Utah - Salt Lake City, Mormons & Sundance Film Festival (original) (raw)

The First Native Americans in Utah

Humans have been living in the area now known as Utah for at least 12,000 years. Among the first arrivals were the Apache, who descended from Canada to settle in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. The Apache eventually evolved into several groups, including the Navajo Nation, or Diné.

At around A.D. 400, ancestral Puebloans—referred to as the Anasazi, or “enemy,” by the Navajo—arrived from south of the Colorado River. They relied, in large part, on farming and settled in communities with large apartment-like dwellings built into the cliffs or valley floors. Between 1200 to 1400, climate changes and crop failures combined with the invasion of Numic- speaking (Shoshonean) people to drive the Puebloans out of Utah and into Arizona and Nevada.

Numic people began populating Utah around A.D. 800 and evolved into four groups based on their location: Goshute (Western) Shoshone, Northern Shoshone, Southern Paiute and Ute. The first three groups were relatively peaceful hunter-gatherers. The Ute adopted the horse and buffalo culture of the Indigenous Plains peoples. Notorious for raiding, they partnered with the Spanish to campaign against the Navajo and Apache and traded captured Southern Paiute and Navajo people as slaves. After the Navajo arrived in Utah around 1400, Ute raiders drove them out by the mid-1700s.

Native American Reservations and Land Cessions

In 1776, European explorers and trappers passed through Utah and established a trading relationship with Indigenous people. When the first Mormon settlers arrived in 1847, they believed that Indigenous people were “Lamanites,” a group that they say left Israel in 600 B.C. and settled in America. According to Mormon teachings, Lamanites were punished with dark skin for disobeying God and needed to be rehabilitated by the Mormon church.

As Mormon settlements began to expand, they displaced Indigenous people. Many Native Americans died of disease and hunger, leading to battles between settlers and Indigenous people in the 1850s and 1860s. The conflict was resolved when the United States government established treaties with Indigenous people that terminated their land claims and attempted to move them to reservations between the 1860s and the 1880s.

The 1887 Dawes Severalty Act established private farms for Indigenous people on their territory across the United States and sold whatever land was remaining land to white settlers. Native Americans in Utah rejected the plan, which served to break up reservations. Eventually, 80 percent of reservation land was sold to individuals by the 1930s.

In the 1950s, the government terminated Native American groups in Utah, and the groups lost control of their small slice of the remaining land. Beginning in the 1960s, the United States government paid out settlements to Native American tribes in Utah for violations of treaty agreements, and the Indigenous population began to grow.

As of 2022, approximately 60,000 Native Americans live in Utah, belonging to more than 50 tribal nations. Eight nations are federally-recognized, including the Navajo Nation, Northwestern Band of Shoshone Nation, Confederated Tribes of Goshute, Skull Valley Band of Goshute, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe and Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah.

Utah Exploration

Among the first Europeans to visit Utah were Spanish explorers seeking treasure in the mid-1700s. Guided by members of the Ute tribe, Spanish Franciscan friars Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante traveled from Colorado to Utah Valley in 1776, intending to return to settle the area and convert Indigenous peoples to Christianity. Their group mapped large parts of the American southwest, opening it up to future settlement.

French-Canadian, American, British and Canadian trappers and traders, such as Jim Bridger, Francois Leclerc, Etienne Provost, Antoine Robidoux and Miles Goodyear, ventured into Utah’s Great Basin in the 1820s and 1830s. In the 1840s and 1850s, surveyors working for the United States government—such as Kit Carson, John Charles Fremont, Howard Stansbury and John Gunnison—mapped Utah for future settlement.

Mormon Settlement of Utah

A group of Mormons led by Brigham Young, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), founded Salt Lake City in 1847. Before arriving in Utah, the Mormons had migrated from New York through Ohio, Missouri and Illinois to escape persecution. Between 1847 and 1857, 90 Mormon settlements arose in valleys throughout the state.

Before the Mormons arrived, Mexico owned all of the lands from Colorado to California, although few Mexicans lived in the area. In 1848, Utah officially became part of the United States after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo settled the Mexican-American War. After this, Mexico sold the United States hundreds of thousands of square miles of territory.

Deseret and the Utah Territory

Almost 5,000 Mormons arrived in 1849 when Young sought official recognition for the territory they called “Deseret.” The name, which comes from the Book of Mormon, means “honeybee.” Representing hard work, the honeybee remains on Utah’s state flag and state seal. The United States government rejected Young’s proposal, which included not only modern-day Utah but most of Nevada and Arizona, as well as parts of southern California, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon and Idaho.

