In this far northern Mexican frontier,
the Mormon leaders believed they could carry out their theocratic project in isolated peace.4Indeed, historian M. R. Werner
observed that the Mormons “began their trek to the West,
which they believed to be inhabited by God, whose laws they
considered themselves chosen to administer, and by the Indians, who had no laws with which they could come into conflict” (1925, 206).
For Joseph Smith, the first Mormon prophet and leader,
the creation of Zion and the territorial expansion of Mormonism
was to incorporate Mexico and Canada. The idea was to cre91
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ate one great family living in “universal peace” (Creer 1947,
208). Brigham Young, Smith’s successor, also believed that
the kingdom of the Mormons would expand in a limitless fashion: “We will extend our settlements to the east and west, to
the north and to the south, and we will build towns and cities
by the hundreds, and thousands of Saints will gather in from
the nations of the earth. This will become the great highway
of nations” (Hunter 1946, 93).
Smith’s and Young’s interest in the far west was consistent with the idea of Manifest Destiny, which reached its pinnacle in t h e mid-1840s. Both Manifest Destiny a n d
Mormonism sanctioned the usurpation of territory for religious
purposes. When arriving in Utah, Brigham Young declared:
“This is the place which the Lord has chosen for us to commence our settlements, and from this place we shall spread
abroad and possess the l a n d (Snow 1873,207). The kingdom
of Zion was to be built “in the Rocky Mountains, where there
were no human beings but the untutored savage” (206-207).
As far as Smith and Young were concerned, taking the Southwest from the Indians and Mexicans was not a crime but a
divine precept to make the land fruitful and prosperous
(Hastings 1845). Brigham Young’s revelation from God that
Utah was the place on which Zion would be erected, aided
Mormons in believing that they were different from other AngloEuropean settlers, “chosen.” In 1884, Mormon President
George Q. Cannon declared:
We have not come together because this land suited
us, a n d was desirable for us to make a living in, but
we have gathered to this land through force of circumstances over which, to a certain extent, we had
no control. . . . We believe that it was God who led
us to this land; that it was God who prepared this
land as a n abode for us. (Cannon 1884, 4)
Instead of pursuing the “material benefits” of Manifest
Destiny, Mormons argued that they had come to Utah to
preach their gospel to American Indians, or Larnanites as the
Book of Mormon calls them. In the Book of Mormon, the
Lamanites (dark-skinned people) are one of two tribes of
Manasseh who came to America. The Lamanites destroyed the
Nephites (the other white-skinned tribe) and the last Nephite
alive was a man named Moroni. Mormons were called to teach,
convert, and save the American Indians, Mexicans included,
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Mexican Americans in Utah
in order to prepare for Christ’s second ~ o m i n gBy
. ~ preaching
the gospel to the Lamanites, the Mormons would be moving
God’s work forward. Mormon President Wilford Woodruff expressed this ideal in the following terms:
We are desirous to do all in our power to redeem
these degraded descendants of the House of Israel
from their present low estate, and to impart upon
them a correct knowledge of the principles of the
Gospel, and to those arts of true civilization, which
will restore them to the favor of the Lord. . . . We
cannot in justice to them and to the responsibilities
which rest upon ourselves, leave them in the condition in which you have found them. Baptism is well
enough, and is of the utmost importance, but there
is more than this required in their case to relieve us
from the responsibility that we are under to our God
in connection with these people. They must be reclaimed. (Woodruff 1888)
Despite their theological mission to save the Lamanites,
the Mormons “became disillusioned with the local Indians . . .
they were hard pressed to find Indians with whom they thought
they could be minimally culturally compatible” (Woodruff 1888,
6). Thus, by 1849, the need to preach the gospel to the Indians, and to lift them economically and culturally, was forgotten. The Mormons did not look for Indians and Mexicans to
people the Kingdom, they instead relied on European immigrants (May 1983). Brigham Young had a preference for English immigrants, especially those with the capital and tools
to transform the territory, whom he attracted by defining immigration as a religious principle:
The spirit of immigration has actuated the children
of men, from the time our first parents were expelled
from the garden until now. It was this spirit that first
peopled the plains of Shinar, and all other places;
yes, it was emigration that first broke upon the
death-like silence and loneliness of a n empty earth,
and caused the desolated land to teem with life, and
the desert to smile with joy. (Werner 1925, 112)
By the 185Os, the Mormon population in Utah had increased
from 10,000 to 60,000, the majority of whom were immigrants
from England (Bringurst 1986, 118).
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Solorzan o
Although motivated by religious sentiments, Mormonism
adopted a paternalistic and condescending attitude toward
Mexican Americans and Indians, which disadvantaged them
both religiously and economically. Ray A. Billington explained
that expanding democracy to Indians and Mexicans “was a
divinely ordered means of extending enlightenment to despotridden masses.” But, he later added: “This was not imperidism, but enforced salvation ( 1949, 572).
