The Walker War

In 1853, after Ute Chief Walkara engaged Utah settlers in their first major Indian war, Brigham Young wrote to him that fighting the settlers meant fighting the best and only friends the Utes had in the world. Anger over the end of the Indian slave trade in the territory and white encroachment on their lands led to hostilities at Springville on July 17, 1853, when an Indian was killed by a white man while beating his squaw. The next day, Alexander Keele, a guard at Payson, was shot by Indians, and the war began. White defenders followed a policy of vigilant watch and limited offensive warfare. Before Governor Brigham Young led a peace mission into Walkara's camp in May 1854 and ended the conflict, 20 whites had been killed, including U.S. Government surveyor Captain John W. Gunnison, who was massacred with 7 of his men near the present site of Hinckley, Utah.

Payson, Utah · United States