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Chapter One
Las Vegas Mormon Fort:
Manifest Doomsday
Digital collage map centered on Nuwu territory also showing both Mormon and U.S. Modern Desert Markings
“Thus while in plain sight, they remained invisible.”
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Walter De Maria, Arts Magazine Cover, May 1972
Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Park "Southern Paiute Camp" display
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Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Park “Mormon Fort” display
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The oldest Modern Desert Marking in Nuwu land now occupied by the city of Las Vegas is a Mormon fort founded in 1855. My third Great Uncle was one of the 32 colonists who, with the aid of some among the Nuwu, built this fort. The impact of this Mormon Modern Mark in Nuwu deserts can still be found in colonized place names like Mormon Mountains, Mormon Mesa, and Mormon Well, as well as in colonial politics. Three of the first four Mormons voted into Congress from outside of Utah, were voted in by Nevadans even as Mormons today are a minority demographic in Nevada.
But this land holds much older marks, names, and ways of governance which colonists have appropriated, invisibilized, and attempted to destroy––just as we’ve done to the lands' Indigenous Peoples.
But this land holds much older marks, names, and ways of governance which colonists have appropriated, invisibilized, and attempted to destroy––just as we’ve done to the lands' Indigenous Peoples.
The Land
Nuwu, or Southern Paiute, have been living in this land for millenia. Their Immemorial Desert Marks on this land are as abundant as their land's mark on them is evident.
Nuwu hold millenia deep knowledge of the waters, animals, and plants with whom they share these lands. Nuwu are farmers, hunters, and gatherers. Their ancestors plowed along rivers known by colonists as Virgin, Santa Clara, Ash Creek, Beaver Dam, and Muddy. They marked their lands with irrigation ditches and dams. They used the land’s plants to make baskets used for water jars, winnowing, cradle boards, seed beaters, and cooking.
Their histories and identities are rooted in their lands. Nuwu bury their umbilical cords in their mountains where their origin stories come from. Their petroglyphs tell of millenia deep kinship with the Tuh’ee (Deer) and Nah’gah (Desert Bighorn Sheep) and map the locations of the many desert springs. Nuwu celebrate this deep-time connection to their home/land, which “bestows food, medicine, wildlife, water and the air we breathe,” through song and dance.
When Spanish colonists first wrote of Nuwu they documented thirty-five different bands. Of these thirty-five bands, only fourteen (40%) have survived settler-colonial genocide. These include the contemporary Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, Moapa Band of Paiute Indians, Pahrump Band of Paiutes, San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, and the Paiute Indian Tribes of Utah which include: Cedar, Indian Peaks, Kanosh, Koosharem, and Shivwits Bands.
Beginning with Spanish colonization, the Old Spanish Trail trespassed through Nuwu lands following Nuwu waters. This road, which overlaid existing Indigenous trails, connected the colonial economic centers of Los Angeles and Santa Fe. The Nuwu springs and meadows in Las Vegas were an essential fuel station for the horse, mule, and ox powered traffic and as well as the cattle and sheep cargo along this trail as the oasis lay about 50 miles from the nearest source of water or grasses.
This trail of colonial commerce severely damaged Nuwu economies and ecologies. These European animals, ill-adapted for these deserts, overgrazed grasses and desiccated riparian zones along the trail. Further, colonists, along with Indigenous persons who had assimilated to Spanish economies, began to kidnap Nuwu women and children along the trail and sell them into enslavement at markets in California and Nuevo Mexico. Enslavement became so central to the colonial economy that U.S. Indian Agent Hurt estimated in 1850 that “scarcely one-half” of Nuwu children grew up with their own People.
To avoid predation, many Nuwu abandoned their farms and moved deeper into their lands, away from this Spanish Trail and away from many of their primary water sources. Colonists also imported European diseases and spread them across the Spanish Trail decimating Nuwu populations. In some bands as many as 90% of their People were killed during the Spanish Colonial period alone. Similarly, European sheep brought European diseases which spread among the Indigenous Mountain Sheep further destroying Nuwu life and lifeways.
By the time the Mormon colonists arrived Nuwu were a People struggling to survive colonial genocide. Mormons and other U.S. colonists saw their condition and, ignorant of Nuwu history, assumed they were a pitiable people barely able to survive in their own lands and in need of cultural and religious salvation.
Mormon settler-colonization worsened conditions for Nuwu because, unlike the Spanish, European-settler Mormons came to stay. They occupied the most fertile lands, built permanent settlements along Nuwu rivers over Nuwu farms, built ranches in Nuwu grasslands, and occupied, diverted, and stole water from Nuwu springs––causing starvation, drought, and more mass death among Nuwu and their plant and animal relatives. Mormons perpetuated Indigenous enslavement, calling it adoption, marriage, and a divine destiny to educate and whiten these Peoples who Mormons consider to be "cursed with a skin of blackness."
After surviving near genocide from Spanish colonization, many Nuwu bands buried another 90% of their what remained of their People in only a few decades of Mormon settler-colonial occupation.
