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Mountain Meadows massacre
Sketch of the site of the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre (from the cover of the August 13, 1859 Harper's Weekly). "The scene was one too horrible and sickening for language to describe. Human skeletons, disjointed bones, ghastly skulls and the hair of women were scattered in frightful profusion over a distance of two miles." (Harpers Weekly August 13, 1859 report)
Location	Mountain Meadows, Utah
Date	September 7–September 11, 1857
Target	Baker-Fancher party of Arkansan emigrants to California
Attack type	Wagon train attack
Weapons	guns
Deaths	100–140
Injured	<17
Perpetrators	Nauvoo Legion of Mormon militia

The Mountain Meadows massacre was a mass killing of emigrants of white and Native American ancestry passing through southwestern Utah on Friday, September 11 1857 at Mountain Meadows, a stopover along the Old Spanish Trail. The widely-publicized massacre was carried out by a local brigade of the Mormon militia (every able-bodied man between the ages of eighteen and forty-five in the region) . During an investigation less than two years after the incident, Indian chiefs of the area admitted to a federal judge that members of their tribes were involved in the massacre but were not there when the attack commenced. Modern tribal representatives have denied Paiute involvement in the actual killings based on oral traditions related to the event. The emigrants were mostly from Arkansas, bound for California during a period of heightened political tension called the Utah War. Sources estimate that between 100 and 140 men, women and children were killed. The causes and circumstances behind the massacre remain controversial.

Background: conditions in the Utah Territory

Historians attribute the Mountain Meadows massacre to a number of factors relating to the conditions in the Utah Territory in 1857. Because of their history of persecution, Mormon settlers harbored a profound sense that they had been wronged by other Americans, which was reflected in teachings and sermons of the Mormon Reformation. On the border of civilization, the territory was also a place of frequent lawlessness. The beloved apostle Parley P. Pratt had just been killed in Arkansas over a polygamy dispute, and Mormons were mustering militias in preparation for the invasion of Utah by a large federal army.

History of persecution

Mormons of the 1850s had acute memories of prior persecution and violence relating to their religious views and political power. The persecution began in Missouri during the 1830s, when Mormons began to gather there, intending to establish a Zion in Jackson County. Because of their beliefs and political power, settlers conducted a series of raids on Mormon settlements, and drove them from their homes and properties in Jackson County in 1833.

The exiled Mormons settled temporarily in Clay County, Missouri, and then in Caldwell county, which the Missouri legislature created specifically to confine the Mormon settlement in 1836. In 1838, conflicts arose between Mormons and their non-Mormon neighbors, resulting in the Mormon War. Believing there was an insurrection, the Missouri government eventually sided against the Mormons in this war, and the governor issued an Extermination Order against Mormons, indicating that if necessary for the public good, they could be either exterminated or driven from the state. A group of Mormons were massacred at Haun's Mill while attempting to flee a vigilante militia. Faced with the full military power of Missouri, the Mormons surrendered, and moved to Illinois. Mormon leaders were imprisoned, but eventually allowed to escape.

In Illinois, Mormons established the city of Nauvoo and prospered several years with Smith as mayor. In 1844, however, Joseph Smith, Jr. was assassinated with his brother Hyrum by a mob in Carthage, Illinois, while they were in prison on charges relating to the Nauvoo City counsel's destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor. The Expositor had printed material stating that Smith intended to create a theocracy, and that he was practicing plural marriage. After Smith's death, the state of Illinois negotiated with Mormons to have them leave the state and their property, while the bulk of them moved to the Salt Lake Valley under Brigham Young. The Mormons took with them a profound sense that they had been wronged by the United States and specifically Missouri and Illinois, and that God would eventually punish the wrongdoers.

Frontier existence and theocracy

Lawlessness among and around Mormons began as soon as Mormons left the established settlements around Illinois. The Mormons were a large group of people with no homes, no established police force, and no judicial system. Theft was a particular problem. In the Salt Lake valley, Brigham Young acted as the executive authority (he once referred to himself as the "King and Prest") while the Council of Fifty, composed at the time of only Mormons, acted as a legislature, though it had little power.

Though the Mormons' initial goal was to establish an independent theocratic "Kingdom of God" outside the United States, after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 which made Utah part of the United States, a Utah Territorial government was established in 1852 with Young as governor. While the government was technically secular, it was operated as late as 1857 as a de facto theocracy, with church leaders assuming nearly all governmental roles under Young's nearly absolute authority over both secular and religious matters, consistent with the territorial constitution.

Immediately after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Young began to send prominent Mormons on missions to establish colonies throughout the Great Basin region. To the vicinity of Mountain Meadows, Young sent missionaries to establish Parowan and Cedar City in 1851, Harmony in 1852 (by John D. Lee), Santa Clara in 1854, and Pinto in 1856. These settlements, nearly 300 miles from Salt Lake City, were young at the time of the massacre. There were no established mail lines between these settlements and the church headquarters, so any messages had to be sent by special messenger, which required about three days' journey each way.

While Brigham Young soon established a church-controlled police force and relatively stable ecclesiastical judicial system in the Salt Lake Valley, the smaller, newer settlements were typically governed in an ad hoc way by local church authorities, such as bishops. For defense, the settlements mustered local militias, usually governed by local church leaders.

• Harsh living conditions
• Crop failures

Teachings of the Mormon Reformation

Utah Territory (1856–1858)

Utah in 1857 was in the midst of intense religious reformation and renewal. (See Mormon Reformation.) During this period, certain adjunct theocratic committees attempted to ensure order and conformity through censures of troublemakers. There is documentation that dissident Mormons of the time feared rumors that these committees resorted to summary judgments with punishments meted out by enforcers colloquially termed "destroying angels". For example, the southern Utah pioneer and militia scout of the time John Chatterley later wrote that he had received threats from "secret Committee, called ...'destroying angels'" in late 1856 and early 1857. (See Briggs endnote 26.). Commentators, both then and now, point to pronouncements during this period by Brigham Young and his counselor Jedediah M. Grant—comments that would seem to give vigilante-style bloodshed a religious basis, as evidence that any such acts were condoned by Young—which Young denied. (See blood atonement.) In a speech in 1867 Young said:

Is there war in our religion? No; neither war nor bloodshed. Yet our enemies cry out "bloodshed," and "oh, what dreadful men these Mormons are, and those Danites! how they slay and kill!" Such is all nonsense and folly in the extreme. The wicked slay the wicked, and they will lay it on the Saints.

