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Utah's First People |
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| The Shoshonean Paiutes encompassed extensive parts of southern Utah, northern Arizona, southern Nevada and southeastern California. Throughout it, the Paiutes hunted, gathered and farmed small plots. The Shoshonean Paiutes were slow to acquire and effectively use horses. As a result they became victims of the Utes who raided them on horseback and captured their women and children as slaves, either for themselves or to be sold to the New Mexican Spanish settlements. | |
| Shoshonean Paiutes who lived southeast of the Colorado River visited the Spanish settlements before 1776, but the central body of Paiutes living on the tributaries of the Virgin River, first encountered white men when the Dominguez-Escalante expedition crossed their lands on their return to Santa Fe. | |
| In the interim between the Escalante expedition and the beginning of commercial traffic on the Spanish Trail, the Spanish began to take a more active role in the slave trade, penetrating deep into Ute country to buy Paiute slaves. The successful establishment of the Spanish Trail that ran directly through the heart of Paiute country made the slave trade an important part of Spanish-Indian relations. The Paiute are captured in the spring of the year, while they are weak and hungry and when they have been fattened, they are sold as slaves in Santa Fe | |
| To elude capture the Paiute Indians carried water with them and avoided springs. One of the first outer settlements established by the Mormons was located at Parowan, well within Shoshonean Paiute territory. The slave trade and white man's diseases, decimated the Paiute population. By the 1890s it was difficult to find any survivors at all of the original Paiute bands. | |
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http://historytogo.utah.gov/utahsfirstpeople |
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