Nephi massacre

{{Short description|1853 lynching of Native Americans by Mormons}}

{{Infobox civilian attack

| title = Nephi Massacre{{Cite news |last=Stettler |first=Jeremiah |date=15 Sep 2006 |title=Skeletons found in Nephi may reveal details of 1853 massacre |language=en-US |work=Salt Lake Tribune |url=https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=4341777&itype=NGPSID |access-date=2023-05-07 |quote=[The archaeologist] has found nothing to change the history of the Nephi massacre. Rather, he has evidence to suggest that seven men, ages 16 to 25, were killed that day and thrown in a mass grave.}}

| partof = Wakara's War

| image = NephiMassacreSite.jpg|

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| caption = Cabin near the site of the Salt Creek Fort, where the massacre took place.

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| location = Nephi, Utah

| target = Group of Goshute Western Shoshone people

| coordinates = {{Coord|39.7085|-111.8361|format=dms|type:event_region:US-UT|display=title,inline}}

| date = 2 Oct 1853

| type = Mass execution

| fatalities = 7 males, ages 10–35{{Cite web |last=Rood |first=Ronald |year=2012 |title=Massacre in Nephi: Archaeology of a Mass Grave |url=https://www.utahhumanities.org/stories/items/show/247 |access-date=2023-05-07 |website=The Beehive Archive |publisher=Utah Humanities |publication-place=Salt Lake City}}{{Cite news |date=2007-06-08 |title=Nephi Indian grave yields details of 1853 killings |work=Deseret News |publisher=LDS Church |agency=Associated Press |url=https://www.deseret.com/2007/6/8/20023478/nephi-indian-grave-yields-details-of-1853-killings |access-date=2023-05-07}}

| perpetrators = Members of the LDS Church

| weapons = Guns, blunt weapons

| motive = Paranoia towards Native American people during Wakara's War

}}

The Nephi massacre was an 1853 incident when a group of Mormons invited a group of peace-seeking Goshute Native American men, woman (singular), and children into their fort in Nephi, Utah and executed the seven men and took the remaining three as prisoners.{{rp|p=138—139}} The settlers were acting in retaliation for the recent deaths of four Mormons in the Fountain Green massacre done by a different nation of Native American called Ute. The settlers were from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) commonly called Mormons.{{rp|p=138—139}}

The murder of the Goshute men occurred in the midst of a series of skirmishes dubbed Wakara's War between Native Americans and Mormons in the present-day Utah region. LDS settlers at Salt Creek Fort in present-day Nephi, Utah invited the group of people inside the fort, took them prisoner, shot them in the back of the head,{{rp|p=158}} and buried them in a mass grave.{{refn|{{Cite book |last=Rood |first=Ronald J. |url=https://www.academia.edu/34849440 |title=Materiality of Troubled Pasts: Archaeologies of Conflicts and Wars |publisher=University of Szczecin |year=2017 |editor-last=Kiarszys |editor-first=Grzegorz |location=Szczecin, Poland |chapter-url= https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323150786 |editor-last2=Zalewska |editor-first2=Anna Izabella|chapter=The Archaeology of a Mass Grave from Nephi, Utah and One Event of the Walker War, Utah Territory. Excavations at 42JB1470, Nephi, Utah|isbn=978-83-943365-3-0|via=ResearchGate}}{{rp|pp=137—138}}{{Cite thesis |last=Wimmer |first=Ryan |title=The Walker War Reconsidered |date=2010-12-13 |degree=Master of History |publisher=Brigham Young University |url=https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/2461}}{{rp|145}}{{cite news|work=Daily Herald|date=18 Feb 2006 |last=Carter|first=D. Robert |url=https://www.heraldextra.com/news/2006/feb/18/frontier-violence-traumatized-both-colonists-and-indians/ |title= Frontier violence traumatized both colonists and Indians|access-date=2 May 2023}}}} One woman and two children from the group were taken prisoner.

Accounts from local personal journals

Adelia Almira Wilcox, whose husband had been killed by Native Americans two weeks before, wrote in her memoir that those killed in the Nephi massacre were, "shot down without even considering whether they were the guilty ones or not .... They were shot down like so many dogs, picked up with pitchforks [put] on a sleigh and hauled away."{{Cite journal |last=Christy |first=Howard A. |date=1979-01-01 |title=The Walker War: Defense and Conciliation as Strategy |url=https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume47_1979_number4/s/130332 |journal=Utah Historical Quarterly |language=en |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=395–420 |doi=10.2307/45060728 |jstor=45060728 |s2cid=254442937 |issn=0042-143X|url-access=subscription }}

According to another local woman:

{{blockquote|This barbarous circumstance [of the Fountain Green massacre] actuated our brethren, counseled by ... President Call of Filmore [sic], to do quite as barbarous an act the following morning, being the Sabbath. Nine Indians coming into our Camp looking for protection and bread with us, because we promised it to them and without knowing [whether] they did the first evil act in that affair or any other, were shot down without one minute's notice. I felt satisfied in my own mind that if Mr. Heywood had been here they would not have been dealt with so unhumanly [sic]. It cast considerable gloom over my mind.{{cite book|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Whites_Want_Every_Thing/i36mDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA137|title=The Whites Want Every Thing: Indian-Mormon Relations, 1847–1877|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=9780806165813|date=17 Oct 2019|last=Bagley|first=Will}}{{rp|270–271}}|Martha Spence Heywood|Journal}}

Background

During the summer of 1853 violence erupted between Native Americans in what is now Utah Valley in Mormonism's largest denomination, the LDS Church. The series of killings were initiated over land and resource disputes. These conflicts are referred to as Wakara's War (also called Walker's War).

Mass grave discovery

In 2006 the remains of the slain Utes were discovered in an area of Nephi called Old Hallow during a construction excavation.{{cite web|last1=Trauntvein|first1=Myrna|title=Native American remains reveal evidence of being executed|url=http://www.nephitimesnews.com/0607/062707/4.htm|newspaper=Nephi Times-News|location=Nephi, Utah|access-date=August 17, 2016|date=June 27, 2007}}{{cite news|work=Nephi Times-News|url=http://www.nephitimesnews.com/0806/080906/3.htm |title= Skeletal remains found at construction site in Nephi|author=Trauntvein, Myrna|location=Nephi, Utah|date=August 9, 2006|access-date=August 17, 2016}}