Nuwu hold millenia deep knowledge of the waters, animals, and plants with whom they share these lands. Nuwu are farmers, hunters, and gatherers. Their ancestors plowed along rivers known by colonists as Virgin, Santa Clara, Ash Creek, Beaver Dam, and Muddy. They marked their lands with irrigation ditches and dams. They used the land’s plants to make baskets used for water jars, winnowing, cradle boards, seed beaters, and cooking.
Their histories and identities are rooted in their lands. Nuwu bury their umbilical cords in their mountains where their origin stories come from. Their petroglyphs tell of millenia deep kinship with the Tuh’ee (Deer) and Nah’gah (Desert Bighorn Sheep) and map the locations of the many desert springs. Nuwu celebrate this deep-time connection to their home/land, which “bestows food, medicine, wildlife, water and the air we breathe,” through song and dance.
When Spanish colonists first wrote of Nuwu they documented thirty-five different bands. Of these thirty-five bands, only fourteen (40%) have survived settler-colonial genocide. These include the contemporary Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, Moapa Band of Paiute Indians, Pahrump Band of Paiutes, San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, and the Paiute Indian Tribes of Utah which include: Cedar, Indian Peaks, Kanosh, Koosharem, and Shivwits Bands.
Beginning with Spanish colonization, the Old Spanish Trail trespassed through Nuwu lands following Nuwu waters. This road, which overlaid existing Indigenous trails, connected the colonial economic centers of Los Angeles and Santa Fe. The Nuwu springs and meadows in Las Vegas were an essential fuel station for the horse, mule, and ox powered traffic and as well as the cattle and sheep cargo along this trail as the oasis lay about 50 miles from the nearest source of water or grasses.
This trail of colonial commerce severely damaged Nuwu economies and ecologies. These European animals, ill-adapted for these deserts, overgrazed grasses and desiccated riparian zones along the trail. Further, colonists, along with Indigenous persons who had assimilated to Spanish economies, began to kidnap Nuwu women and children along the trail and sell them into enslavement at markets in California and Nuevo Mexico. Enslavement became so central to the colonial economy that U.S. Indian Agent Hurt estimated in 1850 that “scarcely one-half” of Nuwu children grew up with their own People.
To avoid predation, many Nuwu abandoned their farms and moved deeper into their lands, away from this Spanish Trail and away from many of their primary water sources. Colonists also imported European diseases and spread them across the Spanish Trail decimating Nuwu populations. In some bands as many as 90% of their People were killed during the Spanish Colonial period alone. Similarly, European sheep brought European diseases which spread among the Indigenous Mountain Sheep further destroying Nuwu life and lifeways.
By the time the Mormon colonists arrived Nuwu were a People struggling to survive colonial genocide. Mormons and other U.S. colonists saw their condition and, ignorant of Nuwu history, assumed they were a pitiable people barely able to survive in their own lands and in need of cultural and religious salvation.
Mormon settler-colonization worsened conditions for Nuwu because, unlike the Spanish, European-settler Mormons came to stay. They occupied the most fertile lands, built permanent settlements along Nuwu rivers over Nuwu farms, built ranches in Nuwu grasslands, and occupied, diverted, and stole water from Nuwu springs––causing starvation, drought, and more mass death among Nuwu and their plant and animal relatives. Mormons perpetuated Indigenous enslavement, calling it adoption, marriage, and a divine destiny to educate and whiten these Peoples who Mormons consider to be "cursed with a skin of blackness."
After surviving near genocide from Spanish colonization, many Nuwu bands buried another 90% of their what remained of their People in only a few decades of Mormon settler-colonial occupation.
"When (Nuwu are) in mourning (we) cut (our) hair (shoulder length)...
(If) you look at the pictures before the 1800's, we had long hair, that was before death hit us...
everyone of them (in the photo below) had recently lost...an immediate family member."
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Shanandoah Martineau Anderson, See Veets’Eng Nuwu member
It was under these conditions that in April 1855, my 3rd Great Uncle, Aroet Hale, was called by Mormon Prophet Brigham Young to go on a colonizing mission to Las Vegas. He and his 31 companions were called to establish a fort in order to fight and/or assimilate the Nuwu and Diné of and in that region. The Las Vegas Mormon Fort was meant as a midpoint between Mormon settlements of Southern Utah and San Bernardino, “so as to have a continued line of stations and places of refreshment” across the growing Mormon empire. It was meant to militarily defend, and economically benefit from, the flow of capital along this trade route against Indigenous persons who would hunt Euro sheep and cattle in order to survive settler-colonial starvation. (Not only did settler-colonists take the most fertile lands, their cattle also grazed on the grasses Indigenous animals formerly ate, thus also starving Indigenous animals, thus further starving Indigenous Peoples).
By June of 1855 Great Uncle Aroet and his crew of military engineers arrived at the grassy oasis in Nuwu lands for which Las Vegas (Spanish for “the meadows'') was named. Another in his group wrote: “We reached the water at last, also fine meadow grass. This was…the hottest weather I ever saw. A few Moaoats, Muddy Indians, (Moapa Nuwu) came with us but we found no natives at the Las Vegas Springs.”