Thus, Manifest Destiny in Utah took the form of a theology that rationalized seizing land and resources from Mexicans and Indians. Neither the ideology of Manifest Destiny nor
the scriptures of Mormonism perceived the Indians and Mexicans in positive terms. Mexican Americans and Indians were
not equal to Anglos and they needed to be educated and rescued from their destiny and culture. Helaman Pratt, mission
president in Mexico, observed: “God has, in my opinion, forced
some of our best Saints out here that they may assist in the
redemption of His fallen people” (Tullis 1987, 61).
According to Benjamin F. Ferris (1856), the ideology of
Manifest Destiny does not apply to Mormonism because Mormons sought to secede from the United States and its political institutions. But as Creer (1947), Horsman (1981), and
Arrington (1958) argued, the goals of Mormonism did not differ greatly from those of the United States. Mormonism was
part of a manifest destiny, although in a very peculiar way.
Its peculiarity was a result of the Mormons’ way of thinking,
which ignored the economic and expansionist motivations of
their leaders, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Creer argues
that the notion of Manifest Destiny is completely dismissed in
Mormonism because Mormons’ political theories are entangled
with their religious creed (Creer 1929, 208). Within Mormonism, religion, politics, and economics go hand in hand and their
relationships are rarely questioned or seriously scrutinized.
Ultimately, the decision to settle Utah was determined by the
power of the deity, not human agency. Based on this conviction, Brigham Young explained to his followers: “I do not want
people to understand that I had anything to do with our being moved here; that was the providence of the Almighty; it
was the power of God that brought out salvation for his people,
I never could have devised such a plan” (Young 1950, 4).
But Mormonism is both an economic system and a religious
institution. The dynamism between economic practices and
religious beliefs explains the nature of Mormons’ actions. In
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Mexican Americans in Utah
other words, “the sacred and the not-sacred simply cannot be
considered separately” (Shipps 1983, 23). Due to a divine call,
Mormons understood that Utah was “God’s elected nation.”
Consequently, they proceeded to take over the territory and its
resources, usurped Indian and Mexican lands, and built their
houses and temples ( 2 3 ) .Thus, Utah became an integral part
of Manifest Destiny, an American Anglo-Saxon ideology to bring
“unlimited progress” to the West, including the Utah territory.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
and Utah’s Territory
During the following period in Utah history, the Mormons were
drawn increasingly into U.S. military actions against Mexico
and Mexican Americans. In 1847, when the Mormons entered
the Great Basin, Utah was Mexican territory. The Mormons
were illegal immigrants trespassing the boundaries of Mexico
(Rivera 1978, 115-26). Nonetheless:
A s the flag was raised most likely as early as October 1847, and the treaty of peace which closed the
war of the United States with Mexico was not signed
a t the village Guadalupe Hidalgo until Feb. 2nd,
1848, the Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake Valley did
raise the United States flag upon Mexican soil.
(Roberts 1930, 272)
For the Mormon Church, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
in which the United States annexed 50 percent of the Mexican territory for a compensatory amount of fifty million dollars, was a mixed blessing that forced the Mormons to clarify
their positions on such issues as slavery and loyalty to the
United States (Arrington 1958, 42). According to historians
Ferris (1856) and Paxson (1924), the Mormons did not look
favorably on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo because it interfered with their intentions to establish a government outside the United States (Hansen 1981, 111-12). Once the treaty
was ratified and Utah was no longer a Mexican territory, the
Mormons were forced to seek justice from the United States
for the persecution they suffered from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the
Far West, and for the murder of their religious leader Joseph
Smith (Paxson 1924, 394). When addressing the Mormons’
congregation in 1852, George H. Smith praised the Mormon’s
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resistance to U.S. institutions: “The history of our persecutions is unparalleled in the history of past ages” (1852, 4243). This persecution would make sense in other countries,
he said, but not in the United States where government and
institutions are guided by principles that protect the life and
the rights of the people. But the government was not interested in bringing justice to the Mormons.
Given the Mormons’ theological inclination to save the
Lamanites, the U.S. government’s failure to deliver justice to
the Mormons, and the U.S. appropriation of Mexican land the
Mormons believed to be the foundation of God’s kingdom, one
might expect the Mormons to have opposed U.S. expansionism.
Instead, the Mormons chose to ally with the United States and
went as far as organizing a Mormon Battalion against the Mexicans. The United States declared war against Mexico in 1846
after the U.S. President, James K. Polk, stated that, “Mexico
had invaded our territory and shed the blood of our citizens on
our own soil” (Roberts 1930,70).The Mormon Battalion became
a section of the Army of the West, whose aim was to conquer
Northern Mexico and the Mexican Pacific coast. Given a choice
between politics (whether to be a U.S. ally) and religion (whether
to save the Lamanites), the Mormons chose politics, quite possibly for the potential material gains.
Under the command of General Stephen Watts Kearny, five
hundred Mormons participated in the Mexican-American War.
The battalion departed from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on July
20, 1947, traveled to New Mexico, Sonora, and California, and
then returned to Salt Lake City on J u n e 1848 (Creer 1947,
238-72; Taggar 1955). (See fig. 2 for the route they followed.)
