Balance of Power

The First Deseret Rebellion, Part I

Alta California has been an independent country since 1848, and in 1852 the State of Deseret was set up due the agreement between the Mormon Settlers and the Californios for defending against the haphazard Mexican army that had been sent north. Deseret is the only state is not required to operate in Spanish, such as run schools and record government and official business. Residents of Deseret also have the right to federal services in English as well. Deseret was also allowed a small state militia to help with American incursions from the north, as long as the squadron commanders spent a six month rotation in the federal army every 4 years and can speak passable Spanish, but this last is honoured more in the breach than in the keeping.

American gold rush migrants who cannot or will not assimilate into the Hispanic society of Alta California between the Sierra Nevadas and the Pacific coast tend to gravitate to Deseret if they don't return to the USA, CSA, or Texas. As a result in colloquial speech of the times and still often today, everybody is either "Mormón" or "Californio" on the coast or "Mormon" or "Spanish" in Salt Lake City, regardless of what one's native tongue or religion might be.

By the 1870s Mormón settlement had expanded outside of Deseret. Many of these settlements try their best to comply with the requirement of a pueblo charter as defined by the Territorios Administrados Federalmente (TAF), especially if they can attract Hispanic settlers from past the Sierra Nevadas or from Salt Lake City's small but growing Hispanic community, but just as many refuse to do so.

This leads to growing tensions not only between Deseret and the Federal Government but also between Mormóns and Californios. Editorials in the Deseret News have cried foul at the Governor of the Federally Administered Territory ordering a halt on pueblo charters to Mormón settlements after revoking many for not following the laws. Rumours of people arriving from the gold fields after being denied the staking of a claim for not speaking Spanish are circulated as fact. Various groups also exist calling for an enlargement of Deseret or for a second Mormón state with the same privileges, sometimes both. Things are not helped by multiple surveys of Deseret's borders where Californio and Mormón surveyors do not agree.

The creation of the initially indigenous majority states of Yuta in 1872, Nabajoa in 1875, and Yavapai in 1879 are a particular grievance with Los Mormones of conservative nature who refuse to learn Spanish, especially those who have familial and economic ties to residents in Idaho territory where the Snake War is a recent memory.

In the late 1870s, scattered raids between natives and Mormons start happening. The newspapers in Salt Lake City claimed it was started by unprovoked native attacks on Mormón pueblos outside of Deseret and that Los Mormones were only defending themselves. The Chiefs of Yuta, claimed it was roving bands of Mormones padded out with Americans from Idaho who started it, trying to exact retribution on natives who had fled the USA for Alta California over the past 20 years.

Into the 1880s the raids increase in frequency, with Los Mormones still claiming they were unprovoked and any retaliation was only self-defence. The federal government in Monterrey, however, chooses to believe the witnesses and evidence coming out of Ogwaiden and from the alguaciles of the TAF. The alguaciles are spread thin and their presidios few and far between as the prospectors and settlers who came this far inland, but they shift troops towards Deseret and start using local scouts to look into reports of native pueblos being attacked. Attacks increase and by 1883 even the TAF alguaciles are attacked while checking in at the pueblos, first by happenstance, later in apparent planned ambushes as many of the alguaciles are natives or first generation mestizos.

The Deseret State government in Salt Lake denies any involvement, calling them “bandits” or “unsanctioned militia”, even though indigenous witnesses speaking to the Yuta Chiefs Assembly in Ogwaiden say otherwise. Desert newspapers stoking the discontent call them “illiterate Indians who wouldn’t know a captain’s badge from a beaded necklace” as they demand a second Mormón state for their pueblos outside the boundaries of Deseret.