Just as Mormon Pioneer ignorance (and audacity) led them to believe that Nuwu were a degraded People rather than a People struggling to survive colonial genocide––their ignorance of desert ecologies and Indigenous lifeways led them to believe these springs were unoccupied. These springs, in which they “found no natives” were a seasonal winter camp for Nuwu and it was the middle of the Mojave summer, "the hottest weather (these Mormons) ever saw". Nuwu, like their Mountain Sheep relatives, spent summers mostly in the cooler mountains, and winters mostly in the warmer valleys. The springs weren't unoccupied, just out of season.
So, it was there that Aroet Hale and his companions established the first Modern Desert Mark in Las Vegas lands. But, in true LandArt fashion, I'm going to first focus on the much larger settler-colonial earthwork called Deseret, because as Walter De Maria wrote, "the big things always win."
Deseret was a proposed nation for and by Mormons. It was meant to be their Zion, their "New Jerusalem". But even this much larger Modern Desert Mark and the colonial forts it required are a part of an even larger story.
By June of 1855 Great Uncle Aroet and his crew of military engineers arrived at the grassy oasis in Nuwu lands for which Las Vegas (Spanish for “the meadows'') was named. Another in his group wrote: “We reached the water at last, also fine meadow grass. This was…the hottest weather I ever saw. A few Moaoats, Muddy Indians, (Moapa Nuwu) came with us but we found no natives at the Las Vegas Springs.”
Just as Mormon Pioneer ignorance (and audacity) led them to believe that Nuwu were a degraded People rather than a People struggling to survive colonial genocide––their ignorance of desert ecologies and Indigenous lifeways led them to believe these springs were unoccupied. These springs, in which they “found no natives” were a seasonal winter camp for Nuwu and it was the middle of the Mojave summer, "the hottest weather (these Mormons) ever saw". Nuwu, like their Mountain Sheep relatives, spent summers mostly in the cooler mountains, and winters mostly in the warmer valleys. The springs weren't unoccupied, just out of season.
So, it was there that Aroet Hale and his companions established the first Modern Desert Mark in Las Vegas lands. But, in true LandArt fashion, I'm going to first focus on the much larger settler-colonial earthwork called Deseret, because as Walter De Maria wrote, "the big things always win."
Deseret was a proposed nation for and by Mormons. It was meant to be their Zion, their "New Jerusalem". But even this much larger Modern Desert Mark and the colonial forts it required are a part of an even larger story.
These early Mormons, still living east of the Mississippi, were intent on literally fulfilling the biblically prophesied Gathering of Israel. As self-proclaimed Latter-day Saints, they saw themselves as God's True Chosen House of Israel in His Promised Land. So, everywhere Mormons settled, they settled intent on manifesting this destiny. Because of this and their dedicated missionary program, they were a growing group always gathering and importing new converts. This pattern of settlement made Mormons a major economic and political body which took over the existing economic and political dynamics everywhere they tried to establish their New Jerusalem. So each time Mormons tried to settle in an already colonized area they were forced out whether by the law or by angry militias or a bit of both. (Mormon founder Joseph Smith had a regular pattern of fleeing the prosecution by crossing over state and county lines.)
Because the U.S. never intervened as Mormons were forced from state to state, nor when their founding prophet was assassinated while in jail, Mormon leaders felt their U.S. constitutionally guaranteed religious freedoms were being trampled. So they attempted to flee the U.S. entirely. In 1847, these self-assigned New Israelites were led by their second prophet through the wilderness and out of bondage to manifest their new New Jerusalem. They escaped into the Great Basin, Indigenous lands claimed by Mexico at that time. There they sought to build their own nation in which they could have complete political, economic, and religious control. But by 1848 the U.S. annexed the so-called American west and Mormons were back in the nation which birthed them. The power struggle between these two settler-colonial groups led to the first U.S. Civil War in 1857––the Utah War.
Today, Mormons claim that the Mormon Prophet Brigham Young and his followers came to the Great Basin to manifest their destiny because it was land that “no one else wanted.” Once again invisibilizing Indigenous Peoples and fabricating a terra nullic sense of desert isolation. Indigenous Peoples obviously wanted their home/lands. So much so that by 1849 Mormons were already in open war against Timpanogos as Mormons populations exponentially grew and expanded further and further into Timpanogos lands. (The same reasons they end up at war everywhere else they tried to settle.)
My Great Uncle Hale served in this portion of the Mormon Holy War known as the Black Hawk War, committing massacres against entire Timpanogos families and villages (in their own home/land) in order to establish his New Jerusalem. For his service in this war he received a medal and 160-acres of Goshute land. Aroet Hale built his house, raised his family, and is buried on this land.
After his service in the Walker War, Great Uncle Hale was called to help expand the Holy Mormon Empire in Las Vegas. "Your mission is a little different from the other (proselytizing) missions,” said Territorial Governor, Indian Agent, and Church President Brigham Young. “You are called to the Colorado River Country where the Navajo Indians (Diné) claim the territory. They do not allow white men to cross their path without picking a battle.” Most of Aroet's Mormon mission callings were militaristic rather than proselytizing. He was a true pioneer, as defined as "a member of a military unit usually of construction engineers."