Utah Territory was established through an act of Congress passed as part of the Compromise of 1850. It was smaller than Deseret but larger than modern-day Utah, initially including most of Nevada and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. Young became the Utah Territory’s first governor in 1850.

In 1852, it became publicly known that LDS church leaders promoted polygamy among their followers, shocking many Americans. President James Buchanan decided to replace Young with Alfred Cumming in 1857. Suspecting locals wouldn’t accept a non-Mormon governor, the president suspended the territory’s mail system and sent 2,500 troops. The bloodless conflict between the Mormon militia and the United States government, which became known as the Utah Expedition, ended in 1858 with the installation of Cumming as governor.

Polygamy to Statehood

Another constitutional convention met in 1862 and petitioned for statehood. Congress responded by rejecting the petition and passing the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, which prohibited polygamy in United States territories and disincorporated the LDS church. Throughout the 1860s, the Utah Territory’s borders shrunk as the territories of Colorado. Nevada, Idaho and Wyoming were organized.

On May 10, 1869, the first transcontinental railroad was completed when the Union and Central Pacific Railroads joined rails at Promontory Summit in Utah Territory. New settlers to the Utah Territory, many of whom were not Mormon, and tensions between the groups began to build.

The Supreme Court upheld the anti-polygamy law in 1879, although the practice continued in Utah. A series of acts prohibited practitioners of polygamy from voting or holding public office and allowed the federal government to take LDS lands. The federal government arrested many polygamist men, and some polygamist families went into hiding.

In 1890, the LDS church officially renounced polygamy, opening Utah’s path to statehood. After setting up several requirements for Utah to become a state, including officially banning polygamy in the state constitution, Utah became the 45th state admitted to the Union on January 4, 1896.

Slavery and Black History in Utah

Slave Shackles

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, people were kidnapped from the continent of Africa, forced into slavery in the American colonies and exploited to work as indentured servants and laborers in the production of crops. Shown are iron shackles used on enslaved people prior to 1860.

Slave Ship

Shown is a chart showing the packed positioning of enslaved people on a ship from 1786.READ MORE: The Last Slave Ship Survivor Gave an Interview in the 1930s. It Just Surfaced

Slavery in Jamestown

In late August 1619, the White Lion sailed into Point Comfort and dropped anchor in the James River.Virginia colonist John Rolfe documented the arrival of the ship and “20 and odd” Africans on board. History textbooks immortalized his journal entry, with 1619 often used as a reference point for teaching the origins of slavery in America. READ MORE: America's History of Slavery Began Long Before Jamestown

Shown is an iron mask and collar used by slaveholders to keep field workers from running away and to prevent them from eating crops such as sugarcane, circa 1750. The mask made breathing difficult and, if left on too long, would tear at the person's skin when removed.

The first U.S. president, George Washington, owned enslaved people, along with many of the presidents who followed him.

Isaac Jefferson, enslaved by President Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States, was born on a large Virginia estate run on slave labor. His marriage to the wealthy Martha Wayles Skelton more than doubled his property in land and enslaved people. This is a portrait of Isaac Jefferson, enslaved by Jefferson, circa 1847. READ MORE: Why Thomas Jefferson's Anti-Slavery Passage Was Removed from the Declaration of Independence

Slave Auction

The slave auction was the epitome of slavery's dehumanization. Enslaved people were sold to the person who bid the most money, and family members were often split-up.READ MORE: Married Enslaved People Often Faced Wrenching Separations

Slave Auction

Broadside advertising an auction outside of Brooke and Hubbard Auctioneers office, Richmond, Virginia, July 23, 1823.

An enslaved Black male youth is shown in this photo from the 1850s, holding his white master’s child.

Enslaved women and children, circa 1860s

From left to right: William, Lucinda, Fannie (seated on lap), Mary (in cradle), Frances (standing), Martha, Julia (behind Martha), Harriet, and Charles or Marshall, circa 1861.The women and their children were enslaved at the time this photograph was taken on a plantation just west of Alexandria, Virginia, that belonged to Felix Richards. Frances and her children were enslaved by Felix, while Lucinda and her children were enslaved by his wife, Amelia Macrae Richards.

By the start of the American Civil War, the South was producing 75 percent of the world’s cotton and creating more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River valley than anywhere in the nation. Shown are enslaved people working on sweet potato planting at Hopkinson's Plantation in April 1862.READ MORE: How Slavery Became the Economic Engine of the South

Slavery in America

Enslaved people in the antebellum South constituted about one-third of the southern population. A formerly enslaved man from Louisiana, whose forehead was branded with the initials of his owner, is shown wearing a punishment collar in 1863.

