Washblog

This due to the historic American federal policy that included specific but unspoken erasure of separation of church and state in the name of a formal or informal genocide (depending on your point of view).

Furthermore, any serious consideration of government actions in response to White Christian America's complaints reveals a foundation of behavior based on two things:

a selfish interpretation of the evolving American dream

self-interest interpretation of biblical literalism that attempted to justify stealing another human being's home.

For all the good that folks like the Whitman's accomplished, it was done in the name of Christian superiority and a condescending view of native tribes as humans who were "less-than" Amerca's historical evangelizing and dominionizing Christians.

From Kristen Moulton, Salt Lake Tribune 01/11/2008

Excerpt

Sagwitch and two sons survived the Bear River Massacre on Jan. 29, 1863, when the U.S. Cavalry - it was responding to friction between the Shoshones, and Mormon settlers and Oregon Trail pioneers - attacked the Shoshone camp west of Preston, Idaho.

More than 300 Shoshone, many of them women and children, died that day.

In the years after the slaughter, Sagwitch and his band refused to join other Shoshone and Bannock Indians on the Fort Hall reservation in southern Idaho.     Instead, they joined the LDS Church and, under the its protective wing, learned to farm near Corinne in Box Elder County.

The hostility of non-Mormons there, however, pushed them farther north to Washakie, where the church bought thousands of acres for a settlement.

And from Koffordbooks.com:

Following the arrival of the pioneer settlers, the Shoshone found it more difficult to support themselves from traditional resources and tried to replace them from what the newcomers brought.

Resulting conflict led to the slaughter of hundreds of Northwestern Shoshone - Sagwitch's relatives - at the Bear River Massacre. Though wounded, Sagwitch lived to lead the desperate survivors.

As a result of some striking spiritual experiences, Sagwitch and his band were baptized Mormons. Sagwitch was ordained to the Melchisadek Priesthood and became the first Native American to be sealed to his wife in the Endowment House.

His son became the first Native American ordained as a Bishop. Sagwitch's enduring relationship with the LDS Church led to the founding of the Washakie Indian colony in northern Utah and to a legacy among his descendants of community and religious activism.