After the U.S. annexed much of the so-called American West, the Spanish Trail became known as the Mormon Road. This rechristened trail connected the settler-colonial economic centers of Salt Lake and San Diego. Mormon forts and colonies dotted this line in the desert. Many of these colonies (with the help of air-conditioning, massive dams, and capitalist extraction) grew into contemporary settler-cities like St. George, Utah; Las Vegas, Nevada; and San Bernardino, California.
This trail and its series of fort-founded towns were a part of Brigham Young’s Modern Desert Mark to found and fortify Deseret––The Mormon "Zion (New Jerusalem) built upon the American continent"––in preparation for the Latter-days and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Because the U.S. never intervened as Mormons were forced from state to state, nor when their founding prophet was assassinated while in jail, Mormon leaders felt their U.S. constitutionally guaranteed religious freedoms were being trampled. So they attempted to flee the U.S. entirely. In 1847, these self-assigned New Israelites were led by their second prophet through the wilderness and out of bondage to manifest their new New Jerusalem. They escaped into the Great Basin, Indigenous lands claimed by Mexico at that time. There they sought to build their own nation in which they could have complete political, economic, and religious control. But by 1848 the U.S. annexed the so-called American west and Mormons were back in the nation which birthed them. The power struggle between these two settler-colonial groups led to the first U.S. Civil War in 1857––the Utah War.
Today, Mormons claim that the Mormon Prophet Brigham Young and his followers came to the Great Basin to manifest their destiny because it was land that “no one else wanted.” Once again invisibilizing Indigenous Peoples and fabricating a terra nullic sense of desert isolation. Indigenous Peoples obviously wanted their home/lands. So much so that by 1849 Mormons were already in open war against Timpanogos as Mormons populations exponentially grew and expanded further and further into Timpanogos lands. (The same reasons they end up at war everywhere else they tried to settle.)
My Great Uncle Hale served in this portion of the Mormon Holy War known as the Black Hawk War, committing massacres against entire Timpanogos families and villages (in their own home/land) in order to establish his New Jerusalem. For his service in this war he received a medal and 160-acres of Goshute land. Aroet Hale built his house, raised his family, and is buried on this land.
After his service in the Walker War, Great Uncle Hale was called to help expand the Holy Mormon Empire in Las Vegas. "Your mission is a little different from the other (proselytizing) missions,” said Territorial Governor, Indian Agent, and Church President Brigham Young. “You are called to the Colorado River Country where the Navajo Indians (Diné) claim the territory. They do not allow white men to cross their path without picking a battle.” Most of Aroet's Mormon mission callings were militaristic rather than proselytizing. He was a true pioneer, as defined as "a member of a military unit usually of construction engineers."
After the U.S. annexed much of the so-called American West, the Spanish Trail became known as the Mormon Road. This rechristened trail connected the settler-colonial economic centers of Salt Lake and San Diego. Mormon forts and colonies dotted this line in the desert. Many of these colonies (with the help of air-conditioning, massive dams, and capitalist extraction) grew into contemporary settler-cities like St. George, Utah; Las Vegas, Nevada; and San Bernardino, California.
This trail and its series of fort-founded towns were a part of Brigham Young’s Modern Desert Mark to found and fortify Deseret––The Mormon "Zion (New Jerusalem) built upon the American continent"––in preparation for the Latter-days and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
“Mormon colonies spread beyond Utah, through fertile valleys and along rivers, eventually reaching into Canada and Mexico. The original purpose of the colonies was to secure the borders of the generously proportioned State of Deseret (never officially recognized), which extended from the crest of the Sierras to the continental divide, and from Mexico to Oregon.”
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Stanley B. Kimball (1980)
The Fort
The Las Vegas Mormon Fort: The sum of the facts does not constitute the work or determine its esthetics
The Las Vegas Mormon Fort measures one hundred and fifty feet by one hundred and fifty feet square.
The walls, made of adobe bricks made from Nuwu clays, sands, and waters, were fourteen feet high, two feet thick at the bottom tapering to one foot thick at the top.
The Las Vegas Mormon Fort site was four miles from the Las Vegas Springs and next to the Las Vegas Creek where the Creek dropped over a bluff about 12 feet high. This drop provided the force to power a mill built by the settlers.
The land is not the setting for the work but a part of the work.
The Meadows of the Las Vegas Springs have been a winter ground for Nuwu since time immemorial.
Mormon colonists estimated that there were 1,000 Indigenous persons within 60 miles of the Las Vegas Springs.
The Las Vegas Springs’ Indigenous name is Wiíya.
The invisible is real.
The Las Vegas Spring was about 25 yards long and about 10 yards wide. Mormon colonists got to a depth of 60 feet without finding a bottom to the Spring as “a person cannot sink to the armpits on account of the strong upward rush of the water.”
John C. Fremont, in 1844, measured the temperature of the Springs at “71 in the one and 73 in the other,” noting that the “taste of the water is good but rather too warm to be agreeable."
The Las Vegas Springs are about 52 miles away from the next nearest water source, the Muddy River.
Near the Las Vegas Mormon Fort, the Las Vegas Creek was “four or five feet deep."