Writing about his contacts with Mexican nationals and Mexican Americans from California, Henry Standage states: “[Tlhe
Mexicans are generally on horse back from morning ti1 night.
They are perhaps the greatest horsemen in the known world,
and very expert with the lance and lasso. They are in general
a very idle, profligate, drunken, swearing set of wretches, with
but very few exceptions”(Go1der 1928, 220-2 1).
Brigham Young sent the battalion against the Mexicans
to “allay the prejudices of the people, prove our loyalty to the
government of the United States, a n d for the present a n d
temporal salvation of Israel” (Young 1846). Historian Klaus J .
Hansen argues that it was not loyalty that brought the Mormons to organize their battalion, but rather an economic motivation. The Mormons offered their service to the U.S. army
96
Mexican Americans in Utah
Fig 2. The Mormon migration to the West, including the Mormon
battalion trail. Map by Herbert Fehnel, from Great Basin Kingdom:An
Economic Histoy of the Latter-Day Saints by Leonard J. Arrington.
Copyright 0 1958 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Reprinted by permission of Harvard University Press.
97
Solorzano
“in order to obtain badly needed cash for the Saints through
the military pay to be earned by the Mormon soldiers” (Hansen
1981, 1 16).6In fact, the Mormons used part of the military
pay to buy the Goodyear Tract, which is now the city of Ogden
(Roberts 1930). Ogden soon became one of the most prosperous colonies of the Mormon settlers.
Before entering Tucson-a Mexican town of five hundred
inhabitants-Colonel Philip St. George Cooke sent the following communication to the members of the Battalion:
We will march, then, to Tucson. We came not to
make war on Sonora, and less still to destroy a n
important outpost of defense against Indians; but
we will take the straight road before us, and overcome all resistance. But shall I remind you that the
American soldier ever shows justice and kindness
to the unarmed a n d unresisting? The property of
individuals you will hold sacred. The people of
Sonora are not our enemies. (Roberts 1930, 116)
Nonetheless, the Mormon Battalion found resistance. A
Mexican army two hundred strong, commanded by Captain
Antonio Comaduran, impeded the battalion from passing
through the town. Mormon interpreters and members of the
Mexican army were taken as prisoners. Since the negotiations
to release Mormons a n d Mexicans were quite successful,
Comaduran ordered the Mexicans to retreat to the villages
closer to Tucson. In this way, the Mormon Battalion passed
through town without any confrontation, without a gun shot
fired against Mexicans.
The absence of strong opposition by the Mexicans caused
Cooke to declare: “Surely the Lord is on our side and is opening the way before us so that we may march into the Upper
California without the shedding of Blood” (Golder 1928, 170171). Once in California, the soldiers, under the advice of
Brigham Young, explored the possibilities of establishing a
“colonizing site from which to launch missionary labors among
the Indians’’ (Tullis 1987, 3 3 ) .
In short, the Mormons gained a great deal through the
Mormon Battalion. By helping to conquer northern Mexico, they
proved their loyalty to the United States and their patriotism,
and earned the right to settle upon Mexican and Indian lands.
Moreover, five hundred Mormons were transported to the West
Coast-new, fertile missionary ground-with public money, and
98
Mexican Americans in Utah
soldiers’ military pay helped stabilize churches’ finances. Thus,
the colonizing project of Brigham Young “unintentionally contributed to the conquest of large portions of Mexico’s patrimony”
(Hunter 1945, vii). Brigham Young’s colonization of Utah is not
unlike Stephen F. Austin’s making of Anglo-American Texas.
Under the ideology of Manifest Destiny, both Utah and Texas
were declared refuges and seized from Mexico, only to be incorporated later into the jurisdiction of the United States.
In March 1849, thirteen months after the signing of the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Mormons created the State
of Deseret “over an immense tract of land from the Mexican
government” (Creer 1929,63).The constitution that supported
this theocratic state enfranchised white male residents over
the age of twenty-one (Millennia1Star 1849).The U.S. government rejected both the status of statehood and the name
“Deseret,” and Congress christened the area “the territory of
Utah,” in honor of the Ute Indians who resided in the state
10,000years before the coming of the Mormons (Hunter 1946,
290; Jennings 1960).
The treaty also brought important changes to the government the Mormons hoped to create. Before the treaty, the Mormons designed a theocratic government under the control of
Mormon spiritual leaders and ecclesiastical tribunals. There was
no need for a civil government because the church “met all the
requirements for law making power” (Hunter 1946,312-13). But
the non-Mormons living in the new U.S. territory demanded
equal representation. The Mormons had no option but to create a political body that would be accepted and recognized by
the American Union. Interestingly, the Mormons never acknowledged this pressure from non-believers, but claimed the creation of a new government was necessary because of Mexico’s
lawless legacy and U.S. Congress lack of interest.
Congress has failed to provide by law a form of civil
government for any portion of the territory ceded to
the United States by the Republic of Mexico. . . .
