The Mormon and Timpanogos Extermination Orders: An ongoing war for land

The Timpanogos Extermination Order or "Council meeting for January 31 and Sunday public meeting for February 10. Recorded by Thomas Bullock" from the Church History Catalog.

On October 29, 2022, Timpanogos Chairman Perry Murdock shared his People’s histories as passed down to him through his Grandfather Wakara with a group at Pioneer Park, the former site of the first Mormon fort, on Timpanogos land.

Soon after Brigham and co. first arrived in Timpanogos, Goshute, & Eastern Shoshone land now occupied by Salt Lake City he lied to Timpanogos leader Wakara.

As Brigham was telling his followers “This is the Place!” He told Wakara that Mormons were only passing thru to California, but needed to overwinter in Timpanogos land. So the People helped the Mormons. Taught them to survive in these lands. Timpanogos and Goshute taught Mormons how to harvest Sego Lily bulbs among many other plants that never made it onto the Utah flag.

Mormons received these gifts and stayed friendly for a short time. But once Mormon population grew enough, Brigham and the Mormon colonists turned militant.

After only 2 1/2 years in Timpanogos lands Brigham Young the entire @churchofjesuschrist First Presidency and Quorum of 12 Apostles signed the Timpanogos Extermination Order, or Special Order no. 2.
This order, signed on Jan 31st, 1850, has never been recinded.

Print of "The extermination of the Latter-day Saints from the State of Missouri in the fall of 1838" as displayed at the Fort Ephraim Museum in Ephraim, Utah.

I don’t think we went to a Mormon history musuem this week that DIDNT address the Mormon Extermination Order signed by Missouri Governor Boggs.

This order was signed only 12 years before Mormons signed the Timpanogos Extermination Order. The Mormon one was recinded in the 1970s. The Timpanogos one is still in effect.

Today the Salt Lake Tribune consistently refuses to publish articles and histories which Murdock submits to the paper. The Timpanogos Extermination Order is nearly unknown among Mormon practitioners and Utahns. But it has not been forgotten by the Mormon authorities or Timpanogos People. They continue to live under the thumb of the terrorizing genocidal colonists who continue to dominate, desiccate, and destroy Timpanogos lands, waters, and sovereignty.

This is just one clear and direct example of how both Mormon settler colonialism in general and the Mormon war for land specifically, is ongoing.

We have a generational responsibility to reckon with this ongoing history and change it in the present for the sake of our futures.
As Perry says, “It didn’t have to be this way”