Collectively, the Springs and Creek support a Meadow “about half a mile wide and two or three miles long situated at the foot of a bench 40 or 50 feet high.”
The Meadows lay in a valley about 55 miles long by 30 miles wide.
Mormons built the Las Vegas Mormon Fort near the “center of the valley or basin” “on a rise of ground close by the creek.”
Below the Fort site each of the 32 men were assigned two and a half acres lots and one quarter acre for a garden totaling 88 acres of Nuwu land for personal use.
They built fences of mesquite wood, a dam across the stream, and irrigation ditches into their fields.
Construction was carried out beginning June 1855 and labor was given by 32 Mormon colonists and some local Nuwu.
The Fort and Mission was abandoned by February 1857.
U.S troops occupied the Fort during the Civil War in the 1860s.
From 1881-1902 the Fort was owned by the Stewarts.
Union Pacific Purchased it from Helen Stewart in 1902.
The Fort was used by the Bureau of Reclamation in which they tested concrete for the Hoover Dam.
Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) began a campaign to save what remained of the Fort in 1937. By 1944 they leased the Fort from the Union Pacific.
One hundred years after the Fort was started, the Union Pacific sold the property in parts to the Mormon Church, city of Las Vegas, and the Elks Club
The city of Las Vegas purchased the property that contained what remained of the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort and the historic Stewart Ranch from the Elks club in 1971
In 1972, the Fort was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The State of Nevada rendered the site and the Fort a State Park in 1991.
In 1997 a memorial to the Fort was erected by the Mormon Church through the Daughters of Utah Pioneers.
Isolation is the essence of Land Art.
The walls, made of adobe bricks made from Nuwu clays, sands, and waters, were fourteen feet high, two feet thick at the bottom tapering to one foot thick at the top.
The Las Vegas Mormon Fort site was four miles from the Las Vegas Springs and next to the Las Vegas Creek where the Creek dropped over a bluff about 12 feet high. This drop provided the force to power a mill built by the settlers.
The land is not the setting for the work but a part of the work.
The Meadows of the Las Vegas Springs have been a winter ground for Nuwu since time immemorial.
Mormon colonists estimated that there were 1,000 Indigenous persons within 60 miles of the Las Vegas Springs.
The Las Vegas Springs’ Indigenous name is Wiíya.
The invisible is real.
The Las Vegas Spring was about 25 yards long and about 10 yards wide. Mormon colonists got to a depth of 60 feet without finding a bottom to the Spring as “a person cannot sink to the armpits on account of the strong upward rush of the water.”
John C. Fremont, in 1844, measured the temperature of the Springs at “71 in the one and 73 in the other,” noting that the “taste of the water is good but rather too warm to be agreeable."
The Las Vegas Springs are about 52 miles away from the next nearest water source, the Muddy River.
Near the Las Vegas Mormon Fort, the Las Vegas Creek was “four or five feet deep."
Collectively, the Springs and Creek support a Meadow “about half a mile wide and two or three miles long situated at the foot of a bench 40 or 50 feet high.”
The Meadows lay in a valley about 55 miles long by 30 miles wide.
Mormons built the Las Vegas Mormon Fort near the “center of the valley or basin” “on a rise of ground close by the creek.”
Below the Fort site each of the 32 men were assigned two and a half acres lots and one quarter acre for a garden totaling 88 acres of Nuwu land for personal use.
They built fences of mesquite wood, a dam across the stream, and irrigation ditches into their fields.
Construction was carried out beginning June 1855 and labor was given by 32 Mormon colonists and some local Nuwu.
The Fort and Mission was abandoned by February 1857.
U.S troops occupied the Fort during the Civil War in the 1860s.
From 1881-1902 the Fort was owned by the Stewarts.
Union Pacific Purchased it from Helen Stewart in 1902.
The Fort was used by the Bureau of Reclamation in which they tested concrete for the Hoover Dam.
Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) began a campaign to save what remained of the Fort in 1937. By 1944 they leased the Fort from the Union Pacific.
One hundred years after the Fort was started, the Union Pacific sold the property in parts to the Mormon Church, city of Las Vegas, and the Elks Club
The city of Las Vegas purchased the property that contained what remained of the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort and the historic Stewart Ranch from the Elks club in 1971
In 1972, the Fort was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The State of Nevada rendered the site and the Fort a State Park in 1991.
In 1997 a memorial to the Fort was erected by the Mormon Church through the Daughters of Utah Pioneers.
Isolation is the essence of Land Art.
The War
“President Young in his address to the Saints…said (U.S. President) Polk would be damned…and if (the U.S.) ever sent any men to interfere with us here, they shall have their throats cut and sent to hell, and…that our people would be connected with every tribe of Indians throughout America and that our people would yet take their squaws, wash and dress them up, teach them our language and teach them to labor and teach them the gospel of their forefathers and raise up children by them and teach the children and not many generations hence they will become a white and delightsome people and in no other way will it be done and that the time was nigh at hand when the gospel must go to that people.”
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Mormon Prophet Brigham Young, July 28, 1847, from Wilford Woodruff's journal
(Four days after first arriving in Timpanogos, Goshute, and Eastern Shoshone lands of the so-called Salt Lake Valley.)