Since the expiration of the Mexican civil authority,
however weak and imbecile, anarchy to a n alarming
extent had prevailed-the revolver and the bowie
knife had become the highest law of the land-the
strong had prevailed against the weak-while person, property, character and religion have been unaided and virtue unprotected. (Creer 1947, 319)
99
Solorzano
Before finalizing the nature of their government, Mormons
had to resolve their stand on slavery. Slavery had been the focus of disagreement between the Mexican government and the
Anglo settlers when the temtory was Mexico’s. Slavery was prohibited under Mexican law (Carreno 1913).In fact, politicians in
the northern United States opposed the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, in part because they feared that slavery could be reinstated in the Southwest (Creer 1947, 330; Creer 1929, 74-75).
To protect the Mexican people, the Mexican government opposed
slavery in the annexed territory, a position strongly supported
among members of the U.S. Congress and anti-slavery advocates.
Nonetheless, two years after the treaty was signed, twentysix slaves were living in bondage in Utah. In 1852, the Utah
Territorial Legislature recognized slavery as a legal institution
(Legislative Assembly 1852),and by 1860 the census reported
twenty-nine black slaves held in Utah (Coleman 1976). On
March 7, 1852, Brigham Young, now the Governor of Utah,
legalized Indian Slavery, arguing that the “sole purpose was
to induce the Saints to buy Indian children who otherwise
would have been abandoned or destroyed by their starving
parents” (Young 1852a). Given the racial narrative in the Book
of Mormon, slavery took different forms for Blacks and Indians. Black slaves suffered overt exclusion and oppression,
while Indians in bondage enjoyed special (that is, paternalistic) treatment, especially in the field of e d ~ c a t i o nIronically,
.~
in 1851, Brigham Young recommended the practice of slavery
for Mormons but arrested Mexicans who had Indian slaves;
for instance, Pedro Leon and seven Mexicans who were trading horses, firearms, and ammunition in exchange for Indian
women and children(Creer 1929, 174-75).
Mexican land loss and the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo are
intertwined with the history of Utah.8 While these events may
be obliterated in the annals of the state’s history, the truth
remains alive in the historical consciousness of some Mexican people. A s an example, Lozano Herrera, a n influential
Mexican Mormon, made this point in an interview with historian F. LaMond Tullis in 1975:
As you write the church history of this region there
are some things better left unsaid, you may start by
never suggesting that a n y influential American member of the church would ever admit to CIA ties or
applaud the Mormon Battalion. The Mormon Battdion offends all people of Latin America. (1987, 204)
100
Mexican Americans in Utah
Racial Perceptions of Mexicans
from 1776 through the 1850s
Through these four historical periods, Indians and Mexicans
were stigmatized. When Mormon pioneers entered the borderlands, their racial understanding of Indians and Mexicans was
already shaped by theological premises elaborated in the Book
of Mormon. This text referred to the Indians as the Lamanites;
that is, as a group of people who rejected the religious and moral
teachings of Lehi, the father of Nephi and Laman. As a punishment for their inequity and wickedness, God cursed the nomadic
Indians with a darker skin. In the beginning, the Indians “were
white, and exceeding fair and delightsome,”but the Lord’s curse
‘(causeda skin of blackness to come upon them” (2 Nephi 5:202 1).This transmutation of color stands as a demonstration that
“the Creator of mankind and of our universe, had the power to
change the skin-color of those people and endow them with that
particular skin pigment which perpetuated itself through their
posterity from generation to generation” (Hunter and Ferguson
1950, 243). The Lamanites were, then, the Indians and the
bronze-colored people that Christopher Columbus found when
he discovered America. These Indians “were wandering about
in filth, darkness, and the very lowest state of degradation”
(Kimball 1861, 180).
According to the Mormons, the proof that Indians, the ancestors of the Mexican Americans, were degraded was not only
the dark color of their skin but also their supposedly poor
learning and intellectual capacities. In 1855, Wilford Woodruff,
one of the Mormon leaders, recognized that:
The (Utes) would have been one with us, and they
would have been in this Church long ago, and their
children would have been reading and writing, and
you would have seen some of the young men busily
engaged preaching to the tribes the fullness of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. If the Latter-day Saints had
come here (Utah) when they first received the impression, a n d the Book of Mormon from Joseph
Smith, this wild degraded race of men might have
been, to a great extent, civilized and acquainted with
the Gospel. (1855, 224)
While other Anglo settlers sought to decimate and exterminate
the Indians (Horsman 1981, 230), the Mormons followed a
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Solorzano
different path and attempted to save and redeem this “fallen
people.” Their affinity with Indians and Mexicans was nourished by the belief that both groups derived from a Caucasian
race (Hunter and Ferguson 1950, 248).
