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Contested Space: Mormons, Navajos, And Hopis In The Colonization Of Tuba City, Corey Smallcanyon

Theses and Dissertations

When Mormons arrived in northern Arizona among the Navajo and Hopi Indians in the late 1850s, Mormon-Indian relations were initially friendly. It was not too long, however, before trouble began in conflicts over water use and land rights. Federal agents would soon consider Mormons a threat to the peaceful Hopis because both the Navajo and Mormons were expanding their land claims. Indian agents relentlessly pleaded with Washington to establish a separate Indian reservation. They anticipated this reservation would satisfy all three parties, but its creation in 1882 only created more problems, climaxing in the 1892 death of Lot Smith at …