Documents related to the procural of food or to the status of these and other resources are sorted here.
The arrival of the pioneers and their livestock severely disrupted/depleted the food resources used by Indigenous people here. People were forced to beg or steal from settlers to acquire enough food to survive.
Unwilling to acknowledge their own role in the situation, settlers tended to regard the begging as an annoyance or as evidence of laziness. Thefts sometimes resulted in violent retribution. References to this can be found in Stories of Interactions with Settlers and in Brigham Young’s Indian Policy. Although Latter-Day Saints endured similar hardships in the east, any sympathy garnered by these experiences doesn’t seem to have been enough to completely overcome entitlement to the land and prejudice.
Animal Resources:
- Bison: Bison once roamed Davis County, and their bones had to be removed from the Layton meadow where Adams Reservoir now stands; Indians told settlers of the bison dying off during a terrible winter
- Pronghorn: In October 1845, a “Utah” man (possibly a relative of Wanship) told Fremont’s expedition that the pronghorn on Antelope Island were his only means of survival, and he demanded compensation for the meat they took. Yet just five years later, in 1850, Stansbury and Antelope islands had been taken over by the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company and reserved exclusively for the keeping of stock.
- Deer: Dr. William Ludlow McIntyre of Ogden “always treated Indians kindly,” and his son remembers 30-40 people waiting in their yard for treatment; they paid him “the only way they could,” with beaded gloves, buckskins, etc
- Deer: Buckskin was used by settlers to make gloves, trousers, and moccasins; the hides were acquired by purchase and by hunting. Some settler-made gloves were beaded and sold at high prices
Plant Resources:
- Serviceberries: In Mountain Green, settlers picked serviceberries by the basketful
- Herbal medicines: After Little Soldier treats Ellen Moore’s measles infection with local herbs, his remedy “does the rounds” among the settlers of Ogden
- Herbal medicine: Since “the majority of settlers were left to their own initiative” to treat illness, remedies made from various local plants were freely passed from one home to another
- Dyes: Plants, including native plants, were the source of dyes used by early settlers in the manufacture of cloth
Seasonal Movements: