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Utah is an American State that borders Nevada to the west, Idaho and Wyoming to the north, Colorado to the east and Arizona to the south. It is mainly known for most of its population being part of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons.
History[]
History of Utah before 1844[]
The region that would eventually become Utah was isolated due to its arid and mountainous geography, but ancient Puebloan cultures existed from 600 to 1300 AD. Na-Dené people arrived around 1350, but the arrival of Uto-Aztecan people from Southern California (probably due to desertification) around 1200 AD proved to be a larger migration, with Na-Dené people in the region becoming the Navajo and Apache. In the early 1200s Uto-Aztecan people migrated to Central and Southern Mexico, later Aztec myths describe the land that they came from being called Aztlán (land of 7 caves). Utah is the likely location of Aztlán.
The Spanish conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado explored the region in 1540, searching for the lost city of Cíbola. The Spanish only established effective control of Utah in 1776, incorporating it into the Province of Alta California.
The rapid decline of the Spanish Empire in the early 1800s led to many American fur traders establishing themselves in the area, the most famous was Jim Bridger. The cities of Provo and Ogden were founded by Canadian explorers, Étienne Provost and Peter Skene Ogden, respectively.
History of Mormonism[]
Joseph Smith was born in Vermont in 1805. He claimed to have received a vision from God telling him how to find Gold tablets with writing in a long lost language. When he translated the tablets they said that the Indigenous people of the Americas are actually one of the lost tribes of Israel, that Noah's Ark landed in Missouri and that America would be a second Holy Land in addition to Israel.
The first large scale war involving the group was the Mormon-Missouri war, this conflict started as religious American businessmen paid to have poor European and American converts settled in Missouri. The subsequent immigrant scare, combined with anti-Mormon sentiment led to violent warfare characterised by massacres by both sides.
The Mormons fled to Illinois where Joseph Smith became mayor of the town of Nauvoo. Around this time the Nauvoo Legion had been created as a militia dedicated to defending the town of Nauvoo and nearby Mormon communities. Smith accused a newspaper critical of him as "an attempt at inciting violence". The governor of the state removed him from power and called for his arrest (he violated the first amendment). This led to a brief conflict in which Smith was arrested and was killed by a mob, making him a martyr.
The group then traveled along the Mormon trail to settle in the valleys of Utah, which was part of the Mexican state of New Mexico at the time. The Mexican government during this time was encouraging foreign settlement of their northern frontier, including German, Irish and American colonists. This included Appalachian frontiersmen in Texas or the religious refugees of the Mormons. Around 14,000 Mormons arrived in Utah in 1844, where they came into conflict with the native Timpanogos, Goshutes and Utes. These groups were forced into the Mountains where famine, disease and constant attacks by Euro-Americans led to the near extinction of these groups. The native chief Walkara led these people in a rebellion during Walker's war.
Brigham Young sent Jesse C. Little to Washington in an attempt to get Federal Support for a plan to relocate the remaining Mormons to Utah. He arrived only six days after the US declared war on Mexico, and offered the Nauvoo Legion to the US army as the Mormon Battalion, while also assuring them that the Mormons living in Mexican territory would not fight against the Americans. The Mormon Battalion participated in the Capture of Tucson and also recruited from the Mormon farming towns of Iowa.
Since 1847, Brigham Young led the Church and later the Utah territory as a theocracy. American authorities often raided Mormon homes to arrest polygamists, leading to many people in Utah coming to resent the US government and some more radical individuals called for independence. Killings of non-Mormon immigrants including the Mountain meadows massacre and the Aiken Massacre added to the rumor of a rebellion. In 1857, President James Buchanan sent a military force to the region, the presence of US troops led to the Rebellion it was meant to prevent/crush.
After the Utah war ended, some Mormons fled to the Bloc settlement in Oskatioka in Absaroka.
Back in Utah the Morrisite War began as rival sects fought for power. At the same time Black Hawk led Aboriginal people in another war.
Geography[]
Economy[]
Politics[]
Demographics[]
Many of the original Mormon settlers in Utah were actually born in Britain (mainly England).
Danish settlers in Utah were similar to the British ones, mainly converts to Mormonism that chose to move out west.
Utah was Spanish from 1778-1821 and Mexican from 1821-1848. The first Spanish people came after the beginning of American rule, when Hispanos from New Mexico moved north. Mexican immigrants came to work in the railroad and mining industries. Some Mexican (and to a lesser extent other Central American) converts to Mormonism have moved to Utah as a result of missionary work in that area.
Most of the early Germans in Utah were Mormons. Even up to the 1950s Mormons in Germany kept moving to Utah.
African Americans started moving to Utah as migrant workers in the late 1800s. Religiously-based discrimination was common, as Mormons believed that Africans were cursed with dark skin and had to be kept totally separate.
The first Italians in Utah were religious converts from Piedmont that moved for the Gathering of Zion. The largest wave of Italian immigration to Utah, and the US as a whole, was during the late 1800s and early 1900s. This second wave and their descendants didn't assimilate.
The history of Greek Americans in Utah starts with the mining industry, many Greek immigrants arrived in Utah and they soon formed their own Church. They refused to assimilate at all and this soon drew resentment, leading to at least one lynching of a Greek man and the proposition of religious-based segregation in Utah.
Aboriginal people in Utah are mostly members of either the Utes, the Shoshone, the Goshute or the Paiutes.
Utah is one of the few places were the largest Asian group is Japanese (6000) and not Chinese (5000). Japanese railroad workers were a common sight in Utah around the late 1800s and early 1900s. After construction was over many went to work in mining. The history of Chinese people in Utah is identical to that of Japanese.
Basques were traditionally shepherds back in Biscay so when they moved to the US they mostly continued in this profession in Utah.
Finns fled their home country during the Finnish civil war, those that ended up in Utah became miners.