In June 1856, a second group arrived at the Las Vegas Mission. This group was on a mining mission. While exploring the region, the first group of missionaries discovered a source of lead about 30 miles southwest of the Fort. Young was interested in extracting lead for bullets for war.
Not only were Mormons fighting Indigenous Peoples for domination of this land, they were also making plans to defend their empire from U.S. interference. The “Mormon Rebellion” was a prominent point in the 1856 U.S. Presidential elections and Young wanted to be prepared in case the U.S. tried to attack.
Though it was never mentioned in the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park visitor’s center, Mormons were also seeking another kind of weapon in these deserts––soldiers. In his farewell speech to these Vegas missionaries Brigham Young pronounced: “By and by (Indigenous Peoples) will be the Lord’s battle ax in good earnest.” In response, Las Vegas pioneer John Steele soon after wrote to his Prophet “If the lord blesses us as has done we can have 1000 brave warriors on hand in a short time...” referring to the 1,000 Indigenous persons these settler-colonists estimated were living in that region of the Mojave.
This Mormon belief that Indigenous Peoples, whom they refer to using the racist term Lamanites, will join forces with settler-Mormons is canonized in their scriptures and is central to their U.S.-Zionist End-Times beliefs.
Not only were Mormons fighting Indigenous Peoples for domination of this land, they were also making plans to defend their empire from U.S. interference. The “Mormon Rebellion” was a prominent point in the 1856 U.S. Presidential elections and Young wanted to be prepared in case the U.S. tried to attack.
Though it was never mentioned in the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park visitor’s center, Mormons were also seeking another kind of weapon in these deserts––soldiers. In his farewell speech to these Vegas missionaries Brigham Young pronounced: “By and by (Indigenous Peoples) will be the Lord’s battle ax in good earnest.” In response, Las Vegas pioneer John Steele soon after wrote to his Prophet “If the lord blesses us as has done we can have 1000 brave warriors on hand in a short time...” referring to the 1,000 Indigenous persons these settler-colonists estimated were living in that region of the Mojave.
This Mormon belief that Indigenous Peoples, whom they refer to using the racist term Lamanites, will join forces with settler-Mormons is canonized in their scriptures and is central to their U.S.-Zionist End-Times beliefs.
“The Book of Mormon...is a record of God’s dealings with ancient inhabitants of the Americas…The record gives an account of two great civilizations. One came from Jerusalem in 600 B.C. and afterward separated into two nations, known as the Nephites and the Lamanites. The other came much earlier when the Lord confounded the tongues at the Tower of Babel. This group is known as the Jaredites. After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians.”
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Introduction to The Book of Mormon - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Retrieved 2023.
Lamanite Warriors "were lazy and idolatrous...wild and ferocious" believing in the false traditions of their fathers. They trusted in their own abilities and not in the strength of the Lord. The Book of Mormon tells that "the heads of the Lamanites were shorn, they were naked, save it were skin which was girded about their loins..." (Alma 3) They were armed with bows, arrows, stones and slings. "...They had marked themselves with red in their foreheads after the manner of the Lamanites..." These wicked warriors "...reap their rewards according to their works, whether they were good or whether they were bad, to reap eternal happiness or eternal misery..." Ages 4 and up.
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Latter Day Designs’ Lamanite Warrior product description. Retrieved 2023*
The Book of Mormon introduces itself as “a record of God’s dealings with ancient inhabitants of the Americas.” These ancient inhabitants are said to be descendants of a group of ancient-Israeli migrants who settled on this continent around 600 A.D. This group splits into two: Nephites and Lamanites. The Nephites are a “white and delightsome” people who follow the ways of their God. The Lamanites rebel against God and are “cursed with a skin of blackness” in order to make them “not enticing” to the Nephites in order to discourage miscegenation.
The story goes on and after Jesus dies and is resurrected he visits these Peoples in the Americas. All convert to Christianity and there follows a thousand years of peace between these Peoples.
They then fall back into war and the book ends as the dark skinned Lamanites exterminate all of the “white and delightsome” Nephites, thus leaving these cursed, apostate-Christian Lamanites as “the ancestors of the American Indians.”
Thus because settler-colonial Mormons believe that they hold the true history of this Land and it’s Indigenous Peoples, they believe they have a divine duty to convert and assimilate these so-called Lamanites in order to restore them to their former state as “white and delightsome” Mormons–and to save this supposedly Promised Land from falling again into iniquity.
They then fall back into war and the book ends as the dark skinned Lamanites exterminate all of the “white and delightsome” Nephites, thus leaving these cursed, apostate-Christian Lamanites as “the ancestors of the American Indians.”
Thus because settler-colonial Mormons believe that they hold the true history of this Land and it’s Indigenous Peoples, they believe they have a divine duty to convert and assimilate these so-called Lamanites in order to restore them to their former state as “white and delightsome” Mormons–and to save this supposedly Promised Land from falling again into iniquity.
“It is actually our duty to do all we possibly can to benefit,
enlighten and save this dark and ignorant people.”