Murder of Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt in Arkansas

Arkansas (1857)

Mormon leader Parley P. Pratt was murdered in Arkansas in May 1857 by the ex-husband of one of Pratt's plural wives. News of his death arrived in the southern Utah area in the early summer of 1857. While on a mission to the southern states, a lawsuit was filed against Pratt by Hector McLean. The lawsuit alleged that Pratt caused an estrangement between McLean and his former wife, Eleanor. Pratt was exonerated by the court in Arkansas. McLean and two accomplices pursued Pratt to Alma, Arkansas, where they shot at and stabbed him. He died on 13 May 1857 and was buried near Fine Springs, Arkansas (Smart 1994). Pratt was well known and loved by the people in southern Utah, where news of his murder heightened the sense of persecution felt by the Mormons.

Utah War

(1857–1858)

The Mormon population was usually eager to trade with emigrant trains but on August 5, 1857, Mormon leader and Utah Territorial Governor Brigham Young had declared martial law in response to threatening hostilities with the United States government. For almost a decade, relations between Utah and the United States government had deteriorated over competing claims by the Mormons' then entirely theocratic institutions versus the U.S.'s republican form of government for sovereignty within the territory. Disagreements arose with regard to

• the administration of criminal justice in church courts and secular courts;
• Utah's treatment of "Gentile" emigrants and residents;
• the behavior of U.S. troops and Utah's federal appointees;
• competing interests with regard relations with sovereign Indian tribes.

In the summer of 1856, the newly formed Republican Party began campaigning for a Constitutional amendment banning polygamy.

U.S. President James Buchanan appointed Alfred Cumming as a Gentile replacement to Young as territorial governor and ordered him along with a fourth of the entire regular army of the United States to advance towards Utah, beginning what would later be called the Utah War.

Young ordered the Mormon pioneer settlements furthest afield from the boundaries of (present-day) Utah to pull up stakes and resettle back in the heart of "Zion".

Young in effect created a partial political vacuum on Utah’s western and eastern flanks with the defensive evacuation of the Mormon colonies in San Bernardino, Las Vegas, Carson Valley, Fort Bridger, and Fort Supply.

All borders were to be closed. According to historian Bagley

"A woman with the eastbound Mormon wagons evacuating Carson Valley warned, 'The last trains of this year would not get through, for they were to be cut off.'"

Southern Utah settlements were not to retreat but remain as a bulwark against the prospect of non-Mormon aggression. Mormons in 1857 feared even the non-Mormon civilian militia, born out of the Mormons' memories of prior persecutions in Missouri and Illinois. In 1857, the Mormons of southern Utah termed not only non-Mormon civilian militia but also regular U.S. Army troops as "the mob"—and Historian of the Utah War MacKinnon, from his study of U.S. Utah Expedition troops, believes Mormons' fear about the threat of general carnage upon civilians by federal regular Army troops was justified.

Fancher (Baker-Fancher) party

Background and makeup

In the spring of 1857 approximately forty white families, some of Native American ancestry,, in Marion, Benton, Carroll and Johnson counties in Arkansas adjacent to the section of Missouri then known as Cherokee Nation, set off on an emigration to southern California. Assembled into a single wagon train in Utah, these parties were called the Fancher train, company or party after Alexander Fancher who had become its main leader. Fancher had previously made the journey from Arkansas to California in 1850 at the height of the Gold Rush and again in 1853. By contemporary standards the Fancher party was prosperous, carefully organized and well-equipped for the journey.

The Mountain Meadows monument of 1955 in Harrison (Boone County, Arkansas) indicates that the Fancher party was made up of several emigrant groups. The Fancher train departed from Benton County under the leadership of Alexander Fancher, as did the Huff train. The Poteet-Tackett-Jones train along with the Cameron and Miller trains left from Johnson County while the Mitchell, Dunlap and Prewitt trains began their treks from Marion County. The Baker train departed from Beller's Stand near Harrison in Carroll County (today Boone County) under their wagonmaster John Twitty Baker, whom historians reference when they call the trains the Baker-Fancher company.

Each party left on different dates and was led by individual wagon masters. The families had many reasons for heading west. Some had sold their homes and property in Arkansas and were planning to settle in California. Others (like Fancher) were driving cattle west for profit. The lure of gold may have motivated some of the the young single men. Along their way westward other wagon trains merged with them, broke off, or rejoined the group. These included the Poteet-Tackett train, the Crooked Creek train, the Campbell train, the Parker train and the John S. Baker train. Families and individuals from other states may have joined up with them.

Travel through Utah

These Arkansas emigrant party arrived in Utah Territory in July with over 900 head of cattle but were running low on some supplies when they reached the Salt Lake City area on August 3 1857, a major resupply destination for emigrants traveling to California. The main Fancher train waited outside Salt Lake City for more than a week as other trains caught up with them. The Baker Train was the last to arrive. The settlers had to decide which route to take across the Great Basin to reach California. The northern route meant traveling the Humboldt River Road west across the desert and Sierra Nevada mountains, then southward through California. The southern route, which involved less risk of the emigrants becoming snowbound in the mountains this late in the season, would carry them through the settlements in southern Utah, to the Mohave Desert and on to Los Angeles. At least one couple chose to take the northern route while others from the woman's family went south with the main party led by Alexander Fancher towards southwestern Utah and Mountain Meadows.

The Mormons that the Fancher train encountered along the way were obeying Young's order to stockpile supplies in expectations of all-out war with the approaching U.S. troops and declined to trade with the Fancher train. The Mormons considered the emigrants to have an alien status in the territory because of Young's orders which forbade travel through the territory without a pass. The Fancher-Baker party did not have the required pass. However, the train's leadership may not have been aware of Young's martial law order since it was not made public until September 15, 1857.

