The Gunnison Massacre, also known as the Mormon Gunfight, occurred on October 26, 1853, near Gunnison, Utah, during a period of strained relations between Mormon settlers and numerous Native American tribes, as well as with the United States government. A number of men, including U.S. government surveyors, were slain by Native American militants who were thought to be members of the Ute or Paiute tribes. The surveyors, commanded by John W. Gunnison, were entrusted with mapping a route for the transcontinental railroad. The killing took place when tensions in the region rose as settlers encroached on Native American grounds.
The Gunnison Massacre
In addition to Gunnison, topographer and artist Richard H. Kern, botanist F. Creufeldt, Mormon guide William Potter, camp roustabout John Bellows, Private Caulfield, Private Liptoote, and Private Mehreens were also slain. Four of the survey party members escaped. Searchers uncovered the corpses and buried them there. Surveying in Utah was halted until the following year, when Ute hostilities stopped as a result of the death. Lieutenant Edward G. Beckwith returned to continue on the survey and completed it all the way to the Pacific ocean.
Gunnison Massacre Site
Despite receiving peaceful help from certain local tribes, Gunnison’s troop was assaulted while camping near a location now known as “Gunnison’s Massacre Site.” The incident is sometimes interpreted as part of the greater violent background of westward expansion and the complex relationships between settlers, the United States military, and Native American organisations at the period. The Gunnison Massacre Site is important because of its connections to the Mormon experience in the West, railroad development, Indian-white interactions, and exploratory history.
John W. Gunnison and his death
John W. Gunnison was born in Goshen, New Hampshire, on November 11, 1812, then in 1837 he graduated. Lieutenant Gunnison was assigned to the Corps of Topographical Engineers in 1838 and later took part in the Stansbury expedition in 1849-1850.slain In the autumn of 1849, he oversaw the investigation of Utah Lake as well as the survey from Great Salt Lake to Fort Hall.
During the Stansbury expedition’s winter in Salt Lake City, Gunnison studied Mormon Church doctrinal views and practices. Captain Gunnison surveyed Great Salt Lake’s eastern shore and a number of its islands, including one that bears his name, in the spring of 1850. The group went back to the East after the summer’s labor.
In response to the debate about viable transcontinental railroad routes, Congress approved studies of the four main routes. When Captain Gunnison was appointed to lead the survey along the 38th parallel, Missouri Senator Thomas Burton objected, claiming that his son-in-law, John C. Fremont, should be given the command instead. At Fremont’s request, the expedition attempted to cross the Rocky Mountains in December after he had charted a path along the 38th parallel into the mountains in 1848.
However, they were stranded in a snowstorm and 10 members of the company perished from exposure and malnutrition. The other survivors, including Fremont, were compelled to seek safety in Taos. In spite of this catastrophe, Fremont asserted that he had discovered a viable transcontinental railroad path.
At this point, Gunnison encountered the second group, which had traveled the Santa Fe Trail from Independence and was led by Lieutenant E. G. Beckwith. The path then ascended the Arkansas River to the Rocky Mountains, where it found its sources. In order to complete the survey work surrounding Sevier Lake before winter arrived, Captain Gunnison separated his command, took a small party with him, and halted their activities.
On October 26, 1853, Indians assaulted this group. In the final letter he wrote to his wife on October 18, 1853, Gunnison acknowledged the challenges faced by the Indians: “There is a conflict between the Mormons and the Indians and companies of fewer than a dozen do not dare to travel.” One of Chief Walker’s Ute braves was slain in a trade dispute at Springville on July 17, 1853, marking the start of the Walker War.
However, Gunnison and his men’s killings had nothing to do with the Walker War; rather, they were retaliation for a Pavant’s death and two other people’s injuries sustained during a fight with a California emigrant group on Meadow Creek, five miles south of Fillmore.
It was said that the Mormons either committed the atrocity themselves or were complicit with the Indians. This sparked calls for the creation of a military force in Utah as well as the dissolution and division of the Territory of Utah among Nebraska, New Mexico, and California. Colonel Edward J. Steptoe led a unit of federal troops sent to Utah in 1854 to look into the massacre. A total of 175 men and 130 “teamsters, ostlers, and herders” made up the Steptoe command.
The Mormon jury unanimously found the Indians guilty of manslaughter, even though the court had charged them with either first-degree murder or innocence. The Indians received the worst punishment allowed for manslaughter under the territorial rules, which was three years of hard labor in the unfinished territorial prison. The decision was upheld.
Colonel Steptoe accused Mormon officials of staging the trial to publicly appease Gentile opinion and said that it was designed to demonstrate disdain for government authority in addition to protecting the Indians. Newspapers from the east carried the accusations again, which prepared the ground for the 1857 “Federal Invasion” by troops from the west.