As has been shown in this paper, the Mormons understood
the borderlands as the territory of the Indians and not the Mexicans. This distinguished the Mormons from other Anglo settlers since they did not perceive Mexicans as belonging to a
nation, but to a subgroup of people sharing the same racial
background as the Indians. Up to the 185Os,the Mormon prophets and leaders hardly mentioned Mexico or Mexicans in their
documents or discourses. When they did, Mexicans appear as
a people descending from the Indians or as a subgroup of people
falling under the category of the “Spanish Americans” of the
continent. To clarify who the Spanish Americans were, Parley
Pratt, one of the Mormon leaders of the time wrote: “They are
in a great measure aboriginal inhabitants of this country,
mingled with European people, from the pure white of old Spain,
and in all its shades until you come to the full blooded Indian,
or Redman” (1853,141).These Spanish Americans, added Pratt,
are not capable of appreciating liberty, and “their organs of
thought are not accustomed to much exercise’’( 140)
Mormons heavily distrusted in the institutions and heritage of “Spanish America.” Only American and English institutions, “which are the best” (140),would provide the Mexicans
and native people with the liberty, science, and education they
needed for their spiritual and material emancipation. In general, Mormons perceived the area of the Spanish Americans
as “completely underdeveloped and unoccupied” ( 140). Their
development and settlement would not, however, require further annexation or territorial enlargement of the United States,
according to Pratt. What was necessary, he argued, was the
expansion of the values and principles embedded in the U.S.
Constitution:
The principle of annexation of large countries is not
important, but the influence of our institutions, the
patterns we set, the working of these institutions,
and their influence abroad will bring about the same
results precisely, whether it is particularly by annexation or not. (140)
Mormon leaders may have scarcely mentioned Mexicans
or Mexico, but their perceptions of Mexicans were not different
102
Mexican Americans in Utah
from the rest of white Americans in the 1840s. When capturing Anglo-American feelings about the Mexican people,
Horsman wrote:
Americans, it was argued, were not to blame for forcibly taking the northern provinces of Mexico, for
Mexicans, like Indians, were unable to make proper
use of the land. The Mexicans had failed because
they were a mixed, inferior race with considerable
Indian and some black blood. The world would benefit if a superior race shaped the future of the Southwest. (Horsman 1981, 210)
Mormons’ racial prejudice against the Indians and Mexicans has its origin in environmental explanations of racism
advanced by Samuel Stanhope Smith in the late-eighteenth
century. For Stanhope, racial differences were the result of
environmental conditions, such as geography and climate. The
diversity in peoples’pigmentation reflected a degeneration from
the white norm, but there always existed the possibility of regeneration through racial intermixture (Smith 1965).Although
Joseph Smith, the first Mormon prophet, was not acquainted
with the racial theories of the epoch, exegesis of the Book of
Mormon suggests that he based the “curse” given to the
Lamanites on their “savage way of living.” Since the Indians
and the ancestors of the Mexican American people wore fewer
clothes, they were more frequently exposed to the sun and the
weather made their skin darker than their counterparts-the
Nephites. Joseph Smith also employed the widely accepted
correlation between the physical and the moral world. As Klaus
J . Hansen put it: “An immoral way of life would reveal itself
in a person’s face. You could tell a liar, thief, murderer, or
adulterer by looking at him or her. Moral degeneration led to
physical degeneration”(1981, 182). For Joseph Smith, regeneration was not possible through interracial amalgamation, but
only through accepting the message of the Book of Mormon:
“Indians, stepping from the waters of baptism, would become
white” ( 3 Nephi 2:15-16).
The creation of a racialized social structure in Zion, one that
placed Mormons, Lamanites, and Mexicans in different social
hierarchies, was fundamental to the creation of Mormon nationalism and, later, Mormon racial identity. By separating themselves from the Lamanites, Mormons became the redeemers.
Their white color would rank them higher in the social structure
103
Solorzano
and would unifjr them in the construction of the kingdom. Avoiding interracial sex would enforce their morality and sense of racial purity. Although the creation of the Kingdom of Zion implied
the coming together of every one into one family, as Hansen has
observed, “this welding was to be a highly structured affair, proceeding along lines of kinship and of race” (1981, 190).
The racial understanding of Mormon religion put Mexican
Americans in a disadvantaged position. Chicanos’ oppression
was augmented by Mormon theological categories that denied
their dignity and humanity. David G . Gutierrez (1993)termed
this ideological stand as the “demonology about Mexicans”;that
is, the demeaning of Mexican American and the questioning of
their status as humans and equal to other human beings.
This interpretation of Mormon theology, however, is not
openly shared by Mormon Mexican Americans. Orlando A.
Rivera, in his article “Mormonism and the Chicano,” observed:
In the Church [Mormon], people refer to us as
Lamanites. Some have thought this to be offensive.