Mormon reactions to the Fancher party

Rumors and tension

The Fancher party may have been joined by a eleven members of a citizen militia called the "Missouri Wildcats". There is debate on whether these miners and plainsmen stayed with the slow-moving Fancher party after leaving Salt Lake City, or even existed. Though the conduct and/or existence of the Wildcats is now questioned, rumors about them at the time antagonized the local population. The most severe accusations regarding them have included the poisoning of wells, bragging about taking part in Haun's Mill massacre and threats of returning to Utah with an army to wipe out the Mormon population.. At least one account claimed the Wildcats bragged they had the gun that "shot the guts out of Old Joe Smith".

According to historian Briggs (p.320), such rumors aside, the "poisoning" complaint against Fancher party emigrants that is documented as to time and place has to do with certain words the emigrants used at Corn Creek, where territorial official George A. Smith met with the Fancher party. Local Mormons had already been ordered by Smith to mobilize the militia to prepare to "touch fire to their homes, hide themselves in the mountains, and defend their country to the last extremity" in anticipation of the approaching U.S. troops and so militia scouts searched the trails looking for counterpart spotters thought to have been deployed by the approaching U.S. Army. As one party of Mormon militia scouts led by Jacob Hamblin accompanied George A. Smith in his meeting with the Fancher train, these interrogators presumably had their eyes and ears open. In trial testimony years later, militiaman Silas Smith (George A. Smith's cousin) said that

when some of the emigrant men asked if the Indians would eat a dead ox that lay nearby, it "created suspicion that they would play foul games by some means" , "I could not say they were a rough set of fellows but that was my opinion."

However Silas testified he met the emigrants on two additional occasions, with Silas's testimony evincing no further complaints about their conduct.

Alliance with Indian tribes

On September 1, 1857, in Salt Lake City, Brigham Young (who as governor held the title of Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory of Utah) met with Indian chiefs from the Southern Territory, which included the area around Mountain Meadows. During a one-hour meeting, Young complained that the Americans had come to kill both Mormons and Indians. He told the chiefs that if they fought the Americans, he would give them all the cattle on the Southern California Trail. According to historian Bigler "The chiefs knew what cattle he was giving them. They belonged to the Baker-Fancher train." Robert Crockett in his review of Bagley's book argues that while Young "asked Indian tribal leaders to help scatter the cattle of the army and of all emigrants on the trail in front of the army in order to completely close the trail. ... When Brigham Young told the Indian tribes he wanted assistance in fighting the Americans, he meant only the army.". Historian Glen Leonard (LDS Church Historian) in an interview for the PBS series The Mormons explains the arrangement by the territorial leadership as "a new policy allow the Indians to take the cattle, which will teach the government a lesson that can't control the Indians."

Cedar City meetings

At least nine southern Utah militiamen (including John Chatterley) were sent out as scouts to the area's emigrant trails' mountain passes, looking for advance parties of the United States dragoons. Before these scouts could return with welcome news that U.S. troops likely would not be arriving until spring—and yet as the Fancher party approached Mountain Meadows—several meetings were held in Cedar City and nearby Parowan by local Latter Day Saints (LDS) leaders pondering how to implement Young's directives.

Historian Leonard explains, "Cedar City leaders decided to take some cattle, using the Indians" and if some of these Arkansans who had been boasting of threats are killed, local Mormon leadership "won't truly be sorry."

In the afternoon of Sunday, September 6, at first Isaac B. Haight, president of the Parowan LDS "Stake" and the second in command of the Iron County militia, and other local leaders decided to eliminate ("destroy", "use up") the Fancher wagon train, but hesitated and sent a rider to Salt Lake City (a six-day round trip on horseback) for Brigham Young's advice. Meanwhile, organization among the local Mormon leadership reportedly broke down. The rider did return with a letter from Young ordering that the emigrants not be harmed, but did not arrive in time to prevent the attack and moreover, after the siege had started Haight resolved to exterminate any adult witnesses. Historians continue to debate the letter's contents. Brooks has stated in her book that this letter shows that Young "did not order the massacre, and would have prevented it if he could." Bagley (p. 85) has a different take, claiming the letter may have contained code words covertly giving other instructions.

Siege and massacre at Mountain Meadows

Wagon train scout and Indian agent Jacob Hamblin had directed the party to find water and fresh grazing for its livestock at the grassy, mountain-ringed Mountain Meadows, a regular stopover on the Old Spanish Trail which happened to be where Hamblin's own home was located. Yet before the Fanchers could arrive at the Meadows, orders went out for contingents of militia from throughout the southern settlements to head towards there and John. D. Lee was given the responsibility to assemble Paiute fighters to assist in an attack on the train. In early September the emigrants arrived at the Meadows anticipating several days of rest and recuperation. On September 7 the party began to be attacked by as many or more than 200 Paiutes and Mormon militiamen, some disguised as Native Americans. The Fancher party defended itself by encircling and lowering their wagons, wheels chained together, along with digging shallow trenches and throwing dirt both below and into the wagons, which made a strong barrier. Seven emigrants were killed during the opening attack and were buried somewhere within the wagon encirclement. Sixteen more were wounded. The attack continued for five days, during which the besieged families had little or no access to fresh water or game food and their ammunition was depleted.

Following orders from Haight in Cedar City, on Friday September 11 John M. Higbee ordered two Mormon men to approach the Baker-Fancher party wagons with a white flag. They were William Bateman and Indian agent and militia officer John D. Lee. (Lee was a scribe for the Council of Fifty and a friend of both Joseph Smith, Jr. and Brigham Young, in both of whose service Lee had performed duties as a constable and personal protection and was rumored to have been an Avenging Angel as well.) Lee told the battle-weary emigrants he had negotiated a truce with the Paiutes, whereby they could be escorted safely to Cedar City under Mormon protection in exchange for leaving all their livestock and supplies to the Native Americans. Accepting this, they were split into three groups. Seventeen of the youngest children along with a few mothers and the wounded were put into wagons, which were followed by all the women and older children walking in a second group. Bringing up the rear were the adult males of the Fancher party, each walking with an armed Mormon militiaman at his right. Making their way back northeast towards Cedar City, the three groups gradually became strung out and visually separated by shrubs and a shallow hill. After about 2 kilometers Higbee gave the prearranged order, "Do Your Duty!" Each Mormon then turned and killed the man he was guarding. All of the men, women, older children and wounded were massacred by Mormon militia and Paiutes who had hidden nearby. A few who escaped the initial slaughter were quickly chased down and killed.

Two teenaged girls, Rachel and Ruth Dunlap, managed to clamber down the side of a steep gully and hide among a clump of oak trees for several minutes. They were spotted by a Paiute chief from Parowan, who took them to Lee. Eighteen-year-old Ruth Dunlap reportedly fell to her knees and pleaded, "Spare me, and I will love you all my life!" (Lee denied this). The sisters were later found stripped of their clothing with their throats slit. Fifty years later, a Mormon woman who was a child at the time of the massacre recalled hearing LDS women in St. George say both girls were raped before they were killed. However, this latter allegation is strongly disputed.

Aftermath

Cover-up

All of the Mormon participants in the massacre were then sworn to secrecy and told to blame the attack on the Paiutes. Eyewitness accounts from Mormons that implicate the Paiutes (at first entirely so and then only in part) are set against Paiute accounts that absolve them from participation in the actual massacre. Historian Bagley believes that

the problem with trying to tell the story of Mountain Meadows—the sources are all fouled up. You've either got to rely on the testimony of the murderers or of the surviving children. And so what we know about the actual massacre is—could be challenged on almost any point.

Whatever the case, the many dozens of bodies were hastily dragged into gullies and other low lying spots, then lightly covered with surrounding material which was soon blown away by the weather, leaving the remains to be scavenged and scattered by wildlife.

Lee went to Salt Lake and told to Young the story of the Fanchers' having poisoned a beef and spring which killed Indians and Mormons, for which the Indians had massacred the train, which story Young passed on to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Surviving children

Approximately seventeen children were deliberately spared because of their young ages. In the hours following the massacre Lee directed Philip Kingensmith and possibly two others to take the children (a few of whom were wounded) to the nearby farm of Jacob Hamblin, a local Indian agent. (A photograph of four-year-old survivor named Nancy Saphrona Huff, taken when she was a young woman back in Arkansas, is featured in the documentary Burying the Past. (Note: it can be viewed by clicking on the footnote.)) Later Jacob Forney, the non-Mormon Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah, ordered that the children be placed in the care of local Mormon families pending an investigation of the matter and notification of kin. However, some accounts relate that Lee sold or bartered the children to whatever Mormon families would take them. Sarah Francis Baker, who was three years old at the time of the massacre, later said, "They sold us from one family to another."

Distribution of spoils

The Paiutes reportedly received a portion of the Baker-Fancher party's significant livestock holdings as compensation for their part in the massacre. Many of the murdered emigrants' other belongings (including blood stained and bullet-riddled clothing stripped from the victims' corpses) were brought to Cedar City and stored in the cellar of an LDS warehouse as "property taken at the siege of Sebastopol." There are conflicting accounts as to whether these items were auctioned off or simply taken by members of the local population. Some of the surviving children subsequently claimed to have seen Mormons wearing their dead parents' clothing and jewelry.

Investigations and trials

Garland Hurt (a non-Mormon and the Indian agent at the Spanish Fork, Utah, Indian farm), hearing of the massacre, sent an interpreter to inquire of the Paiute band. The Paiutes said Hurt's colleague John D. Lee had ordered the Paiutes to make several attacks against the embattled wagon train, which had been repulsed. Thereafter, the Mormons had resorted to trickery to carry out the slaughter of the travelers and then kept all the plunder. Hurt, his life threatened by the militia, escaped to Fort Bridger and passed the interpreter's report on to United States authorities.

In 1859, two years after the massacre, Brevet Major James Henry Carleton arrived in the area to investigate. At Mountain Meadows he found women's hair tangled in sage brush and the bones of children still in their mothers' arms. Carleton later said it was "a sight which can never be forgotten." After gathering up the skulls and bones of those who had died, Carleton's troops buried them and erected a rock cairn.

Meanwhile Carleton, Dr. Forney, and others gathered up the surviving children from local families after which they were united with extended family members in Arkansas and other states. Several Mormon families claimed and received financial compensation from the federal government for the children's care, including Jacob Hamblin; some even protested that the amounts paid were insufficient although the conditions some of the children lived under were criticized by Carleton in his report.

Carleton issued a report to the United States Congress in which he called the mass killings a "heinous crime" and blamed local and senior church leaders for the massacre. However, years later only Lee was charged with murder for his involvement. Lee's first trial ended in a mistrial, but he was convicted on re-trial and executed by firing squad at Mountain Meadows.

The causes and circumstances of the Mountain Meadows Massacre remain contested and highly controversial. According to historian of the Utah War MacKinnon

After the war, Buchanan implied that face-to-face communications with Brigham Young might have averted the , and Young argued that a north-south telegraph line in Utah could have prevented the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Although there is no evidence that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the massacre, the roles of Cedar City church officials in ordering the murders and Young's concealing of evidence in their aftermath are still questioned. Moreover, while by all accounts native American Paiutes were present, historical reports of their numbers and the details of their participation are contradictory. Young's use of often inflammatory and violent language in response to the perceived Federal colonialism has also been cited as adding to the tense atmosphere that helped precipitate the attack.

Memorials

1859

The original cairn Major Carleton had erected over the victims' mass graves had been inscribed with the words, Here 120 men, women, and children were massacred in cold blood early in September, 1857. They were from Arkansas, along with a cross bearing the words, Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.

1955 (Carrollton, Arkansas)

A marker was placed in the Carrollton, Arkansas town square in 1955 in commemoration of the surviving children's return to their next of kin there in 1859—to which a replica of Carleton's original wooden cross and cairn was added in 2005.

