Scott: It's Time for Utah to Acknowledge its Treatment of American Indians

In 1847, when the first Mormon pioneers permanently rested their handcarts in what would later become the state of Utah, roughly 20,000 Shoshone, Goshute, Ute, Paiute and Navajo were already living on the land. It wouldn’t be until 1980 that the Native American population in Utah would again be restored to pre-settlement numbers, 133 years after the tribes were first subjected to displacement and violence by the white Mormon settlers.

Unfortunately, most people seem to be fairly unaware of the sheer magnitude of death and destruction that was experienced by the indigenous peoples living in Utah before and after statehood. While I have always held a nagging assumption that there was unconscionable violence perpetrated against them by the pioneers, I had not learned of the actual effects on the tribal population until recently. Though the information is out there in books, perhaps receiving a cursory reference in a junior high history class or as the topic of a seminar, the memory of this violence and the people that it happened to don’t live freshly enough in the minds of Utahns today.

http://dailyutahchronicle.com/2018/12/03/scott-its-time-for-utah-to-acknowledge-its-treatment-of-american-indians/