SHOSHONEAN PEOPLES AND THE OVERLAND TRAILS: FRONTIERS OF THE UTAH SUPERINTENDENCY OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, 1849-1869, by Dale L. Morgan, edited by Richard L. Saunders, Ethnohistorical Essay by Gregory E. Smoak, USU Press, 432 pages, $39.95
Dale Morgan (1914-71), a Utah boy and a legend in his own time, is still considered one of the best Utah and Western historians. This volume, much of it written 50 years ago, combines three works by Morgan, who now has something of "a cult following" among historians. He was probably the last great amateur historian of the American West, and even though he died young — of colon cancer in 1971 at the age of 56 — his name is referenced in nearly every major book on its history.
He either wrote or edited two dozen books that are still considered of scholarly value today. In his own opinion, he wrote only two books of "substantial value" — "Overland in 1846" and "The West of William H. Ashley," both in the 1960s. At the time he died, he was working on a history of the Mormons, which was incomplete even though he spent 30 years writing it. He also planned a book on the history of the American fur trade between 1760 and 1840.
He once told a friend that his goal was to not have a reader say, "What a brilliant writer this fellow Morgan is," but rather "so that's the truth of the matter." As a result, he was a scholar's scholar with a mind like a steel trap. The fact that he was insulated by being deaf does not seem to have affected his work.
In this book, Morgan treats the Utah Superintendency with respect to the federal government, the Shoshoni and the Utes, who were most affected by the Mormon settlement of the Wasatch Front valleys. Morgan summarizes all three relationships and adds views about the Goshutes and Paiutes of central and southern Utah.
Brigham Young's famous statement that it was "cheaper to feed the Indians than fight them" was a recurring 19th century assertion even though it assumed the prejudicial view that Indians were nomads and white settlers were destined to fixed agriculture. But, as Morgan points out, Young's view was more progressive than most other whites of his day.
Allowing Morgan's previously unfinished work to see the light of day is a major contribution to Western history. Richard L. Saunders edited it, annotated it and added new materials unavailable when Morgan originally wrote it — and changed scholarly terms to fit modern standards.
Saunders' introduction works well as an intellectual history of Dale Morgan — and Gregory Smoak, a noted historian of the Shoshone, enlarges the context of Morgan's work with his own valuable essay. This work is designed primarily for scholars, but general readers may also find it enriching.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com