1990

Starting in 1988 descendants of both the Baker-Fancher party victims and the Mormon participants collaborated to design and dedicate a monument to replace the neglected and crumbling marker on the site. There are now three monuments to the massacre. Two of these are at Mountain Meadows.

Mountain Meadows Association built a monument at Mountain Meadows in 1990 which is maintained by the Utah State Division of Parks and Recreation. On September 15 1990, more than 2,000 people attended a memorial service at Southern Utah State College, marking the dedication of the memorial. Participants in the memorial service included Roger Logan and J. K. Fancher representing the emigrant families, tribal chairwoman Geneal Anderson and spiritual leader Clifford Jake, representing the Paiute tribe, Rex E. Lee, representing descendants of LDS pioneer families from the area, and a then–first counselor in the LDS First Presidency Gordon B. Hinckley representing the church. In blog commentary at the LDS blog timesandseasons.org, attendee Catherine Baker wrote:

I am a descendent (sic) of Captain Jack Baker of the Baker-Fancher train, and I attended the 3-day dedication ceremony in Cedar City in 1990 - ”forgiveness and reconciliation.” In the auditorium/gymnasium at the university, President Hinckley spoke at length. It was very moving and almost ethereal. The descendents were seated on the floor of the gym , while members of the church were seated in the stands surrounding us. At one point, President Hinckley asked all those in attendance to stand if they had a relative, or knew someone who participated in the Mountain Meadows Massacre to stand - about two-thirds of the people stood (as a humorous aside: I was sitting next to my 86-year-old uncle, Bill Baker (a man of few words that are always dry and monotone) and he poked me in the side and whispered out of the side of his mouth to me, ”eek gad - maybe they called us all here just to finish us off.” But I digress . . . at this ceremony, President Hinckley spoke eloquently on the subject and he said he was there ”to ask our, the descendents, forgiveness. He also exonerated members of the Piute nation - in the presence of their current Chief. The Piute Chief sang/recited an old Piute prayer at the end of the ceremony and we all left with tears in our eyes.

According to an article in the Saint George, Utah, Spectrum newspaper:

During the ceremony, descendants of both the victims and perpetrators joined arms on stage and in the audience, some hugging and embracing each other following a challenge by Rex E. Lee, Brigham Young University president.... Gordon B. Hinckley...said he came as a representative of a church that has suffered much over what happened. While people can't comprehend what occured...Hinckley said he was grateful for reconciliation by the descendants on both sides...."Now if there is need for forgiveness, we ask that it be granted."

J.K. Francher, a Harrison, Ark., pharmacist and freelance writer, said... never dreamed that a memorial service would come to fruition but "the spirit kicked in" and people of differing religious beliefs have reconciled. "The most difficult words for men to utter is 'I'm sorry and I forgive you'."Easing the burden of the victims was also the goal of Paiute Indian Tribal Chairwoman Geneal Anderson of Cedar City....

1999

In 1999 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built and agreed to maintain a second monument at Mountain Meadows. A monument in Arkansas is a replica of Carleton's original marker maintained by the Mountain Meadows Massacre Monument Foundation Inc.

Celebrations and remembrances

A commemorative wagon-train encampment assembled at Beller Spring, Arkansas on April 21–22, 2007, with some participants in period dress, to honor the sesquicentennial of their ancestors' embarkation on the ill-fated journey.

In a PBS interview LDS apostle Jeffrey Holland said:

I grew up in the shadow of Mountain Meadows and knew about it—sometimes in sort of hushed tones— ...from my childhood on. .... As a teenager, ... I first came in contact with Juanita Brooks' book . Juanita was my high school English teacher.... Certainly she never talked about it in any public way....What little bit I knew, I knew from her book,...the way most of us became acquainted with the challenge, the difficulty, the tragedy of Mountain Meadows. ...

Nobody's done more than President Hinckley in current times, in current terms, to try to get closure, to try to express regret, apologies or whatever—not for the church, not institutionally. No, try as people may, there has never been any smoking gun in Brigham Young's hand or anyone else's at that level of leadership of the church. But there was clearly local responsibility. I don't think anybody's denying that. ... What we do know is that lives were taken, and that never should have been. ...

When I knew Juanita and knew her family, she was an...absolutely faithful Latter-day Saint. ... I saw her living out her life with the peace and tranquility who had...probably helped the church come to grips with something that all of us wish had never happened. ...

I'm willing to be held to the highest possible standard, ... although I have thought why hasn't the Haun's Mill experience, prior to Mountain Meadows, why hasn't anybody been exorcized about that? What about the parents who lost children there? Now, two wrongs do not make a right. ... But I think it's at least context, and it's history. And probably, while a great many people may or may not know the phrase Mountain Meadows, I don't know that anybody knows Haun's Mill. And I'm just very happy, frankly, that they don't. ...Let's not dredge up anything that doesn't have to be dredged up. ...

The only thing that I would say—this is not to raise some sort of persecution complex ...—but we are a church which has had an extermination order issued against us. That is unprecedented in the history of this God-fearing nation. There has never been an extermination order against a religious belief, except us. Now, we're not whining about that. ... Our people knew what it was like to be hated; they knew what it was like to have their children killed; they knew what it was like to have their prophet murdered in cold blood. ... Their blood has been spread across six states, and then across the Oregon Trail. ...

That isn't justification. ... Everybody has known tough times. But you raise a very sensitive, difficult subject, and at the very least, in fairness to those who went through it and experienced it, it has to be seen in some frontier context of what had been a very, very difficult 30 years for Mormon pilgrims. ...

In a soundbite PBS broadcast in 2007 LDS apostle Dallin Oaks said:

I have no doubt, on the basis of what I have studied and learned, that Mormons, including local leaders of our church, were prime movers in that terrible episode and participated in the killing. And what a terrible thing to contemplate, that the barbarity of the frontier, and the conditions of the Utah war and whatever provocations were perceived to have been given, would have led to such an extreme episode, such an extreme atrocity perpetrated by members of my faith. I pray that the Lord will comfort those that are still bereaved by it, and I pray that he can find a way to forgive those who took such a terrible action against their fellow beings.

