Mormons and Indians: A Tribe is Decimated - October 31

The Kaibab Paiute are a small tribe with a 20 square mile reservation in northern Arizona, fifty miles north of the Grand Canyon.  Their existence today, we learned at Pipe Spring National Monument situated on the reservation, is almost miraculous. With an ancestry going back almost 1,000 years in northern Arizona, into the 19th century they were a peaceful people practicing a hunting, gathering, and small farming existence.  They were intimately connected to and successful in their ecosystem. It is amazing to learn how they used everything in their dry environment that could possibly have value. The aquifer at the base of the Vermillion Cliffs provides the water source for Pipe Spring which was discovered and used by the Kaibab Paiute before whites arrived. 

Spain invaded the Kaibab-Paiute lands beginning 1776 bringing disease and slavery (often aided by other Indian tribes).  Then came the Mormons. American imperialism ousted the Spanish but only cleared the way for the Mormons’ own form of “manifest destiny” - theocratic expansionism. In the late 1850s Mormon settlers began to invade the Kaibab Paiute homeland. Their large ranches expropriated Kaibab Paiute water sources destroying any possibility of farming and killing the plants traditionally gathered and used for food and other things. At the site of Pipe Spring, a Mormon family by the name of Winsor, built a fortified ranch directly over the spring, making it impossible for the Paiute to have access to the water. The ranch was called Winsor Castle and is part of the monument today. The Mormons then forced the Paiutes into wage slavery, indenturing many of their children. Consequently, the population fell sharply, 90% by the end of the 19th century. Their culture, social structure and existence was in severe crisis.

The establishment of a federally sanctioned reservation in 1909, subsequently expanded, gave them some protection, established laws governing the sharing of water rights and helped save the tribe from extinction. They are hardly flourishing today – with only a few hundred members - but especially in recent years tribal government employment, tourism, livestock, a fruit orchard and other businesses have helped sustain them.

The National Monument site, a joint project of the Park Service and the Kaibab Paiute features an excellent 25 minute documentary movie, a museum teaming with artifacts and details, a working farm simulating the Mormon tithing farm, a terrific half mile nature trail and half mile ridge trail with great views, and the fort built over the Tribal water source by the Mormons.
Winsor Castle







Kaibab Paiute Tribal Headquarters

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