But for most of us it is not, especially those of us
who identify ourselves as Americans of Mexican descent. We call ourselves Chicanos, and all Chicanos
think of themselves a s having a n Indo-Hispanic
background, of having ancestral roots native to
America as well as to Europe. Thus, you considering u s Lamanites is in no way offensive, but rather
acceptable to our people. We are proud of our native American progenitors. (1978,116)
Non-Mormon Mexican Americans also accept their Native
Mesoamerican background, but contest theology that classifies
them as evil-doers inclined to break from divine principle and
gives them unequal status in a theological and societal structure. Mexican Americans with brown skin do not perceive their
pigmentation as a punishment or as a symbol of perverse nature, but as the hallmark of their interaction with the environment and genetic make-up, and as a symbol of resistance
against the forces that oppress them and take their dignity away.
Mexican Americans in Utah
Mexican Americans in Utah have quite a different history than
Mexican Americans in the rest of the Southwest. These historical differences were created by the ancestral links between
104
Mexican Americans in Utah
the Utes and the Aztecs, the Spaniards’ relatively late exploration of the Utah territory, Mexico’s inability to govern adequately in its northern reaches, and Mormon ideology.
The lack of an active Spanish presence was particularly
important in shaping this historical difference. While the Spaniards intended to conquer and colonize California, New Mexico,
Arizona, and Texas, they never attempted to appropriate the
Utah territory for the Spanish Crown. Instead they inventoried the lands in order to document a shorter route to California (Warner 1995, viii). The Spaniards considered the
expedition to Utah a failure because explorers could not find
a route to link Santa Fe with the town of Monterey on the
California coast. In addition, the Spaniards were not able to
create missions, pueblos, or presidios, or to claim the territory of Utah as part of their empire in the New World. Thus,
Utah was settled seventy-one years after the rest of the Southwest. More important, it was settled not by Spanish Catholics
but by American Mormons. From the beginning, then, Chicano
history in Utah has been different from Chicano history in the
rest of the Southwest.
The absence of a permanent Spanish Mexican population
in Utah in the nineteenth century also thwarted the creation
of a mestizo population. Lack of consistent interaction between
Indians, Mexicans, and Spaniards impeded cultural and blood
relations that characterized the Mexican Americans in other
areas of the Southwest. Utah has a very homogenous AngloMormon population and Indian bands who were not Christianized by Spaniards. In this way, the nineteenth-century history
for Mexican Americans in Utah is similar to the history of
Mexican Americans in Oklahoma. The Spanish essentially
passed over Oklahoma because it lacked valuable resources
and sedentary Indian civilizations (Smith 1980).
Spain and then Mexico never gained a foothold in Utah
because of their inability to create and govern permanent
settlements in the northern territories. Settling groups of
people in pueblos, presidios, and missions was initiated in the
1580s in New Mexico only. Then efforts were extended to Arizona at the beginning of 1700 and ended in California by the
late-eighteenth century. This meant that Utah escaped the
Spanish Colonial period, and the territory’s late incorporation
into the Spanish borderland occurred only when Spain was
defending its far northern frontier against the Anglos.
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Solorzano
When Spain’s pioneers reentered the Southwest toward the end of the sixteenth century, their goals
differed from those of the first explorers. The hope
always remained that rich minerals would be found,
but converting Indians to Christianity a n d safeguarding the frontier against encroachment by other
powers became the most important inducements for
Spain to plant the first Europeans settlements in
what is now the United States. (Weber 1979, viii)
The lack of an active Mexican presence also shaped the
historical difference of Chicanos in Utah. After 182 1, the territory was continuously invaded by American and British traders and trappers. Companies like the Hudson Bay and Becknell
extracted considerable profits from what was actually Mexican land (Ramsey 1941).
Both the Spaniards and the Mexicans were unable to create a central authority or to control the different Indian groups
in the region, which explains the absence of a Spanish and
mestizo culture in Utah until the twentieth century. Historians
such as Albert H. Schroeder (1979) claim that intertribal warfare rather than the hostilities between the Spaniards and the
Indians impeded cultural exchanges between the Spaniards and
the Indians. The Mexicans followed the patterns established by
the Spaniards, avoided conflicts with the Indians, and discouraged the settlement of Mexican pueblos in the region.
Perhaps because of all of these historical events, and even
though Utah belonged to Spain and then to Mexico, culturally and ethnically Utah is rarely considered a “Spanish Borderland.” For Utah was colonized by Anglo-Saxons and not by
Spaniards. These two groups dealt differently with the indigenous populations, and thus had different historical impacts.
If the Spaniards had settled Utah, a mestizo population would
have been inevitable. S. Lyman Tyler observes:
Whereas the French and Spanish were willing to intermarry with the Indians and leave the Indians
pretty much where they were, historically we find
that the English tended to push the Indians out
ahead of them. The Anglo-Saxon feeling of superiority would not allow the English to intermarry with
the Indians. . . . The history of the relations with the
Indians, therefore, in the countries that were populated largely by English-speaking people is quite different from the history where they were occupied
first by the French and the Spanish. (1965, 8)
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Mexican Americans in Utah
Certainly, the fact of an active Mormon presence had the
strongest effect in shaping the historical difference of Chicanos
in Utah. In fact, Mormon historians tend to argue that the Spanish influence in Utah is irrelevant when compared to the Anglo
Mormon influences. Milton T. Hunter wrote: “The early explorers of any region are important to the history of that region, but
they are not so important as the colonizers. These are the people
who build the homes and develop the resources of the country”
(1946, 49). When compared to the limited Spanish colonization
of the region, the Mormon colonization appears as “one of the
most successfully executed projects” [ 1946, 247-48) .’