Depictions in media

• The semi-autobiographical travel book Roughing It (1872) by Mark Twain within its Appendix B comments on the massacre based upon public perceptions of Americans during the mid nineteenth century.
• The play Fire In The Bones (1978) by Thomas F. Rogers is a depiction of the massacre from the perspective of John D. Lee, and is based heavily on Juanita Brooks' research.
• The play Two-Headed (2000) by Julie Jensen depicts two middle-aged Latter Day Saint (Mormon) women reflecting on the massacre that occurred when they were children.
• The novel Red Water (2002) by Judith Freeman is a fictionalized account of John D. Lee's role in the massacre from the perspective of three of his nineteen wives.
• The documentary film Burying the Past: Legacy of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (2004) contains footage of forensic analysis of human remains from the massacre.
• The PBS documentary The Mormons (2007), aired on PBS in two parts on April 30th and May 1st, 2007 and discussed the effects of the Mountain Meadows massacre on the church's image today.
• The film September Dawn (2007), slated for wide release on August 24, 2007, directed by Christopher Cain, is described by a press release as fictionalizing the "point of view held direct descendants ... that the iconic Brigham Young had complicity in the massacre, a view denied by the Mormon Church." Reportedly, the film depicts a love story set at the time of the massacre.

See also

• List of members of the Fancher party
• Illinois Mormon War (1844–1845)
• Mormon Exodus (1846–1857)
• Morrisite War (1862)

Notes

1. ^ (Smith 2001, p. A1) Cite error: The named reference "sl-trib-2001" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
2. Twain 1873, p. 576.
3. ^ Shirts 1994.
4. MacKinnon 2007.
5. (Cradlebaugh 1863).
6. James Lynch, in sworn testimony (1859), stated that there were 140 victims "murdered in cold blood" (Thompson 1860, p. 82). Indian Superintendent Jacob Forney stated about 115 people had been killed (Thompson 1860, p. 8). The monument erected in 1932 stated that the company consisted of about 140 emigrants and that all but 17 small children were killed. Brooks (1991), in the introduction of her paperback version of Mountain Meadows Massacre, concludes, "the number 123 people killed is greatly exaggerated" and cites several sources giving estimates less than 100. The monument erected in 1990 lists the names of 82 victims who have been identified by the research of descendants of the survivors (see , but states that there were also "others who are unknown."
7. ^ Bagley 2002.
8. On February 25 1846, Brigham Young threatened adherents who had stolen wagon cover strings and rail timber with having their throats cut "when they get out of the settlements where his orders could be executed" (Roberts 1932, p. 597) harv error: no target: CITEREFRoberts1932 (help). Later that year, Young gave orders that "when a man is found to be a thief,...cut his throat & thro' him in the River". Diary of Thomas Bullock, 13 December 1846. In Utah, Young swore that "a theif should not live in the Valley, for he would cut off their heads or be the means of haveing it done as the Lord lived." (Diary of Mary Haskin Parker Richards, 16 Apr. 1848). A Mormon listening to one of Young's sermons in 1849 recorded that he said "if any one was catched stealing to shoot them dead on the spot and they should not be hurt for it." (Daniel Davis diary, 8 July 1849, LDS archives, quoted in (Quinn 1997, p. 247)).
9. Gibbs 1910, p. 13.
10. ^ Briggs 2006.
11. Young 1867, p. 30 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFYoung1867 (help).
12. ^ Carleton 1859. Cite error: The named reference "carleton" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
13. It is believed that Hector and Eleanor were not formally divorced, but rather Eleanor claimed to be a single woman once leaving Hector and marrying Parley, see . Either way, Hector was unhappy with the result of the lawsuit and was later convicted of Pratt's murder. See also http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/mtn_meadows/9.html and http://www.prattconference.org/area_info.htm.
14. Brooks 1950, p. 36-37.
15. ^ Young 1857.
16. Bagley 2002; Denton 2005, pp. 114–115 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFDenton2005 (help).
17. MacKinnon 2007
18. MacKinnon 2003.
19. Bagley 2002, p. 93
20. MacKinnon 2007
21. See map (posted at a Mountain Meadows Massacre Descendants webpage) .
22. Finck 2005.
23. Bagley 2002; 1850 San Diego County, CA census Roll: M432_35; Page: 280; Image: 544.
24. Fancher family correspondence (Fancher & Wallner 2006).
25. ^ Bancroft 1889.
26. Linn 1902, Chap. XVI, 4th full paragraph.
27. Mitchell 1860. See also: http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com/arkansasemigrants.htm
28. (Fancher & Wallner 2006).
29. (Fancher & Wallner 2006).
30. (Fancher & Wallner 2006).
31. ^ Gibbs 1910.
32. See Salt Lake Cutoff and the California Trail and Spanish Trail Cut a Roundabout Path Through Utah
33. ^ "Malinda (Cameron) Scott Thurston Deposition". Mountain Meadows Association. 1877-10-15. Retrieved 2007-06-15.
