Chief Peteetneet, or more precisely Pah-ti't-ni't (pronounced Paw-tee't-nee't), was a clan leader of a band of Timpanogos that lived near Peteetneet Creek, which was named for him (or perhaps for which he was named), in what is now known as Payson, Utah, United States. [1]
His band was semi-nomadic, living in semi-permanent, grass-thatched, wattle-and-daub houses, and roamed throughout the Utah Lake area as well as Sanpete and Sevier counties. Together with Chief Tabby-To-Kwanah, they led seasonal migrations through the canyon each spring and fall. [2] His daughter Pomona (Pamamaci = "Water-woman") married the mountain man, Miles Goodyear. Peteetneet is the anglicized approximation of Pah-ti't-ni't, which in Timpanogos means "our water place". [3] [4]
In February 1850, the Mormon militia attacked his village as part of the Battle at Fort Utah. Although Peteetneet was not there at the time of the attack, he did confront the soldiers at Fort Utah after finding the bodies of several decapitated Timpanogo. [5]
When the first Mormon pioneers arrived on Peteetneet Creek in late October 1850, they found that Chief Peteetneet was friendly, along with his band of about 200 Timpanogos. The Mormon pioneers settled on an uninhabited section of the creek about a mile southeast of Peteetneet's village. It is unlikely that the settlement on Peteetneet Creek would have survived the winter without the benevolence of Chief Peteetneet and his band. [6] [7] [8]
Chief Peteetneet also enjoyed the support of Mormon leaders in the Native American slave trade. [9] [10] Apostle George A. Smith gave him talking papers that certified "it is my desire that they [Captain Walker and Peteetneet] should be treated as friends, and as they wish to Trade horses, Buckskins and Piede children, we hope them success and prosperity and good bargains." [11]
Chief Peteetneet died on December 23, 1861, under somewhat mysterious circumstances in Cedar Valley, Utah, near recently abandoned Fort Crittenden (Camp Floyd). He was buried on the mountainside in Cedar Valley by members of his band. His wife, murdered by an axe-wielding woman in his band on express orders near his deathbed, was buried in the valley below his grave to accompany him into the afterlife. [12] [ citation needed ] He was succeeded at the time of his death in 1862 by a near relative named Ponnewats, a corruption of Pa-ni-wa-tsi, meaning "Little Master of Our Water". [3] [4]
Local artist Brian Bird sculpted a monument to Chief Peteetneet in 1993, which stands at the front of the Peteetneet Museum and Cultural Arts Center.
Payson is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Provo–Orem Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 21,101 at the 2020 census.
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The Timpanogos are a tribe of Native Americans who inhabited a large part of central Utah, in particular, the area from Utah Lake east to the Uinta Mountains and south into present-day Sanpete County.
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The Utah Territory during the American Civil War was far from the main operational theaters of war, but still played a role in the disposition of the United States Army, drawing manpower away from the volunteer forces and providing its share of administrative headaches for the Lincoln Administration. Although no battles were fought in the territory, the withdrawal of Union forces at the beginning of the war allowed the Native American tribes to start raiding the trails passing through Utah. As a result, units from California and Utah were assigned to protect against these raids. Mineral deposits found in Utah by California soldiers encouraged the immigration of non-Mormon settlers into Utah.
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The Battle at Fort Utah was a violent attack and massacre in 1850 in which 90 Mormon militiamen surrounded an encampment of Timpanogos families on the Provo River one winter morning, and laid siege for two days, eventually shooting between 40 and 100 Native American men and one woman with guns and a cannon during the attack as well as during the pursuit and capture of the two groups that fled the last night. One militiaman died and eighteen were wounded from return fire during the siege. Of the Timpanogos people who fled in the night, one group escaped southward, and the other ran east to Rock Canyon. Both groups were captured, however, and the men were executed. Over 40 Timpanogos children, women, and a few men were taken as prisoners to nearby Fort Utah. They were later taken northward to the Salt Lake Valley and sold as slaves to church members there. The bodies of up to 50 Timpanogos men were beheaded by some of the settlers and their heads put on display at the fort as a warning to the mostly women and children prisoners inside.
Chief Tabby-To-Kwanah was the leader of Timpanogos group of Native Americans when they were displaced from their homeland near Utah Lake, to the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation several hundred miles to the east in modern-day Utah.
Slavery as it occurred in the borders of what is now the state of Utah has a complicated history. Under Spanish and Mexican rule, Utah was a major source of illegal slave raids by Mexican, Ute and Navajo slave traders, particularly on Paiute tribes. When Mormon pioneers entered Utah, they introduced African slavery and provided a local market for Indian slavery. After the Mexican–American War, Utah became part of the United States and slavery was officially legalized in Utah Territory on February 4, 1852, with the passing of the Act in Relation to Service. It was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.
The San Pitch Utes were members of a band of Ute people that lived in the Sanpete Valley and Sevier River Valley and along the San Pitch River. They may have originally been Shoshonean, and were generally considered as part of the Timpanogos.
Media related to Chief Peteetneet at Wikimedia Commons