Erastus Snow

“ There is no part of the American continent that has been peopled and redeemed from its desolated condition with so little bloodshed as Utah. There is no other State or Territory where the general government has expended so little money or so little force, or where so few lives have been lost in settling a country and maintaining peace with the Indians as Utah. ”

“ And when they have been almost on the point of joining distant war-like bands engaged in hostilities against the Government, and have come to us to know our views and to seek our counsel, our advice has always been in the interest of peace, in the spirit of kindness ”

“ We know there are to-day, as there always have been, men who are suspicious and full of green-eyed jealousy, ever ready to misrepresent the purest motives of the best people on the earth; and acts of loyalty and honesty and commendation are construed to be those of conspiracy and wickedness. ”

“ And the wisdom of the Lord, through His servant Brigham Young, in sending colonies into Arizona, and on the several branches of the Colorado, also into the San Juan country, as well as on our eastward borders, may be witnessed to-day in the influence that is exerted by our people to check the spirit of war and bloodshed among the Navajoes and the Utes and the Apaches. ”

“ If the Spirit gives me liberty I will pursue the train of thought that has passed through my mind while Brother Richards has been speaking upon the spirit that has gone abroad upon the remnants of the house of Israel who occupy this land, the American Indians whom we understand to be the descendants of the Nephites, the Lamanites, the Lemuelites and the Ishmaelites who formerly possessed this land, whose fathers we have an account of in the Book of Mormon. ”

“ And many newspaper scribblers, who are ever ready to pander to popular sentiment, whether it be right or wrong, who know not the facts in the case, take up and republish to the world those truths and misrepresentations of the wicked men who are seeking notoriety at the expense of truth and justice. ”

“ And I have had the testimony, during the last two years, of many of our presiding Elders and Indian missionaries—and they are men, I know, whose word may be relied upon, and who are themselves, I know, the true friends of the Indians, and are laboring for their welfare—they assured me that had it not been for this influence, the young men of the Navajoes would have been fighting with the Utes in Colorado during the last war, and that many more of the Apaches would have been on the war-path with the late Victorio in New Mexico. ”