34. Brooks 1950, p. xxi.
35. Burns & Ives 1996, Episode 4; http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no88.htm; http://www.youknow.com/chris/essays/misc/mtnmeadows.html
36. Mountain Meadows Massacre in Tietoa Mormonismista Suomeksi.
37. Brooks, pp. 40–42 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrooks (help); Bagley 2002, pp. 113–114; Denton 2003, p. 158.
38. Bigler 1998, pp. 167–68.
39. Crockett 2003.
40. Whitney 2007 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFWhitney2007 (help)
41. Whitney 2007 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFWhitney2007 (help)
42. See this review of Bagley's book by Jeff Needle of the Association of Mormon Letters where this subject is debated.
43. Gibbs 1910, p. 230
44. Brooks 1950, p. 51
45. http://www.xmission.com/~country/reason/lee_mm.htm
46. St. George is about 15 miles from the Mountain Meadows.
47. Denton 2003 ("The Dunlap sisters, aged 14 and 16, were allegedly 'raped, stripped of their clothing, and then brutally murdered by Lee after they promised to love him and obey him for the rest of their lives.'").}}
48. Brooks 1950, p. 105 ("Although there have been cases where man has committed murder after rape, the circumstances surrounding the massacre make such an action highly improbable. In the midst of wholesale murder, surrounded by excited Indians, with more than fifty Mormon men in the immediate vicinity, such an incident seems fantastic."). Brooks later says she regards the version told by Albert Hamblin to Major Carleton, which confirms that the girls fled and pleaded for their lives but does not mention rape, as "perhaps the most reliable story."
49. (Whitney & Barnes 2007).
50. (Brooks 1950, p. chapt.8)
51. Multiple sources claim that Lee protested and prohibited the death of all children that were assumed to be under the age of eight, and directed that they be placed in the care of one who was not involved in the massacre. See for example, http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com/jdlconfession.htm. Not all of the young children were spared, however; at least one infant was killed in his father's arms by the same bullet that killed the adult man.
52. John D. Lee's Confessions state that he directed Knight and McMurdy to take charge of the children as well.
53. Klingensmith 1875; Carleton 1859 ("... when told of the 17 orphan children who were brought by such a crowd to her house of one small room there in the darkness of night, two of the children cruelly mangled and the most of them with their parents' blood still wet upon their clothes, and all of them shrieking with terror and grief and anguish, her own mother heart was touched.").
54. Nancy Saphrona Huff picture archived at buryingthepast.com
55. Brooks (1950), Appendix X.
56. Weekly Stockton Democrat; 5 June 1859. As quoted at this website http://1857massacre.com/MMM/WeeklyStocktonDemocrat.htm. "Both and a boy named Miram recognized dresses and a part of the jewelry belonging to their mothers, worn by the wives of John D. Lee, the Mormon Bishop of Harmony. The boy, Miram, identified his father's oxen, which are now owned by Lee."
57. (Brooks 1950, p. appxVIII)
58. Hurt 1857
59. Fisher 2003.
60. After the massacre, the decision was made to take the children to the nearby Hamblin home; however, Hamblin was gone at the time of the killings. Hamblin's testimony in this regard is as following (Q=attorney in Lee's trial; A=Hamblin):
    "Q: What became of the children of those emigrants? How many children were brought there?
    A: Two to my house, and several in Cedar City. I was acting subagent for Forney. I gathered the children up for him; seventeen in number, all I could learn of.
    Q: Whom did you deliver them to?
    A: Forney, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah."
61. Brooks, pp. 78–79 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrooks (help)
62. Carleton, 1859 & p.14 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFCarleton1859p.14 (help)
63. Carleton 1859
64. (MacKinnon 2007, p. endnote 50)
65. (MacKinnon 2007, p. 57)
66. Shirts (1994). See pictures on 1990 Monument
67. See pictures at 1999 Monument.
68. Kirkman, Frank. Photos of 2006 Meeting, page 6. Frank Kirkman's Mountain Meadows Massacre Site. Last accessed 2007-03-25.
69. Brown, Barbara Jones (April 24, 2007). "Mountain Meadows relatives mark 150th anniversary". Deseret Morning News. Retrieved 2007-06-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
70. Holland, Jeffrey R. (March 4, 2006). (Interview) http://www.pbs.org/mormons/interviews/holland.html. Retrieved 2007-06-14. {{cite interview}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |program= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |subjectlink= ignored (|subject-link= suggested) (help)
71. MacDonald, G. Jeffrey (April 28, 2007). "Debating History: Did Brigham Young Order a Massacre?". Washington Post. pp. p. B09. Retrieved 2007-04-28. {{cite news}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
72. Press release (2007-03-26).
73. See Farms review, Variety , or Politico.com.

