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Mayors Message

May, 2023

THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT FORGETTING

In 1857, a company of Mormon pioneers was stranded in Missouri. They were desperate and without the provisions necessary to complete the long journey to Great Salt Lake City (as it was called then).

John Rees, one of the first settlers in Brigham City and that City’s second mayor was asked by the Prophet Brigham Young to put together a group of sturdy young men who could take wagons full of provisions and supplies from Utah back to Missouri, a 2,600-mile round trip so the emigrants could complete their trek to Utah.

John’s young son, David, and five other men volunteered for the trip.  A trip that was fraught with hardship and danger. Because the wagons were full of supplies, David and the others walked most of the way.

They eventually completed their journey to Missouri. And upon returning, passed a group of Indians standing alongside the road. Many were sternly watching the small company pass by, but one finely dressed Native American in the group noticed David’s worn-out shoes.

Pointing to David’s shoes and then pointing to his own heart, he took his moccasins off and gave them to David. This caring gesture so impressed David that he spent much of the rest of his life serving the Indians. He learned their language, fed them, and when negotiations with the government were necessary, he was their interpreter. He was their friend.

David’s bond with the Shoshone people and Chief Sagwitch resulted in large part because of that Indian who offered his moccasins to David many years earlier.

With the influx of emigrants into the Cache Valley and broad struggles between the indigenous people and European-American settlers, the Shoshone experienced many hardships and skirmishes with the settlers and soldiers over land, game, and other resources resulting in deprivation and near starvation.   In January 1863, they were camped along the Bear River near present-day Preston when they were unsuspectingly and mercilessly attacked by U.S. soldiers.

The attack lasted less than a day but resulted in the near annihilation of the Northern Band of the Shoshone Nation.  By 8:00 a.m., the Indian men were out of ammunition, and the last two hours of the battle became a massacre as the soldiers used their revolvers to shoot down all the Indians they could find.

Of the six major Indian massacres in the West, from Bear River in 1863 to Wounded Knee in 1890, the Bear River massacre resulted in the most victims, from 250 to some accounts as high as 400 Shoshone including women, children, and older men were killed.

Chief Sagwitch was wounded but survived the massacre and worked to gather the survivors and keep the community together. He recognized that he and those who survived would need to change the way of life they had known for generations and learn to live alongside the settlers.

He said, “The white man is roaming all over my country and killing my game. Still, I make no objection to his doing so, all I want is to be let alone, with the privilege of making a small farm for the benefit of my people, and to be allowed to live on it in peace.”

Both David Rees and Chief Sagwitch were incredible men who learned about compassion, understanding, and forgiveness in very different ways.  David Rees from the compassionate gesture from a benevolent Indian at a time of much need; and Chief Sagwitch whose experiences from much hardship and the near annihilation of his people didn’t result in bitterness but in the importance of remembrance and forgiveness.

Moroni Timbimboo, Chief Sagwitch’s grandson, tells the story of David and Chief Sagwitch in his own words. He told the story at David’s funeral.

“I would like to tell a true story, but not like a fairy tale, but a true story.”  He went on, “My grandfather got shot here in Mantua, year along about 1863, the soldiers had made a treaty with the Indians, when they hear a shot in Mantua.   So, this Good Samaritan, Dave Rees, they call on him. Everybody know that he could speak Indian language. So, he went up there.”

“They know a soldier shot my grandfather and the Indians thought they could shoot anybody that came to their camp, and so Dave Rees came there and told them from a distance who he was.  So, he told them that he came to see the man who was shot. He was wounded and not expected to live. So, [Dave Rees] took him down here to Brigham City and told the Indians, my grandfather, that he would take care of him and try to make him get well.”

Chief Sagwitch did survive the attack and lived a long and exemplary life.

David’s friendship with Chief Sagwitch and the Shoshones came at a cost though. Some did not share his friendship with the Indians –– there was misunderstanding and bigotry and narrow-mindedness and fighting. There was also cooperation and understanding.

Last year was Chief Sagwitch’s 200th birthday.  To recognize and remember Chief Sagwitch and the Shoshone people, the Tremonton Arts Council has commissioned another mural in town.

This time to commemorate Chief Sagwitch, his family, and the Northern Band of the Shoshone Nation.  Not only because of the hardship they knew but because of the forgiveness and reconciliation they offer.   It will bring home the importance of not forgetting.

This year’s mural will be painted by Derek No-sun Brown, an artist from the Shoshone-Bannock tribe.  This painting (or one very similar) will be painted on the south wall of John Krey’s building near Ridley’s.