On April 12th, 1886, the TAF’s Presidio Aurora on the Río Severo is attacked by three Deseret militia units, later thought to have been provoked by articles in the Deseret Post about the negotiations happening in the south between TAF alguaciles and the Apache Goyaalé, also known as Geronimo, for him to stop using southeastern Alta California as a retreat from their raids in Texian, Union, and Confederate territories as well as his sporadic raids against prospectors inside Alta California. The attack was repulsed and this time uniformed militia are killed, including the captain of one of the three units. In his jacket pocket are found documents laying out locations of native settlements that have yet to be attacked and orders to coordinate with other militia units to prevent more new presidios from being built and to assist the bandit groups in harassing the natives, signed by the head of the State Militia Department, Judge Daniel H. Wells “under the authority of the office of Governor John Taylor of the State of Deseret”.

These documents are immediately sent by courier horse to Pueblo Ola, a stop on the railroad linking Salt Lake City with the capital of Monterrey, taking 5 days to get there. From there, telegrams are sent to the Interior Ministry and the President’s office and the courier boarded the train for Monterrey. In 20 hours he was at Winnemucca, the TAF headquarters on the Deseret side of the Sierra Nevadas, and in Monterrey 30 hours after that.

When the news was read before a combined meeting of the Chambers of Senators and Deputies the result was an uproar. The TAF had already requested federal troops to help them deal with the then presumed bandit activity but more were clearly needed with a state in seeming rebellion. Telegrams were sent out and militias were quickly gathered from along the railroads by the presidios and sent to muster at Presidio Sacramento, along with federal army troops from each presidio in command.

The first federal troops, 24 of them led by Coronel Napoleon Vallejo y Carrillo, son of Senator Manuel Guadelupe Vallejo, arrived in Salt Lake City on April 21st, after the Presidio Gran Lago Salado did not answer urgent telegrams from Presidio Sacramento sent on the 18th.

The first Deseret Rebellion, Part II
When Coronel Vallejo and his two dozen soldiers got off the train late in the evening on the 21st of April, 1886, they found themselves to be outnumbered by Deseret Militia and other armed men waiting for them, about 50 men. There are many contradicting stories of this meeting, with some saying the Deseret militia company had their guns pointed at the federal platoon as it got off the train, though the most credible state that the militia’s weapons were out but pointed at the ground. Others say that the soldiers were surprised by the militia as they disembarked from the train, while other rumours say that they had their rifles out and up.

What we know for sure is that the militia colonel greeted Vallejo on behalf of Deseret’s government and his company was there as an honour guard to escort them to the presidio with the implication that a refusal would not be accepted. Vallejo responded gesturing towards the telegraph office attached to the train station that he needed to check in with his superiors back in Sacramento, reportedly quipping resignedly “Alas, as a fellow soldier I am sure that you are all too familiar with the unreasonable demands made by our political overseers” as he walked towards the door.

It is known that someone fired a shot at Vallejo as he walked to that door, missing him by inches and striking the door frame instead, but whether it was one of the militia men or one of the accompanying armed men is unknown. Vallejo turned around and made eye contact with the militia colonel who had his right hand in the air at the level of his head. While maintaining eye contact, the colonel is reported to have said “If anybody else decides to fire their weapon without my permission, there will be consequences,” and nodded to Vallejo.

When Vallejo came out from the telegraph office he formed his platoon into marching order and they allowed themselves to be escorted to the presidio. As they approached the presidio gates it became clear why Presidio Gran Lago Salado had stopped responding to telegraph messages. The lines to the presidio had been cut just outside and there was an unmistakable armed guard surrounding the fort.

Inside Presidio Gran Lago Salado Cornel Vallejo discussed the situation with local comandante, Coronel José Ascención Yorba. The telegraph line to the fort had been cut three days before, in the middle of a conversation about the situation and what Yorba knew about the Deseret Militia’s size and capabilities. Yorba had reported an estimated size of 250 men, divided between five forts all of which he had visited, and an unknown number of smaller satellite camps. Both experienced officers agreed that the 50 men that met Vallejo at the train station plus two dozen more they had met guarding the presidio would have been a significant draw down were they all official militiamen and that the bulk of the rest must still be at their forts or camps to protect their citizens, and that the attack on the TAF’s Presidio Aurora must have been the rebel militia men feeling lucky. Both men conceded, however, that the reports by natives of only some of the banditos wearing militia clothing was concerning.