Despite the horrors of slavery, it was no easy decision to flee. Escaping often involved leaving behind family and heading into the complete unknown, where harsh weather and lack of food might await. Shown are two unidentified men who escaped slavery, circa 1861.

The Scourged Back

A man named Peter, who had escaped slavery, reveals his scarred back at a medical examination in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while joining the Union Army in 1863.READ MORE: The Shocking Photo of 'Whipped Peter' That Made Slavery's Brutality Impossible to Deny

Confederate soldiers rounding up Black people in a church during the American Civil War, Nashville, Tennesee, the 1860s.

HISTORY: Slavery in America

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, established that all enslaved people in Confederate states in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” But for many enslaved people, emancipation took longer to take effect. Shown are a group of enslaved people outside their quarters on a plantation on Cockspur Island, Georgia, circa 1863.READ MORE: What Is Juneteenth?

1 / 16: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Fur trappers were the first African Americans in Utah in the 1820s. Several Black slaves were among the first group of Mormon settlers who arrived with Brigham Young in 1847. Several free Black Mormons were among the early Mormon settlers, although they were prohibited from voting, holding office and marrying white people. While Young declared that the Mormon religion permitted slavery, several LDS leaders strongly opposed the practice. Some Mormons even bought enslaved Native American children to save them from slavery and convert them to the LDS church.

The Compromise of 1850 allowed Utah to decide whether it would be a slave state. The Utah legislature sanctioned slavery in 1852, and the legislature decreed that slaves who their slaveholders abused could be freed. But very few were freed before Congress abolished slavery in the territories in 1862. During the Civil War, Utah didn’t send troops to either side.

The Black population increased in the state through the end of the century—and with it, as in many other places throughout the United States, discrimination. Following the civil rights movement, the priesthood in the LDS church opened to people of all races, including African Americans, in 1978.

Immigration

The initial Mormon settlers, who had traveled east to escape religious oppression, were mainly British, Canadian, Danish and Norwegian. Beginning in the 19th century, the LDS church sent missionaries to proselytize in Europe. By the beginning of the 20th century, 50,000 LDS members from the British Isles and 30,000 from Scandinavia had immigrated to Utah, with smaller numbers of people coming from Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Australia and other locations.

Non-Mormons began arriving in Utah with the new transcontinental railroad in the late 1860s through the 1870s, including Chinese construction workers who had helped build the rails along with Irish, Cornish and Welsh miners. Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe arrived in the 1890s and early 20th century to work in the railroad and mining industries. Other waves of immigrants came throughout the 20th century, including Mexicans in the early part of the century and numerous refugees from Southeast Asia in the 1970s and 1980s.

Throughout the years, Mormons have maintained their majority in the state. As of 2021, nearly 69 percent of all people living in Utah were Mormon, according to the LDS church.

A Land of Natural Beauty

Tourism plays an important role in Utah’s economy, with tourist spending before the coronavirus pandemic hovering around $9 billion annually. Many tourists come to see Utah’s many national and state parks.

Hikers, backpackers and climbers are drawn to Zion National Park’s breathtaking canyons, home to archeological treasures over 10,000 years old. Arches National Park in southeastern Utah contains over 2,000 natural rock arches. The widest, Landscape Arch, extends more than 300 feet from one base to the other. Bryce Canyon has the world’s greatest concentration of Hoodoos, or irregular columns of rock. The state’s mountainous terrain also attracts skiers from around the world.

Date of Statehood: January 4, 1896

Capital: Salt Lake City

Population: 2,763,885 (2010)

Size: 84,897 square miles

Nickname(s): Beehive State

Motto: Industry

Tree: Blue Spruce

Flower: Sego Lily

Bird: California Seagull

Interesting Facts

In the summer of 1848, flocks of seagulls came to Mormon pioneers’ rescue by gorging themselves on the crickets that were destroying their newly planted crops. To honor the “miracle,” the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dedicated the Seagull Monument, located on Temple Square, in 1913. In 1955, the California Seagull was designated the state bird.
Although annual precipitation averages less than 5 inches within the Great Salt Lake Desert, the northern Wasatch Mountains receive more than 60. During the drought of 1976-1977, communities were forced to ration water as the state suffered from its driest period on record with only 7.7 inches of precipitation.
As of 2020, Utah had the youngest population in the U.S. with more than 28 percent of residents under the age of 18. However, Utah lost its status of highest birth rate in the country in 2016. As of 2022, Utah’s birth rates hovered below that of South Dakota, Nebraska and North Dakota.