Even though it was a sweaty summer night, hundreds of Utahns showed up in downtown Provo to celebrate the state's Pioneer Day on July 24. It's a big holiday with fireworks and parades, akin to the Fourth of July. It marks the 1847 arrival of pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley.
Their settlement kicked off the birth of the state and gave the persecuted members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly called Mormons, a homeland. People celebrated in Provo this year with a line dance to "Footloose" and then, as fiddlers' fingers flew onstage, they snaked around the street in a conga line.
But one thing that's not usually talked about on this holiday is how the settlers secured that safe haven by driving Native people out. Many Utahns have never heard of a tragic event that happened in 1850, known as the Provo River massacre.
Last February, members of the Timpanogos Nation gathered for a memorial walk near here to teach people what happened to their ancestors.
"Their blood's in this ground, and their spirit's still around here," said tribal council member Perry Murdock. To call his ancestors and bless the group, he beat a drum and sang a piercing melody that's been passed down over generations.
A violent turning point
A murder was the turning point in the tribal nation's tragic history. A couple of years after the pioneers arrived, three settlers accused a Native man of stealing a shirt. The man refused to give it back, and then the settlers killed him over it, said historian D. Robert Carter. He's the author of "Founding Fort Utah."
Conflict and animosity between the two groups escalated after that with the Native people stealing crops and killing livestock, so the pioneers asked their prophet and elected governor what to do.
"I say, go and kill them," Brigham Young said.
Special orders to the area's militia told them to "exterminate" any Timpanogos people who didn't surrender. That led to a two-day battle. Carter said the Timpanogos killed one settler, and the militia killed at least 40 Native people. The tribal nation said it may actually be more than a hundred.
"Our people are still living in fear, a lot of them," said Mary Murdock Meyer, chief executive of the Timpanogos Nation. She said the extermination order is still in effect.
Recognition
"It's still being utilized in the aspect we're still being ignored," she said. "We've been exterminated from public view."
The roughly 1,000 Timpanogos people want the LDS Church or Utah's governor to publicly apologize and rescind the extermination orders, Meyer said.
"It would just make our people be more at peace," she said. "Maybe have some faith in this state. Maybe children not growing up in fear anymore."
Perry Murdock sees parallels between the Special Orders and the 1838 Missouri order to kill Mormons or drive them out of the state.
"They escaped the extermination order themselves, only to come out here and put one on our people," he said.
The governor's office didn't respond to NPR's interview requests and the church declined to comment by deadline. But Utah House Minority Leader Angela Romero said she'll start conversations about a rescindment and apology.
"I can't force the governor, I can't force The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to issue an apology, but I can apologize as a member of the Utah Legislature," she said.
Provo Mayor Marsha Judkins doesn't think it serves anyone to pretend like the tragedy didn't happen. And it's personal for her — she said some of her ancestors were involved in the killing of Timpanogos people and in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. So at the Pioneer Day celebration downtown, the mayor took the unusual step of opening the concert with an acknowledgment of the hidden history.
"And so as we gather tonight, we do so with gratitude for the opportunity to learn from one another and to recognize the many stories and histories that have shaped Provo and Utah Valley," she said, before inviting Chief Meyer to the stage.
Meyer said she hopes a rescindment would bring healing not only for her people, but for pioneer descendents who were involved in the massacre as well.
This year's Pioneer Day celebration in Provo was when Sam Andersen, a recent Brigham Young University graduate, heard about the extermination order for the first time. He was shocked. Even though he said it was hard to hear as a lifelong member of the LDS Church, he thought it was an appropriate recognition on Pioneer Day.
"I don't have any problem obviously with us celebrating our pioneer ancestors and what they did and the sacrifices they made, but I think, like, the most beneficial history for us to celebrate is one that's also holistic and includes all the voices and stories that happened," he said.
Andersen hopes Utah can take the best from history and leave the worst behind by rescinding the order.
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