Talk:Battle at Fort Utah

"extermination" rhetoric

why is the word "extermination" and "exterminate" used throughout this article? it seems biased and a non-neutral point of view. two parties fought and killed each other in an armed conflict. the term extermination seems like it should be reserved for something like premeditated genocide. in fact, the term "exterminate" redirects to genocide on wikipedia itself. it seems like we could tone down the biased rhetoric by replacing the phrase "extermination order" with "attack order" and "extermination campaign" to "attack" and "extermination" to "subdue". thoughts? Prefetch (talk) 16:42, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Extermination is used because that is what it was. That is what the leaders who issued the extermination order called it and that is what the books that described the campaign call it. The intent was not simply to take their land, but to exterminate them. I've added a line from Wells order that makes it clear that "extermination" wasn't a hyperbole meaning "subdue", but that indeed they wanted them dead - not taken prisoners and not escaping. The army pursued the Timpanogos after they retreated, the killed the people in the sick attachment, they killed people from other villages that were trying to protect them, they executed prisoners and they killed any Timpanogos they ran into. They were told to exterminate the Timpanogos, and that is what they did. It was not simply an attack to take their land. They wanted their land and they wanted them dead. Whether it was "exterminate", or "kill them", or "take no prisoners" or "let none escape but do the work up clean", there is a consistent message of wanting the Timpanogos dead, not just "subdued". FreePeoples (talk) 21:25, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

hey, no offense, but you sound very passionately biased about this. i can find absolutely no use of the word "exterminate" in the historical record. i can only find information about an armed conflict between two parties, and i can't find any information about civilians from either side being targeted in the conflict. brigham young famously said “It is cheaper to feed than fight the Indians.” can you show me a historical source that uses the term "extermination" or a historical source that implies genocide? Prefetch (talk) 20:17, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

an update - i found a historical reference for the term "exterminate" in Becoming a “Messenger of Peace”: Jacob Hamblin in Tooele though i'm not sure a single reference turns this battle at fort utah into an extermination. i'll continue researching. Prefetch (talk) 05:06, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

No offense taken. I was trying to respond to the assertion that the whites were only trying to subdue the Timpanogos, rather than exterminate them. I am really confused why this is even an issue, since I think the historical record is plentiful and unambiguous. I could imagine how enumerating evidence that the speech and action of the whites indicated the desire to exterminate the Timpanogos could sound biased, but I don't know of another way to explain how it wasn't subduing, but extermination. You must also understand how biased "subdue" sounds. It implies that the Timpanogos were at fault and it was up to the whites who have some moral authority over them to punish them. Can you see how subdue sounds biased? I still can't understand why you are having a hard time finding references indicating the desire to kill all Timpanogos men without regard to military status. Here are some references:

From the Jan 31 meeting

Parley P. Pratt "it best to kill the Indians" (Christy page 224)

Isaac Higbee "every man and boy [in Utah Valley] held up their hand to kill them off. . ." (Christy page 224)

Willard Richards "my voice is for war, and exterminate them" (Christy 224 && Compton 3)

Brigham Young "say go [and] kill them. . . . Tell Dimick Huntington to go and kill them—also Barney Ward—let the women and children live if they behave themselves. . . . We have no peace until the men [are] killed off—never treat the Indian as your equal." (Christy page 224 && Compton 3)

Christy summarized it thus: "Young, convinced of the need for action, and persuaded by the unanimous recommendation of all those present, ordered a selective extermination campaign to be carried out against the Utah Valley Indians. He ordered that all the men were to be killed—women and children to be saved if they "behave themselves"" (Christy page 224)

Special Order No. 2

You are hereby ordered . . . to cooperate with the inhabitants of said [Utah] Valley in quelling and staying the operations of all hostile Indians and otherwise act, as the circumstances may require, exterminating such, as do not separate themselves from their hostile clans, and sue for peace. (Christy page 224)

February 9 letter from Wells to Grant

Wells wrote: "Take no hostile Indians as prisoners... let none escape but do the work up clean." (Christy 225 && Compton 12)

February 14 letter from Young to Wells

Brigham Young wrote: "If the Indians sue for peace, grant it to them, according to your discretion and judgment in the case. If they continue hostile pursue them until you use them up — Let it be peace with them or extermination." (Christy 225 && Compton 3)

