On This Day in History: The Fort Utah Massacre

Oh, those Mormons

Your impression of Mormons may be polite young men in sleeveless white dress shirts trying to sell you new and improved American Jesus when all your hungover-on-a-Saturday-morning ass really wants is a jug of Gatorade and a kidney-destroying amount of ibuprofen. But if you tell them to fuck off and leave you alone, they generally do. Such was not the case in the middle of the nineteenth century, however. Just ask the Timpanogos tribe.

--On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down: February 8, 1850--

The genocide of Native Americans is both shameful and well documented. Mormon participation was as horrific as anywhere else on the continent. Mormons began showing up in what is now Pleasant Grove, Utah, in 1847, acting like they owned the place. They brought cattle with them, and since the bison herds were getting thinner thanks to those of a colonial complexion, a few Timpanogos stole some of the mayosapien’s cattle so they could, you know, eat. Brigham Young, president of the LDS Church (Mormons), got his magic underpants in a bunch and ordered a wee massacre in reprisal in March of 1849. His militiamen killed four Timpanogos and injured several others.

Five days after the massacre, Young said hey that place we killed those people who have been here for a millennium is real pretty. Let’s send some of our sister-wifing folks to settle down there. About 150 Mormons headed into Timpanogos territory and the Timpanogos were like the fuck? This is our place. Piss all the way off.

The Mormons said hey, chill. Even though we just murdered a bunch of your people we promise not to take your land or infringe on any of your rights. The term “white lie” dates to the fourteenth century, but when white people lie it usually means horrible shit is about to happen.

The Mormons built Fort Utah and armed it with a cannon because good guys with a gun. The colonizers also started taking all the fish out of the Provo River, and their cattle either ate or fouled the seeds and berries the Timpanogos lived off. Starving and suffering from European-important diseases, the Timpanogos stole some more cattle to survive.

Not willing to abide the loss of meaty quadrupeds, the future governor of Utah decided the valley was in need of some cleansing, ethnically speaking.

On February 8, 1850, on the orders of Brigham Young, ninety Mormon militiamen attacked a group of Timpanogos families encamped along the Provo River. They took their cannon with them, besieging the camp for two days. They called it the Battle of Fort Utah, but how can it be considered a battle when only a solitary militiaman died? It was a fucking massacre of innocent people.

After two days, the Timpanogos fled the camp and were pursued by the militia, with most captured or killed. Their blood lust not yet slaked, the Mormon militia decided fuck it, let’s attack these other Timpanogos villages. When the Timpanogos surrendered, the men were executed in front of their families. All told, over a hundred Timpanogos were murdered during nine days of terror. The Mormon’s adorned Fort Utah with the decapitated heads of fifty Timpanogos as a warning to the surviving captives.

The captive Timpanogos, after being left outside to freeze for a while, were sent to Salt Lake City and sold into slavery. Most of them eventually escaped.

Photo: Mount Timpanogos, because I didn’t want to include a drawing of that stupid fucking fort.

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