Combatant and noncombatant alike at Detroit and all of the other posts awaited the passing of winter with anxious foreboding. British officials fully expected the coming of the Americans at the earliest possible date with the design of extending their frontier in the Northwest as far as possible, and thus, in the event of peace, of securing control of the fur-trade.51 Clark's threats to march against other unfriendly tribes as he had against the Shawnee increased the turmoil among the Indians.

Clark likewise beheld the coming of spring with apprehension. He appealed to the commissioners to assist him in strengthening the defenses. Once more he urged the importance of Fort Nelson as the "key to the country." As a protection to the eastern Kentucky settlements, he again advocated the construction of one or more forts farther up the river. To complete his plan for foiling the enemy would necessitate, he said, the embodiment of 1,500 troops which were to march against the Indian stronghold at the head of the Wabash. In this way, he proposed to convince the Indians that their very existence depended upon preserving peace with the Americans.52 A garrison of regular roops was to be stationed at Vincennes with supplies sufficient to equip a force which might be brought together at any time for the purpose of penetrating "into any Quarter of the Enemy's Country at pleasure.

No further effort was made to carry out these plans, for by the middle of April official announcement of the peace preliminaries and the cessation of hostilities had been sent to the frontier settlements. The proclamation of a general peace soon followed.

51 Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XI, 351.
2 Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XI, 336.

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XII. SEPARATISM IN UTAH, 1847-1870.

By FRANKLIN D. DAINES, Professor of History in Utah Agricultural College.

SEPARATISM IN UTAH, 1847-1870.

By FRANKLIN D. DAINES.

The independent and sometimes even defiant attitude assumed by colonies of the United States toward the mother country and its Government is attributed to various causes-the American instinct for local self-government, remoteness, difficulty of communication, frontier life, slowness of the Central Government in extending control and protection, and so on. All of the causes mentioned were in operation in the Utah colony, and will be taken for granted in this discussion.

But among the Utah pioneers there were other and very powerful forces tending in the same direction. The importance of these forces in shaping events in the colony, in making Utah history different from that of any other modern community, has never been sufficiently set forth, and I think I am justified in saying that with the lively interest being taken in the story of the winning of the far West the time has come for historians to begin to understand one of the most interesting of its chapters. My contention is that the chaotic state of Utah history is due to a great extent to writers paying too much attention to polygamy and other matters and too little attention to the forces referred to. It was as a protest, then, against the prevailing tendency that I chose the subject of this paper.

It is my purpose to indicate something of the nature of the light that might be thrown on the subject by an examination of this point of view of the people of Utah Territory in its early period, as found in Mormon publications.1 In these publications we find numerous sermons, editorials, and communications of Brigham Young and other leaders of the Mormon people, preached and written at a time when these leaders were exceptionally free in expressing through the press their thoughts. This freedom of expression, it might be observed, itself is an indication of the independent attitude assumed toward the world by these same leaders.

To begin with, it is important to remember that the Mormon people settled in Utah because their institutions and beliefs and experiences had already made them an exclusive people. We should then understand something of these.

1 Principally, Deseret News, weekly, 1850-1867; after that a daily; Millennial Star, monthly, 1840- ; Journal of Discourses, published every year, 1853 to 1886.