This is typical attitude of whites towards the Native Americans. As far as civilians are concerned, they attacked the villagers on the Provo River, Spanish Fork River and Peetneet Creek. FreePeoples (talk) 22:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

i agree the word "subdue" makes no sense and is definitely not NPOV, but as you say if the typical attitude of whites towards native americans is to use the word "exterminate" then why don't we not be like them and use a more a accurate term? in researching this it seems clear that they wanted to kill hostile indians, and the hostile indians definitely fought back. it was a battle. none of the settlers were ordered to kill women and children or non-hostile indians. there were specific orders not to kill peaceful indians, which goes counter to an "extermination" order. it seems as though this is simply yet another episode in the indian wars of the the 19th century, and not some kind of special genocide propagated by the utah settlers.

my point is that if we are trying to be NPOV, we should not use 'subdue' or 'exterminate' but rather refer to it in the context of war. ie. a battle, an attack, an assault, etc.

what are your thoughts on this?

Prefetch (talk) 23:01, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

The whites typically used the word exterminate because that is what they tried to do. Why would we change the wording just because it was typical? If the only issue is you want more modern terminology, I would suggest genocide. I definitely oppose terminology that places the whites and Timpanogos on equal grounds, such as "a battle between Timpanogos and the Nauvoo Legion". There is a very clear aggressor and victim, and summarizing using equal terminology misleads the reader. The Timpanogos wanted to be able to use some of the land, and the whites wanted all the land to themselves and they wanted to kill any Timpanogos that stood in the way. The land belonged to the Timpanogos and the whites took it over by force without provocation. I think invasion or conquest is more accurate. I also oppose calling volunteers to an army as "settlers" and any adult Timpanogos male as a "brave", "warrior" or otherwise "non-civilian". How come only white men can be civilians? I also oppose the white's usage of the term "hostile" to refer to anyone who won't willingly give up their land without a fight, and "peaceful" as those willing to turn their back on their people to save their own skin. Basically anyone who wasn't a traitor to their people was considered a hostile. Please, that rhetoric belongs in the 1800s. I would prefer to use the terminology that modern historians use, if nothing else than we won't be able to agree on anything else. The historians called it an extermination campaign. Their goal was to kill anyone who wouldn't give up their land without a fight, including women and children. Remember, women and children were only to be spared if they went with the whites without a fight. Sparing traitors and taking women and children as slaves is still an extermination campaign. In a typical invasion, the invading force just wants the property. Here, they not only wanted the property, but they killed prisoners, pursued those who were fleeing and attacked villages with whom they hadn't had any conflict with before. The stated goal was that they wanted them dead, and that is what they tried to do. FreePeoples (talk) 19:52, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Original Research

i removed two instances of what appears to be original research from the article relating to special order number 2 and a statement that brigham young supposedly made. i have been unable to find either of these published anywhere, and the sources in the citation are from microfilm in an archive, which i was unable to verify. happy to discuss if anyone thinks this should be handled differently. Prefetch (talk) 17:12, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I added additional references. FreePeoples (talk) 23:57, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

where are the additional references? it looks like you just reverted the unverifiable original research. these references are not online, nor are they published in any form. i contacted both the utah state archives and the brigham young collection and neither of those institutions could locate any records as referenced. the utah state archives did an actual document search for special order number two and was able to find it, though not at the location in the reference and it said nothing even remotely similar to what the current reference claims it says. until verifiable references are published, this should not be included in the article. Prefetch (talk) 13:43, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Look again. You must have missed them the first time. I added sources that were referenced elsewhere in the article. I removed the sources that can't be found online. I have reworded it to be closer to the second sources. The only thing that was referenced with Special Order 2 was "General Wells drafted the extermination order as Special Order No. 2 and sent them to Captain George D. Grant." If the Special Order you found doesn't say anything about that then you might have the wrong special order. Anyway, we have another reference talking about Wells sending the orders to Grant, though I am confused why this is such as issue. Is there any indication that Grant acted alone without Young and Wells? Everything I seem to read, even from the LDS Church, is that the extermination order was ordered by Young. What is it specifically you have issues with? FreePeoples (talk) 21:57, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

i think those new edits you put in are fine i guess (though i think the rhetoric of referring to a war order as an "extermination order" is over the top and biased. you may want to spend some time review https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view) - but note that i just removed another reference that is unverifiable. please stop putting in reference from state archives unless they are readily available to verify. if you have an online source, put the details of what page is referenced, not just a link to the entire book. Prefetch (talk) 16:30, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I put the exact page number for you and deleted the state archive reference. I also reworded it for more modern language and to add the surrendering caveat. If all you need is a page number, there is a tag you can add instead of deleting the whole reference. FreePeoples (talk) 22:15, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

the reference you put in on page 12 has a footnote (61) which is for a special order number 10, not special order 2. i removed it, because it's incorrect, and besides that, your edit was malformed markup language. i would have simply changed it to reference special order 10, but it was unclear from the book you referenced what the context was. the book is about tooele in 1851, not the battle of fort utah in 1850. Prefetch (talk) 04:54, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Neutral sources

It's difficult to find neutral sources on this subject. I've been leaning on the Harvard Press book most heavily--please advise if you have other sources that appear reliable and neutral. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 21:17, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Wherever possible, I think it is important to use original sources, though they mostly come from the American side. I found a book with the original manuscripts from Brigham Young. The Utah Historical Quarterly is well-documented with original sources. The Utah Gold Rush also seems pretty detailed. FreePeoples (talk) 19:43, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality

The first paragraph seems to be written mostly from a white point of view. It focused on the white decision to go to war with the Timpanogos. It doesn't talk about the Timpanogos being driven from their homeland. It talks about the whites being friendly with the Timpanogos, not the whites and the Timpanogos being friendly with each other. The first paragraph should be more neutral.

It calls the Timpanogos hostile, but never the whites, even though it was the whites who were invading the Timpanogos homeland. How are you distinguishing between friendly and hostile? Should the reader just assume that "friendly Timpanogos" refers to Timpanogos that were friendly to the whites? Couldn't a Timpanogos be a friendly person, and still want to protect their homeland? Or should they assume that the "Decision to go to war" was the white decision to go to war? The section under "Initial settlement" talks nothing of the initial Timpanogos settlement around 1000 CE. From the white perspective, they thought the Timpanogos settlement "didn't count", but from the Timpanogos perspective, the whites were invading on territory that was already settled. The introduction also calls the encounter a "skirmish" which the dictionary defines as "a fight between small bodies of troops, especially advanced or outlying detachments of opposing armies." While from the white perspective, the battle was on an outlying detachment, from the Timpanogos perspective, it was in the heart of their homeland - the largest settlement in the Great Basin. From the Timpanogos perspective, an invasion is the more appropriate term.

I also have issues with the idea that the Timpanogos "stole" the white's cattle and corn. Again, that is the white perspective. From the Timpanogos perspective, the whites were invading their land and the corn did not belong to the whites. If I went in someone else's backyard, and planted corn, and then they ate the corn that grew on their land, could I accuse them of stealing it? From my understanding, the Timpanogos agreed that they would not kill the cattle that were trespassing on their land if the whites wouldn't fish or hunt their wild game. The whites broke their side of the agreement, and so the Timpanogos were under no obligation to fulfill their side of the agreement. Plenty of sources say that the Timpanogos did not view it as stealing the white's corn.

I understand that the sources that we have are extremely biased. For the most part, they are written by white authors who are writing from a white perspective and assumed their audience understood things from a white perspective. When they talked about friendly and hostile Indians, they assumed the reader knew they were talking about hostile and friendly to the whites. When they talked about settlements and decisions, they assumed the readers understood they were talking about white settlement or decisions made by whites. However, we need to make sure such anglo-centric language isn't carried over to Wikipedia. FreePeoples (talk) 22:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

I completely agree with you. I've requested the Founding Fort Utah book from our library (but the news article by the author that you added is a great source), and I'll be working today to try to improve the neutrality of my additions and the article in general. I've tried to use the most specific tribal name when possible, but it's often unclear (as you know, many sources simply refer to all Native Americans as "Indians"). Is the term "Ute" anachronistic? Would it be more appropriate to refer to separate bands of Timpanogos by who their chief was?

Thanks for the edit. The problem with Ute isn't that it is anachronistic. The problem is that it is debated whether the Timpanogos were part of the Ute or Shoshone tribe. They lived on the boundary and frequently intermarried. The boundaries were very loose, and they didn't fit in the nice racial boxes that the Americans tried to put them in. They say they are part of the Shoshone tribe, while the Utes claim they are part of their tribe. Judge Tena Campbell in Timpanogos v. Conway ruled that the Timpanogos Tribe merged with the Ute Indian Tribe in 1865, which is after this battle anyway. They were often referred to as Utah Indians which got confused with Ute Indians. They were put in the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation with the Utes, so I think that helped to establish the idea that they were Utes. I think it is common to refer to the bands by either the leader or the location. FreePeoples (talk) 18:26, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

One of my sources has two stories from Ute people about what happened to the decapitated warriors--for example, that Brigham Young came down and had dinner on the frozen lake with the warriors and then slaughtered them all. While perhaps this isn't factually accurate, I don't want to dismiss the Ute's voices... would "folklore about the battle" or "oral traditions about the battle" be a good sub-heading for this information? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:27, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Oral traditions sounds good. FreePeoples (talk) 18:26, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Also, what do you think of the Black Hawk Productions source? Is it reliable? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:15, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

See Sources as sources on themselves. While this is still technically a source from an outsider on the Timpanogos, the Timpanogos defer to it when telling their story. So since the Timpanogos say look at Black Hawk to hear our side of the story, I think it counts as the Timpanogos source on the Timpanogos. However, it should probably be couched in those terms. It does reference several reliable sources, which we should just reference directly. One problem is that it relies heavily on Indian Depredations in Utah, which I don't have access to. FreePeoples (talk) 18:26, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Who is the battle between?

If you go to Ute_people#Northern_Ute_Tribe, it states that the Timpanogos lived along the "southern and eastern shores of Utah Lake of the Utah Valley, and in Heber Valley, Uinta Basin and Sanpete Valley. They also utilized the river canyons of the Spanish Fork, Diamond Fork, Hobble Creek, American Fork and Provo River." There is no source for this, but it seems pretty clear that the Indians in the southern Utah Valley were also Timpanogos. Farmer says they attacked the village at Peteetneet Creek, which was a Timpanogos tribe under Chief Peteetneet. Also, Walkara was definitely Timpanogos, and he was not involved in this battle. So I think it would be accurate to say it was a battle against the Timpanogos bands who lived in Utah Valley, starting with Chief Pareyarts (Old Elk)'s band at the Timpanogos River (now Provo River) and extending to Chief Tabby-To-Kwanah (Tabby), Peteetneet, and Grospene's bands along the Spanish Fork River and Peteetneet Creek. That would clarify that it was not all Timpanogos nor did it include other tribes.FreePeoples (talk) 20:08, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

yes, we should clarify that. According to the Founding Fort Utah book, James E. Little describes the village as being in modern-day Provo near the intersection of 1230 N and 500 W. The same book says that Ltnt. George W. Howland thought that warriors from the villages on the Spanish Fork River and Peteetneet Creek "had joined the Timpanogots." I've changed the lead and article to clarify, and I changed "Ute" to "Timpanogos." Should "Timpanogos" only be used as an adjective ("The Timpanogos people"), or is it okay to say "the Timpanogos"?Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 18:03, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

The Timpanogos tribe use Timpanogos as both a collective noun and an adjective. For example, they say "Wahkara was chief of the Timpanogos."[1] and "The Treaty of Spanish Fork, listing the Timpanogos, failed ratification." [2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by FreePeoples (talk • contribs) 17:39, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, you meant the other village the Nauvoo legion attacked (not the initial one on the Provo river). I wasn't sure if it was Chief Peteetnet's "main" camp or not, but the groups were probably associated? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 18:05, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Peteetneet Museum and Cultural Arts Center cites several references saying that Chief Peteetneet and his people lived near Peteetneet Creek in modern day Payson, as well as the Peteetneet Creek and Payson, Utah articles. I searched and I couldn't figure out which village was on the Spanish Fork River, but the book says that the main chiefs of Southern Utah Valley were Chief Tabby, Chief Peteetneet and Grospene. All three were Timpanogos, so that shouldn't be an issue, and all three confronted the Mormons in Fort Utah, so all three were involved in that respect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FreePeoples (talk • contribs) 19:12, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Hey there, I don't know where the heck you got these references from..

I can tell you, since I am a member of this church, that most of this story is fabricated...in favor of the Timpanogos. ...Mormons are the epitomy of Christian love and brotherly kindness..We strive to follow Jesus Christ's example; and any notion that someone was harmed without endangering life and limb is completely unthinkable! ...Mormons would rather die than hurt a child!

Thanks for reading!! ;-) Have a great day, Lisa — Preceding unsigned comment added by 8.25.32.34 (talk) 23:47, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Hey Lisa, thank you for expressing your concerns. This page has been worked on and edited by people of many backgrounds for a number of years, and the information presented does come from well-documented and reliable sources. While it may not be reflective of a group of people now, history is messy, and bad things can happen. If you have any specific suggestions or changes which you think could improve the article, feel free to suggest them here or to edit the article directly. Best, Rollidan (talk) 18:03, 11 March 2022 (UTC)