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Mormon Prophet Wilford Woodruff
“From a natural point of view it would seem that it’s the fate of the Indian as a race to be wiped out and become extinct. With nine tenths of them gone in less than four centuries, it is easy to see that it would not take long for the other one tenth to go in the same ratio; but hope lies for them in the fact that God foretold He would not permit their utter destruction… Zion is bound to rise and flourish.
The Lamanites will blossom as the rose on the mountains.”
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Mormon Prophet Wilford Woodruff
Add to this, that Mormonism, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, teaches that we are living in the End-Times, a.k.a. the Latter-days. Early Mormons believed that Jesus Christ was returning at any moment and that it was their responsibility as his Chosen People to prepare the land for him. Part of that preparation meant establishing a Mormon Zion in this land. And part of that meant saving the U.S. from its fallen state in which the constitution is hanging by a silken thread and restoring it to its former divine purpose. In these Latter-days it is said that Mormons and converted Indigenous Peoples will come together to fight in this Holy War for the salvation of the United States as a true Christian Nation.
Of this the fourth Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Wilford Woodruff said, “I tell you the Lamanites of these mountains…these poor degraded natives…will yet be a shield to this people if we do right.”
Thus, within a month the pioneer missionaries had met with “all the chiefs and made an agreement (treaty) with them for permission to make a settlement on their lands(. W)e agreed to treat them well and they were to observe the same conduct towards us and with all white men.”
So even as Brigham told these men that the Las Vegas Mission was “a little different from the other missions,” these missionaries still spent a fair amount of their time doing religious and cultural conversion work.
Of this the fourth Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Wilford Woodruff said, “I tell you the Lamanites of these mountains…these poor degraded natives…will yet be a shield to this people if we do right.”
Thus, within a month the pioneer missionaries had met with “all the chiefs and made an agreement (treaty) with them for permission to make a settlement on their lands(. W)e agreed to treat them well and they were to observe the same conduct towards us and with all white men.”
So even as Brigham told these men that the Las Vegas Mission was “a little different from the other missions,” these missionaries still spent a fair amount of their time doing religious and cultural conversion work.
“The Indians were very shy at first, but good kind treatment won them over in time…after they learned our intentions they made good promises and we made some…The Indians were soon partially converted to habits of industry, and helped us to grub the land, make adobes, attend the mason and especially to herd the stock…They irrigated our land and assisted in…[the] construction of…our mission fort…we taught them to be honest, truthful, industrious, and peaceful, and to keep good feelings among the Indians and with our people.”
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George W. Bean, Indigenous language interpreter and Las Vegas missionary.
Sometime between February 23, 1857 and December 1857 the Las Vegas Fort Mission was closed. The mission failed for several major reasons. Firstly, the presidents of the Las Vegas fort building and mining missions fought for authority, destroying morale and cooperation. Mormon leaders also wrote that “the thieving disposition of the Indians” ruined the project. Brigham Young summarized his reasons saying: “This station becomes an expense to the kingdom, and as at prisent (sic) seems, not to add any honey to the hive.”
Though I didn’t see it listed as a reason for abandoning the fort in many of the histories I'd read, Brigham Young was calling his members in from several other outlying settlements at this same time. In July of 1857, Mormon President Young was notified by his men that U.S. President Buchanan, fulfilling a campaign promise to do something about one of “the twin relics of barbarism,” was sending the U.S. Army to Utah Territory to stop the "Mormon Rebellion" and remove Young from his position as both Territorial Governor and Indian Superintendent. And thus began the first U.S. civil war, between the U.S. and Deseret.
Brigham Young’s army, the Nauvoo Legion, fought a war of sabotage. They burned the Army’s wagons, graze land, and supplies, blocked mountain passes, and generally harassed the U.S. soldiers keeping them up at night with loud noises.
Slowly, the Army was able to advance and the Mormons retreated south. As they fled they burned their crops, meadows, and homes leaving nothing for the incoming army.
Simultaneously, Congress was pressuring Buchanan to end this expensive civil war. By June, 1858 Buchanan's official peace commission arrived in Utah Territory and offered “a free pardon for seditions and treason heretofore by them committed.” In exchange, Mormons were required to submit to government authority and allow the army into Salt Lake City. Though the commission promised that once the new non-Mormon governor was installed they would pull all troops from the territory “except what may be required to keep the Indians in check and to secure passage of emigrants to California.”
Young agreed to these terms and stepped down as governor even as he maintained presidential power over his religious empire. This conflict would continue until the turn of the century when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disavowed polygyny and ended their Gathering of Israel project thus ending the mass immigration of Mormons into the United States (the U.S. was really worried about immigration and the destruction of that "Great Race" which had been created through Indigenous genocide, ecocide, and enslavement). In 1896, the much reduced Utah Territory gained statehood and Mormons began their era of working to assimilate to U.S. hegemony.
Though I didn’t see it listed as a reason for abandoning the fort in many of the histories I'd read, Brigham Young was calling his members in from several other outlying settlements at this same time. In July of 1857, Mormon President Young was notified by his men that U.S. President Buchanan, fulfilling a campaign promise to do something about one of “the twin relics of barbarism,” was sending the U.S. Army to Utah Territory to stop the "Mormon Rebellion" and remove Young from his position as both Territorial Governor and Indian Superintendent. And thus began the first U.S. civil war, between the U.S. and Deseret.