During this time, mobilisation of federal troops and new enlistees had proceeded apace. Twenty box and coachcars from various railroad companies across the western part of the nation carrying mostly infantry and some cavalry converged on Günemuca, capital of Güwashishu state and the location of the Territorios Administrados Federalmente (TAF) headquarters since the railroad to Salt Lake City had been built.

With Brigadier General Rómulo Pico in command, the military train left Güinemuca on May 20th, picking up extra TAF cavalry at a handful of stations along the way. 19 hours after starting out at a hamlet named Terminal, a little over 7 millas (six and a quarter miles) from Salt Lake City, the train stopped and offloaded the TAF cavalry and about half of the accompanying Federal Cavalry galloped off. Two hours later the train pulled into the station in Salt Lake City. The Deseret Militia had been expecting a response, but the militia colonel who had greeted Coronel Vallejo a month earlier was shocked by the 900 federal troops that swarmed from both sides of coaches and out of the box cars with their mixture of Alta California-made Fusil Grand Modele 1874s and Winchesters purchased from the United States, and even more so by the 50 Federal Cavalry troops that accompanied them.

One Alta California soldier was killed when some men clearly working with the militia started firing and caused a fire fight, but when the smoke cleared 2 militia and 3 banditos were dead, and six more injured, and the rest corralled by the Federal Cavalry. The Militia Colonel had his face in the mud and his hands were being tied behind his back.

At that moment a dozen militia men coming up a perpendicular road to the train station were ambushed by troops who had exit the train on the opposite side from train station buildings and had circled around a couple of blocks to secure the area. It was learned from them that word of the federal troops, but not their true numbers, had reached the Presidio Gran Lago Salado and a warning had been sent to the Governor’s Mansion, the Temple, and the state capitol.

General Pico immediately sent two companies off to the Presidio as he knew from Coronel Vallejo’s telegram that’s where he and the Presidio’s usual complement were being held. The rest were sent to the Governor’s Mansion and the state capitol. When the troops arrived at the Presidio, they found it guarded by about one hundred and fifty men, with only a third of them seemingly wearing Deseret Militia uniforms. The rebels started the fight with vigour, but nearly all of the banditos and many of the militia were spooked by fire from inside the palisade by soldiers platforms built over the past month. When the Presidio gates burst open and the troops of Vallejo and Yorba came running out, attacking the rebels from behind, the rebel company broke and fled, leaving almost thirty dead and wounded. The federal troops left Vallejo and Yorba to clean up at the Presidio and and marched swiftly off to rejoin General Pico.

General Pico’s companies had a much easier time of things as the cavalry company Pico had sent ahead from Terminal station had looped around Salt Lake City to enter from an unexpected direction had managed to occupy the Governor’s Mansion and the State Capitol without any bloodshed and had taken Governor John Taylor and Judge Daniel H. Wells into custody, as well as State Senators Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Representatives Benjamin Johnson and Franklin Richards I, all of whom had been meeting with the Governor of Deseret when the cavalry swept in. All that was left was policing of the general chaos.

General Pico made the following announcement at the state capitol building and then again in the main square of the city:

“On this day, by the unified decree of the federal Chamber of Senators and Chamber of Deputies, the Autonomous State of Deseret is now under Martial Law for conspiring to Acts of War against the citizens of the Republic of Alta California. The federal Senators and Deputies of the State, as well as state legislators, are now removed from their positions, and all state judges are dismissed from their offices and will have their duties taken up by federal judges.”

(“En este día, por decreto unificado de la Cámara de Senadores y la Cámara de Diputados federales, el Estado Autónomo de Deseret pasa a estar bajo Ley Marcial por conspirar para Actos de Guerra contra los ciudadanos de la República de Alta California. Los Senadores y Diputados de Estado federales, así como los legisladores estatales, quedan ahora destituidos de sus cargos, y todos los jueces estatales son destituidos de sus cargos y serán asumidos en sus funciones por jueces federales.”)