Friday, January 25, 2013

The State of Deseret



The State of Deseret was a provisional state of the United States many years ago, it was proposed in 1849 by Latter-day Saints settlers led by Brigham Young in Salt Lake City. The provisional state existed for a little more than two years but never recognized by the U S government. The name derives from the word for “honeybee” found in the Book of Mormon (see Ester 2:3).  Most of the area had been a large part of the Mexican territory of Alta California until the Mexican Cession of 1848 which is the historical name in the United States for that region of present day southwestern United States that Mexico conceded to the U S in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848; it included the present day states of California, Nevada, Utah, about two thirds of Arizona, half of New Mexico, less than half of Colorado, and a part of southwest Wyoming.

Technically the territory was purchased by the United States just after the war, after months of negotiations with Mexico for 15 million U S Dollars; payment however was made by a fiscal credit against Mexico’s enormous debt to the U S at that time.

The state that would be Utah became the 48th U S addition on January 4, 1896 but it took seven petitions to Congress, and 48 years from the time from its 1848 arrival as a U S Territory; there was also a huge reduction of more than 160,000 square miles from its originally proposed size . . . You see, in 1849, Brigham Young, who would be appointed Territorial Governor of the  region the next year and the sitting President of the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) Church established a provisional state known as “The State of Deseret”. It covered an enormous 265,000 square miles, stretching from Colorado to California and from the US-Mexican Border to the northern edge of modern day Utah.

Following this endeavor, Young petitioned the US Congress to permit Deseret to join the Union as the 31st state. The petition was denied because of the enormous size of the proposed state coupled with the fact that it only had 12,000 eligible voters, a far cry from the required minimum of 60,000.

When Utah was finally added to the Union, it included 84,900 square miles of land and ranked as the11th largest state; a circumstance that changed with the addition of Alaska; it’s currently 12th. 

According to legend, the following is a brief account of the events that would finally lead Utah into the union of U S government: During that winter of 1824 & 25 a dispute arose concerning the Bear River’s course south of Cache Valley, Utah.   James (Jim) Bridger (one of the greatest frontiersmen of Utah and American history) was chosen to explore the river and return with the facts. His excursion would lead him to the Great Salt Lake located in the northern section of the modern day state; he was sure he had stumbled-up-on an inlet to the Pacific Ocean due to its saltiness.

The Great Salt Lake, you may know is about 75 miles long and 35 miles wide; it covers more than a million acres or if you prefer about 2,100 square miles. The average depth is 13 feet and deepest point is 34 feet; so it’s little wonder that this error in judgment was made by Bridger.            


History tells us that in 1844 Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, and his brother was arrested in Nauvoo, Illinois, a community that had been established a few years earlier by the church. While the two men were in jail, a mob broke in and killed them.


The Mormons as a group now felt that they could never be safe within the United States; after all, they’d already been forced out of New York, Ohio and Missouri. They chose Brigham Young as the new leader and in 1846 he led them into Iowa where they spent the winter living in huts and caves. When spring came, Young and a small wagon train started westward in search of their new home. Following a route just north of the Oregon Trail, once they were beyond the Rockies, they turned south, a route that would lead them to the valley of the Great Salt Lake in what is now Utah. Although this was inside Mexican territory, Young and the church leaders were convinced it would be safe there.

During late June of 1847 Jim Bridger had his first encounter with the early Mormon pioneers near the mouth of the Little Sandy River who were in route to their future home.   Among other topics of local interest, it’s thought that Bridger (in 1843 he had established a small trading post in the area) and Young discussed the merits associated with the group settling in the Salt Lake Valley.   It’s said that Bridger tried to discourage the plan and reportedly offered, with a good bit of skepticism, a thousand U S Dollars for the first bushel of corn grown in the Valley.


None the less, during this meeting Bridger was persuaded to draw a map on the sandy banks of the river for Young, depicting the region with great accuracy, all the while conveying to the Mormon leader his doubts regarding the agricultural efficiency of the Salt Lake area. Although this first meeting between the Mormons and Bridger was reportedly pleasant enough, this relationship would deteriorate in the not too distant future, especially for Bridger.


Initially the arrival of the Mormons simply increased the number of immigrants to Bridger’s trading post.  However, conditions soon changed because the Mormon settlements alienated a large portion of Bridger’s trade, including that with the local Indians; this caused economic hardships for his small business.  

In 1850 the territory of Utah was created and to add insult to injury, Brigham Young was appointed Territorial Governor; the newly created territory’s jurisdiction included that of the Fort Bridger area, which further upset the “balance of power”, at least in the view of Jim Bridger.

Naturally, in such a strained environment, hostility between Bridger and the Mormons began to fester; by the summer of 1853 the Mormon’s were convinced that Bridger was engaging in illegal trade with the Indians, particularly with liquor, guns and ammunition and it didn’t help that they were also sure he was charging too much for the supplies he offered for sale. When Bridger was accused of agitating the Native Americans to plot against the Mormons, local leadership who was also Mormon, successfully revoked Bridger’s license to trade and as if that weren’t bad enough, since Brigham Young was in charge of local Indian affairs, it wasn’t very difficult to have a warrant issued for Bridger’s arrest; perhaps it was good for the sake of all parties, that before the posse arrived to arrest Bridger, he had fled.


Most of us know the name “Utah” comes from the Native American “Ute” tribe but few of us realize it means in the language of the Ute “people of the mountains”. 


Especially since the recent (2012) election, when you mention Utah to folks in other states or countries, they automatically think the state is “all Mormons and mountains”. In reality, Utah and Salt Lake City consists of about 50% non-Mormon citizens and has desert-like areas that have an abundance of oil and minerals. In fact, some say the richest hole on earth, filled with copper and gold is located just south of Salt Lake City. One of the largest oil deposits in the country, has also been discovered 3 miles south of tiny Sigurd, Utah (population 430) located very near the center of the state in Sevier County. This huge oil base has placed Utah among the top ten (#8) states in the U S with proven oil reserves.



Sources:                                                     
 http://www.50states.com/facts/utah.htm#.UQHVYlK3unM                               http://voices.yahoo.com/salt-lake-city-utah-little-known-facts-tourist-3422112.html?cat=8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Cession                                                             http://www.helium.com/items/1578235-ten-little-known-fact-of-utah http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2012/04/03/most-oil-rich-states/                                                             http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Deseret                                                          http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/usabysiz.htm                                     http://www.deseretnews.com/article/615152979/Sigurds-wells-prove-Utah-is-oil-country.html?pg=all                                                                                          http://www.mrvanduyne.com/west/earlysettlement.htm                                            http://historytogo.utah.gov/people/jamesbridger.html http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/war/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_%28Book_of_Mormon%29




 

No comments:

Post a Comment