Black Hawk, Timpanogos leader, died on this day, September 26, 1870

Painting of Black Hawk

Mary Murdock Meyer Chief Executive of the Timpanogos Nation, Descendent of Timpanogos Chief Arapeen standing by the Black Hawk Memorial at Spring Lake, Utah.

On this day, 152-years-ago, Timpanogos leader Black Hawk died. 

When Black Hawk was 11-years-old Mormons began to flood into his home/land. They took over the fertile valleys, rivers, and lakes and replaced the Indigenous plants and animals with European ones. 

At 13 he witnessed the Battle Creek massacre in which Mormons surrounded his People while they slept in their beds and attacked them. Two of his kin were murdered, and 14 were taken captive. 

At 14 he witnessed the Mormon’s Nauvoo Legion decapitate 70 of his People at the Fort Utah massacre (Euro-settler historians call this massacre a "battle"). He was then taken as a prisoner of war.

His father Sanpitch (namesake of the Sanpete valley) and his uncle Wakara were also killed while he was still a young man. Seeing all this as a child “he could never understand why the white men had shot down his people. It put bitterness in his heart."

Black Hawk assembled about 1000 warriors from Timpanogos, Colorado Utes, Lakota, Diné, and Apache Peoples. Together they managed to hold back Mormon expansion in their lands. They undermined Mormon economy by flooding the market with stolen Mormon beef and horses, causing "cattle markets to collapse and Mormons abandoned some 70 villages.”

Black Hawk was shot in battle with Mormons while attempting to rescue a fallen warrior. Four-years later he died. “Complications from the wound to his stomach didn't heal properly and caused him much suffering. Black Hawk passed over Sept. 26, 1870 and was buried at Spring Lake, the place of his birth.”

Forty-nine years later, in 1919 Black Hawk's grave was robbed by Mormons. His bones were displayed in the window of a hardware store for public amusement. Then his remains were taken to Temple Square and put on public display for some 60 years. “Seventy-seven years after Black Hawk's grave was robbed, Black Hawk was again reburied in the year 1996. It took an act of Congress, the help of National Forest Service archeologist Charmain Thompson, and the humanitarian efforts of a boy scout Shane Armstrong to find and rebury the remains of Black Hawk at Spring Lake.”

Deseret News, Sept. 1919. Headline reads: "Bones of Black Hawk Indian Warrior Now on Exhibition L.D.S. Museum."

Photo of "William E. Croff standing in the open grave, grinning ear to ear, while holding in his hands the skull of Black Hawk" which accompanied the Deseret News article.

"Every day we are reminded of what our ancestors went through. Our families were torn apart. Children murdered, the old, the women, all those who were brutally murdered and made to suffer and die from violence, then disease, then starvation, our ancestors' graves torn up, the land destroyed, it was genocide plain and simple. Why? What did we do? We didn't do anything. We were living in peace. We were happy. Our children were happy. We loved each other. We cared for each other. And when the Mormons came, we tried to help them. Then they tried to take everything away from us. They wanted it all. They wanted to exterminate us, wipe us off the face of the earth. Why? For our land? For our oil? Now we have nothing."
- Perry Murdock, Timpanogos Council Member

"As Chief Executive of the Timpanogos Nation, I speak for the people when I ask why? We fed you when you were hungry. We helped you when you did not understand our lands. Why then were we forgotten? Historians have never asked us about our history or our ancestors."
- Mary Murdock Meyer, Chief Executive of the Timpanogos Nation

​Learn more from Timpanogos Nation's website
- Phillip Gottfredson’s book: My Journey to Understand - Black Hawk's Mission of Peace
- & Website: BlackHawkProductions.com

Utah state erected Black Hawk memorial showing Euro-Mormon-settler choose to remember their crimes, by rendering them innocent.