References

1. Abanes, Richard (2003), One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church, New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, ISBN 1568582838.
2. Bagley, Will (2002), Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, ISBN 0-8061-3426-7.
3. Bancroft, Hubert Howe (1889), The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft: History of Utah, 1540–1886, vol. 26, San Francisco: History Company, LCC F826.B2 1889, LCCN 07018413 (Internet Archive versions).
4. Beadle, John Hanson (1870), "Chapter VI. The Bloody Period.", Life in Utah, Philadelphia: National Publishing, pp. 177–195, LCC BX8645 .B4 1870, LCCN 30005377.
5. Bigler, David (1998), Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847–1896, Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, ISBN 0-87421-245-6.
6. Briggs, Robert H. (2006), "The Mountain Meadows Massacre: An Analytical Narrative Based on Participant Confessions" (PDF), Utah Historical Quarterly, 74 (4): 313–333.
7. Brooks, Juanita (1950), Mountain Meadows Massacre, Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, ISBN 0-8061-2318-4.
8. Burns, Ken; Ives, Stephen (1996), New Perspectives on the West (Documentary), Washington, D.C.: PBS.
9. Carleton, James Henry (1859), Special Report on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Washington: Government Printing Office (published 1902).
10. Carrington, Albert, ed. (1 December 1869), "Mountain Meadows Massacre", Deseret News, 18 (43): 6–7 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link).
11. Christian, J. Ward (October 4 1857), Hamilton, Henry (ed.), "Horrible Massacre of Arkansas and Missouri Emigrants", Los Angeles Star, San Bernardino (published October 10 1857) {{citation}}: |contribution= ignored (help); Check date values in: |date= and |publication-date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link).
12. Cradlebaugh, John (February 7, 1863), Utah and the Mormons: a Speech on the Admission of Utah as a State, 37th United States Congress, 3rd Session {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: location (link).
13. Crockett, Robert D. (2003), "A trial lawyer reviews Will Bagleys' Blood of the Prophets", FARMS Review, 15 (2): 199–254.
14. Denton, Sally (2003), American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 0-375-41208-5. Washington Post review and Letter to the editor in response to the review.
15. Dunn, Jacob Piatt (1886), Massacres of the Mountains: A History of the Indian Wars of the Far West, New York: Harper & Brothers.
16. Fancher, Lynn-Marie; Wallner, Alison C. (2006), 1857: An Arkansas Primer To The Mountain Meadows Massacre.
17. Finck, James (2005), "Mountain Meadows Massacre", in Dillard, Tom W. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, Little Rock, Arkansas: Encyclopedia of Arkansas Project.
18. Fisher, Alyssa (2003-09-16), "A Sight Which Can Never Be Forgotten", Archaeology, Archaeological Institute of America {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link).
19. Gibbs, Josiah F. (1910), The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Salt Lake City: Salt Lake Tribune, LCC F826 .G532 LCCN 37010372.
20. Hurt, Garland (October 24 1857), Letter from Garland Hurt, Utah Territorial Indian Agent, to Col. A.S. Johnston, U.S. Army {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link).
21. Klingensmith, Philip (September 5 1872), written at Lincoln County, Nevada, Toohy, Dennis J. (ed.), "Mountain Meadows Massacre", Corinne Daily Reporter, 5 (252), Corinne, Utah (published September 24 1872): 1 {{citation}}: |contribution= ignored (help); Check date values in: |date= and |publication-date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link).
22. Klingensmith, Philip (July 23–24, 1875), written at Beaver City, Utah, Testimony, First trial of John D. Lee, Braintree, MA: Mountain Meadows Association{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).
23. Linn, William Alexander (1902), The Story of the Mormons: From the Date of their Origin to the Year 1901, New York: McMillan (scanned versions).
24. Lynch, James (July 22 1859), Affidavit of James Lynch Regarding the Mountain Meadows Massacre September 1857 Sworn Testimony {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link); also included in Brooks (1991) Appendix XII.
25. MacKinnon, William P. (2003), "'Like Splitting a Man Up His Backbone': The Territorial Dismemberment of Utah" (PDF), Utah Historical Quarterly, 71 (2): 1850–96.
26. MacKinnon, William P. (2007), "Loose in the stacks, a half-century with the Utah War and its legacy" (PDF), Dialogue, a journal of Mormon thought, 40 (1): 43–81.
27. McMurtry, Larry (2005), Oh what a slaughter : massacres in the American West, 1846-1890, New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN ISBN 074325077X {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help). BookReporter.com review.
28. Mitchell, William C. (April 26 1860), List of the Mountain Meadows Massacre Victims, Letter to A. B. Greenwood, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C. {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link).
29. Quinn, D. Michael (1997), The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, Salt Lake City: Signature Books, ISBN 1-56085-060-4.
30. Rogers, Wm. H. (February 29 1860), "The Mountain Meadows Massacre", Valley Tan, vol. 2, no. 16, pp. 2–3 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link); also included in Brooks (1991) Appendix XI.
31. Sessions, Gene (2003), "Shining New Light on the Mountain Meadows Massacre", FAIR Conference 2003, FAIR.
32. Shirts, Morris (1994), "Mountain Meadows Massacre", in Powell, Allen Kent (ed.), Utah History Encyclopedia, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
33. Smart, Donna T. (1994), "Parley Parker Pratt", in Powell, Allen Kent (ed.), Utah History Encyclopedia, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
34. Smith, Christopher (January 21, 2001), "Forensic Study Aids Tribe's View Of Mountain Meadows Massacre", Salt Lake Tribune, pp. A1, ISSN 0746-3502 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link).
35. Smith, George A. (September 13 1857), "Remarks, Bowery", Deseret News, vol. 7, no. 29 (published September 23 1857), pp. 2–3 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= and |publication-date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link).
36. Stenhouse, T.B.H. (1873), The Rocky Mountain Saints: a Full and Complete History of the Mormons, from the First Vision of Joseph Smith to the Last Courtship of Brigham Young, New York: D. Appleton, ID=LCC BX8611 .S8 1873, LCCN 16024014, ASIN: B00085RMQM {{citation}}: Missing pipe in: |id= (help).
37. Thompson, Jacob (1860), Message of the President of the United States: communicating, in compliance with a resolution of the Senate, information in relation to the massacre at Mountain Meadows, and other massacres in Utah Territory, Washington, D.C. {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).
38. Twain, Mark (1873), Roughing It, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing.
39. Waite, C.V. (Catherine Van Valkenburg) (1868), The Mormon Prophet and His Harem: Or, an Authentic History of Brigham Young, His Numerous Wives and Children, Chicago: J.S. Goodman & Co..
40. Walker, Ronald W. (2003), ""Save the emigrants," Joseph Clewes on the Mountain Meadows massacre" (PDF), BYU studies, 42 (1): 139–152.
41. Whitney, Helen; Barnes, Jane (2007), The Mormons (Documentary), Washington, D.C.: PBS.
42. Young, Brigham (August 5, 1857), Proclamation by the Governor, Salt Lake City: Utah Territory {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link).

External links

• Mountain Meadows Association – "An unusual mix of historians and descendants of massacre victims and perpetrators" (The Salt Lake Tribune).
• An account of the Mountain Meadows Massacre from the Court TV Crime Library
• The Mountain Meadows Massacre -Ensign article by Richard E. Turley Jr., Managing Director, Family and Church History Department (LDS Church)
• Background articles from Comprehensive History of the Church, Messages of the First Presidency - President Wilford Woodruff, and The Restored Church
• Images of the current Mountain Meadows monument and surrounding area
• Resources and Links from the Mountain Meadows Association
• Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Search the site for many references to Mountain Meadows massacre; research, articles, and personal interview with Juanita Brooks by Mormon scholars and noted historians.
• Mark Twains Accounts of the Goshutes, a Uto-Aztecan Tribe (Ute/Paiute) in Utah.
• Paiute Indians on Utah.gov

• 1857 in the United States
• History of Arkansas
• History of the American West
• History of the Latter Day Saint movement
• History of Utah
• Massacres by Native Americans
• Massacres in the United States
• Religiously motivated violence in the United States
• Religious scandals
• Mormonism-related controversies
• Archaeological sites in Utah