At the time of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, no Mexicans inhabited the Utah territory. Consequently, Mexico
claimed no properties in the area. The land appeared to belong to the Utes, who were left alone to negotiate with the
Anglos, who took possession of the land without signing any
treaties with the Ute Indians.
There was never a treaty with the Ute Indians. We
(Anglo-Saxons) just came in a n d took their land
gradually; we kept pushing ourselves in and pushing them out. They met to make treaties, but the treaties were not ratified by the Senate, so there never
was a treaty concluded with them. Therefore, they
had a claim against the United States for all of the
land that they held when this part of the country was
taken over by the United States. (Tyler 1965, 24)
In contrast, the Mexican government never claimed for itself the rights of the Indian lands in Utah, never converted
the Indians into taxpaying Mexican citizens, never granted
Mexican citizenship to the Utes, and never took an official inventory of the lands inhabited by the Utes (Furniss 1960, 1314; Hunter 1945; Menchaca 1995). Five years after arriving
in Utah, and facing no challenge from the Mexican government or the native Indians, Brigham Young addressed his
people in the following terms:
Five years ago, this day, the Pioneers approached
this valley, with their implements of husbandry,
which were represented by them in their procession
to-day. We came for the purpose of finding a place
to set our feet, where we could dwell in peace. That
place we have found. . . . We have enjoyed perfect
peace here for five years; and I trust we shall for
many fives to come. (Young 1852b, 144)
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Solorzano
The Mormons’ appropriation of Indian and Mexican land
and resources raises an important question. Were Mormons
“pioneers”or agents of the expansion of American capitalism?
Mormons may identify themselves as pioneers, but they were
essential to the Anglo-American empire created in the Southwest. A s Klaus J . Hansen states, the “Mormon pioneer was
also an American pioneer” (1981, 113). When the history of
Utah is analyzed on economic terms, Leonard J . Arrington
argues, there is nothing “peculiar” about the Mormons. The
economic development of Mormon country resembles the economic development of the rest of the nation: the Mormon economic structure had to function within the confines of an
economy based on capitalism and a competitive market
economy (Arrington 1958,410-1 1).A s in the rest of the Southwest, the foundation of empire required the appropriation of
land owned by Mexico. This land came to the Mormons free of
cost, or as Brigham Young put it, “the Lord has given it to us
without price” (Arrington 1958, 93). But, although the United
States and the Mormons seized the Mexican land in the 1840s,
the memory of this dispossession is still very much alive in
Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Even in 1970, when talking with Mormon missionaries in Piedras Negras, Coahuila,
Lorenzo Anderson-a devoted Mexican Mormon-shared his
feelings on the matter: “I love you as missionaries, but I can’t
forget the fact that your country took my country’s territory
away” (Anderson 1970).
Finally, the Indians also shaped the historical differences
of Chicanos in Utah, who do have mestizo and Indian origins.
Mexican Americans are the synthesis of European, Mexican,
and Indian ancestry (Anaya 1989, 232). Oral interviews with
the oldest Mexican American residents of Utah suggest that
Mexican Americans recognize their Indianness as part of their
historical memory. For instance, Josefina Salazar (1973) reported that her father was a Spaniard conquistador who
married a Navajo Indian. Other Mexican Americans in Utah
trace their ancestors to the Cherokee Indians (Sandoval 1972,
1).Others claim to descend from a mixture of Apache, Mexican, Mexican Indian, and Spanish ancestors (Archuleta 1973,
25). The first Mexican Americans in Utah believed that the
Southwest was entirely populated by Indians: “When Mexico
sold the territory of New Mexico, it was nothing but Indians,
that’s all” (Gonzdez 1973).
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Mexican Americans in Utah
Conclusions
Recognizing the contributions of the Spanish, the Mexicans, the
Mormons, and the Ute Indians within the borderlands is necessary to understanding Mexican Americans in Utah today.
[Tlhe borderland story is a fundamental starting
point for the comprehension of the problem of one
of the nation’s contemporary minority groups, the
Mexican-Americans, the descendant of those sturdy
Borderlands of yesterday who made real contributions to that real but somewhat nebulous thing
called American civilization. (Bannon 1970, 238)
The history of Utah is not solely the domain of the Mormon people. It is a history that must be shared with Native
Americans and Mexican Americans, who contributed their
land, resources, and labor to the economic success of the
Mormons. In fact, Mexican Americans need to unearth more
about their complex but rich Indo-Hispano-Anglo heritage. This
will not be easy since, contrary to other states in the Southwest where the original Spanish names and traditions remain,
the Mormons changed the Spanish and Mexican names. The
repudiation of all things Spanish has made it difficult for Mexican Americans to organize and develop a sense of belonging
in Utah (Harris 1909, 271). To create a sense of identity and
further a cultural renaissance in Utah, Mexican Americans
need to excavate and recovery their history. In turn, this recovery is necessary to developing a strong sense of community and solidarity.