Brigham Young’s army, the Nauvoo Legion, fought a war of sabotage. They burned the Army’s wagons, graze land, and supplies, blocked mountain passes, and generally harassed the U.S. soldiers keeping them up at night with loud noises.
Slowly, the Army was able to advance and the Mormons retreated south. As they fled they burned their crops, meadows, and homes leaving nothing for the incoming army.
Simultaneously, Congress was pressuring Buchanan to end this expensive civil war. By June, 1858 Buchanan's official peace commission arrived in Utah Territory and offered “a free pardon for seditions and treason heretofore by them committed.” In exchange, Mormons were required to submit to government authority and allow the army into Salt Lake City. Though the commission promised that once the new non-Mormon governor was installed they would pull all troops from the territory “except what may be required to keep the Indians in check and to secure passage of emigrants to California.”
Young agreed to these terms and stepped down as governor even as he maintained presidential power over his religious empire. This conflict would continue until the turn of the century when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disavowed polygyny and ended their Gathering of Israel project thus ending the mass immigration of Mormons into the United States (the U.S. was really worried about immigration and the destruction of that "Great Race" which had been created through Indigenous genocide, ecocide, and enslavement). In 1896, the much reduced Utah Territory gained statehood and Mormons began their era of working to assimilate to U.S. hegemony.
The Flag
Before the demise of this colonial enterprise, these 32 men also went down in history on July 4th, 1855 as the first to raise a U.S. flag in Nevada, claiming this Nuwu land for the United States.
Though, this isn’t quite correct for a few reasons.
First, Las Vegas was in New Mexico territory in 1855. Nevada territory wouldn't exist for another 6 years.
Second, the flag my Great Uncle Aroet helped raise wasn’t really a U.S. flag as it contained a “large eight pointed star in the center representing Deseret.”
Though, this isn’t quite correct for a few reasons.
First, Las Vegas was in New Mexico territory in 1855. Nevada territory wouldn't exist for another 6 years.
Second, the flag my Great Uncle Aroet helped raise wasn’t really a U.S. flag as it contained a “large eight pointed star in the center representing Deseret.”
Interpretation of Las Vegas Fort Flag (1855) as displayed at the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park (2022).
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55-star flag as used by the United States (1851-1858) as displayed at the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park (2022).
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The Las Vegas Fort Flag: The sum of the facts does not constitute the work or determine its esthetics.
The Las Vegas Fort Flag was first raised on July 4th, 1855.
It is historically marked as first time that a U.S. flag was flown over land now occupied by the State of Nevada.
The land is not the setting for the work but a part of the work.
The Las Vegas Fort Flag was crafted by John Steele.
It was made from one and a half yards of white cotton cloth, a red flannel shirt, and denim blue jeans.
The cloth and flannel were torn in strips.
From the blue jeans stars were cut.
Eighteen stars were cut in total. The stars were placed “nine on a side, with a large eight pointed star in the center representing Deseret.”
The invisible is real.
The flag was flown from a 30 foot pole made from “a mesquite stump, a false wagon tongue, and a tall willow.”
In lieu of fireworks, they used black powder to make a sort of bomb with “the blacksmith’s anvil,” launching it into the air to mimic cannon fire.
They also celebrated with “many volley of musketry” and “three cheers.”
Isolation is the essence of Land Art.
It is historically marked as first time that a U.S. flag was flown over land now occupied by the State of Nevada.
The land is not the setting for the work but a part of the work.
The Las Vegas Fort Flag was crafted by John Steele.
It was made from one and a half yards of white cotton cloth, a red flannel shirt, and denim blue jeans.
The cloth and flannel were torn in strips.
From the blue jeans stars were cut.
Eighteen stars were cut in total. The stars were placed “nine on a side, with a large eight pointed star in the center representing Deseret.”
The invisible is real.
The flag was flown from a 30 foot pole made from “a mesquite stump, a false wagon tongue, and a tall willow.”
In lieu of fireworks, they used black powder to make a sort of bomb with “the blacksmith’s anvil,” launching it into the air to mimic cannon fire.
They also celebrated with “many volley of musketry” and “three cheers.”
Isolation is the essence of Land Art.
“The company paraded at the dawn of day and fired a salute very spiritedly; also at sun-up and again when the liberty pole was erected and the flag floated majestically to the breeze, another salute was fired the company having previously assembled, kneeling down and offering up their devotions to God. Afterwards there were many spirited speeches, songs, and toasts from many of the brethren. Then all were dismissed by prayer and went to perform our several camps duties.”
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John Steele’s Journal concerning July 4th celebrations
My interpretation of the Las Vegas Mormon Fort Flag. (2023).
Modern Desert Markings
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Chapter 2 - Mormon Mountains Wilderness
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Chapter 3 - Mormon Well Road
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The End (Times): Coming Soon
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>>> tap the images to view the sections <<<
Las Vegas Mormon Fort: Manifest Doomsday - nicholas b jacobsen, Digital collage on ceramic decal on Nuwu clay (2023)