Utah’s Mexican Americans are now working toward a radical revision of their political and social standing in Utah. An
extraordinary influx of immigrants in the last twenty years and
a deep belief that integrity and equality is a sine qua non of a
genuinely pluralistic American society have inspired this
revision. Mexican Americans in Utah will gain strength as a
community and fortify their identity with a more complex
knowledge and recognition of their long and sustained presence in the region.
109
Sol6rzano
Notes
My gratitude goes to Jeffrey M. Garcilazo, Andrea Otanez, and Wendy
Belcher for their generous suggestions and editorial comments, which
enhanced the quality of my arguments.
1. The term Utes was originated in the seventeenth century and
designated those “Indians who lived above water.” Its etymology can
be traced to the Ute language: “Pah” (water) and “Pah-gaumpe”(salt
water or salt lake). Historically, the word had been spelled differently: Yuta, Youta, Eutah, Uta, and Utah (Bancroft 1889, 34-35).
Besides the Utes, other tribes such as the southern Paiutes and the
Gosiutes inhabited the Great Basin (O’Neil 1976).
2. Even if we find ancestral ties and linguistic similarities between the Aztecs and the Utes, the Utes hardly understood themselves as part of the Mexica-centric culture of Tenochtitlan. Similarly,
the Utes did not understand Utah territory as part of the mythical
Aztlan. This lack of recognition, however, is derivative of historical
tendencies to disconnect the Indian people from their ancestries and
roots. For Chicana writer Ana Castillo, this displacement is “the result of the systematic annihilation of a people’s history, if not the
people themselves” (1994, 220).
3. Contrary to Dominguez and Escalante’s claims, Cornelia M.
Flaherty (1984, 1) states that the Utes learned Christianity from the
Iroquois trappers working for the Northwest Fur Hudson Bay Companies and not from the Spanish friars.
4. Because of its limitless resources, and the lack of opposition
from the Native Indians and the Mexican government, Utah seemed
to be a divinely ordained place. When the Mormons arrived at the
Great Basin, Brigham Young asserted that the Lord had done his
share in showing them the land, thus, “it is our business to mold
these elements to our wants and necessities. . . . In this way will the
Lord bring again Zion upon the earth, and in no other” (Arrington
1958, 26).
5. For Robert E. Riegel, the Book of Mormon is another manifestation of the U.S. policy known as Manifest Destiny. He wrote: “The
point of the tale for Smith was that it was his duty and destiny to
conquer America, ‘the promised land,’ from the wicked Lamanites”
(Riegel 1930, 318). Vine Deloria observes the Mormon ideology was
not as tolerant of the native people as it was portrayed. The Book of
Mormon put the Indians and Mexicans in a disadvantaged position
by portraying their dark skin as a sign of divine displeasure, a view
that inhibited racial harmony and cooperation. There was no way,
Deloria argues, “that Indians could be identified with people of the
Old Testament in a manner that would have given them status and
respect” (Deloria 1993,432).When studying the life of Joseph Smith,
F. M. Brodie concluded that Mormonism and Smith offered to the
110
Mexican Americans in Utah
Lamanite “not restoration, but assimilation, not the return of his
continent, but the loss of his identity” (Brodie 1945, 93-94).
6. The issue of the Mormon Battalion was continuously used as
a pedagogical device to discredit those people who challenged the
intentions and loyalty of the Mormons. In a discourse by Brigham
Young, he stated that those people were “the enemies of mankind . .
. who would destroy innocence, truth, righteousness and the kingdom of God from the earth” (Young 1873, 19).
7. Brigham Young’s approach to Indians was inconsistent and
ambiguous. He considered the Indians a n obstacle to settlement, but
at the same time showed a humanitarian side. Indians were “our brothers” due to their descent from “Israel, through the loins of Joseph and
Manassah” (Bringurst 1986, 109; Coleman 1976, 120-21).
8. After the treaty, Mexicans did not claim property in Utah.
However, Jim Bridger maintained that Fort Bridger-a defensive post
against the Indians and built with the permission of the Mexican
government-was taken away from him by the Mormons. Bridger
never gave legal evidence of his ownership, appraised at $100,000,
and the Mormons never bought him out in 1853, as they claimed
(Furnnis 1960, 148-49).
9. John Francis Bannon maintains a different point of view and
claims that the Spanish colonization of the territory was even more
successful than that of the Anglo-Americans. The Spaniards covered
wider areas and were able to advance their civilization in the wilderness (Bannon 1970).
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117
ARMANDO
SOLORZANO,
associate professor of ethnic studies at the
University of Utah, has published previously on the involvement of the Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico. He is currently
exploring the participation of Mexican Americans in Utah’s
mines, sugar industry, railroads, and civil rights movement.