[3]Ever since Mormon pioneers fled into Utah Valley in 1848 and built their fort at Provo, the Timpanogos Ute bands had been pushed aside by settlers' demands for grazing land and farmland.

From the Mormon settlers' point of view there were several reasons to go to war, they were chased out of New York, Ohio, and Missouri due to their controversial religious beliefs.

The whites had expected the Utes came to settle differences for 15 cattle that had been killed (one of which belonged to John Lowry), but Arapeen demanded restitution for his father's recent death to smallpox in the winter 1864–1865 epidemic.

Settler John Lowry, an interpreter for the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah, believed in being peaceful and friendly when friendship was possible and had learned Ute and Shoshone languages.

In addition there was a local drought in 1864, and the food shortage in Mormon settlements and the US Indian agent's failure to provide enough supplies to Utes on the new Uintah Reservation brought many native bands to the brink of starvation.

It is believed that Ute leaders, especially Chief Black Hawk, were aware that within a few years life as they knew it was about to end, creating "reservations" for tribes was a death sentence.

Chief Black Hawk's personal agony was due to his people becoming increasingly famished, sick, and their alarming death rate while being forced to live in the conditions of the reservations.

[citation needed] There were over 100 separate attacks, raids, skirmishes, murders, and massacres between April 1865 and October 1872 which constitute the events of the Black Hawk War in Utah.

While the troops cared for their wounded and took their dead back to Camp Douglas in Salt Lake City for burial, hundreds of Native American bodies were left on the field for the wolves and crows for nearly two years.

The Mormon settlers in Cache Valley expressed their gratitude for "the movement of Col. Connor as an intervention of the Almighty" in their behalf, and the event has historically been called "The Battle of Bear River."

In June 1865 he called all of the old-guard chiefs that he had negotiated with in previous Ute/Mormon conflicts to meet at Spanish Fork's Indian Farm to figure out a peace settlement.

The weeks following the Spanish Fork Treaty grew more tense each day as a string of isolated killings of white settlers and livestock thefts cost Sanpete Valley towns hundreds of cattle and horses.

One boy managed to escape saying that the camp had a paper from the Bishop at Salina stating that they were good Native Americans; the militia apparently had failed to ask to see their pass.

Manuelito, the most important chief refusing to relocate to the Bosque Redondo Reservation, jointly led Black Hawk's raids on Mormon settlements in southern Utah during 1866.

In subsequent years, the raids continued in the south by Navajos and Paiutes, which raised tensions to a fever pitch which would result in the worst massacre of the war at Circleville.

Black made a raid on Salina hoping to draw forces out of Manti, but Warren Snow believed the real attack would be in Sanpete Valley, so he doubled the guard on the courthouse in told his people to be prepared for a fight.

They broke into a cabin and took food and blankets and headed into the foothills southwest of Fountain Green near Cedar Cliffs (now called Birch Creek), where they were spotted.

[14][15] On April 21, 1866, an express from Fort Sanford reached Circleville, Utah telling of a Paiute who had pretended to be friendly had shot and killed a white militia man.

Scipio's men charged out after the herd, but were forced back when the Black Hawk's rear guard moved to attack the town which had been left virtually undefended.

Upon returning from the futile pursuit of Black Hawk, the younger James Ivie, hearing that a Ute had been in Scipio just hours before raced after Panikary and murdered him on the spot.

Up until that time a few hot-headed young fighters joined Black Hawk but Chief Tabby-To-Kwanah (Tabby)and others had kept the Utes in the Uintah Valley reservation out of the war.

Fearing another Salina Canyon disaster, the troops moved cautiously but on arriving at Soldier Summit Pass found that the Utes had split up and gone in different directions.

Mountain had led his men to Spanish Fork to exact vengeance on William Berry who years before had beaten Black Hawk with an old bucket for a supposed theft.

Fort building and evacuations of small settlements, combining livestock herds under guard, and the hundreds of additional soldiers patrolling commonly used canyon trails stymied the ability of Utes to drive off the numbers of cattle and horses of the first two years in the war.

With such a military presence in central Utah, Black Hawk moved his forces south and planned a raid on Parowan in Iron County, which until that time had not suffered anything but anxiety.

Two weeks later in August Black Hawk and a small band of followers rode into the Uintah Reservation and announced to the agent there that he was ready to talk peace with the whites.

In the light of the fact that Potter's throat was cut and his clothes scorched by the charge which killed him, and that Walker's shirt was set on fire by the shot which wounded him, such a claim is absurd.

The gathering alarmed both territorial officials and federal appointees who feared that the meeting might be the start of a great confederation to drive out whites from the valleys.

Musters and drills were forbidden and officers decommissioned while hundreds of additional troops were moved to Fort Douglas overlooking Salt Lake City.

Alarmed at the sudden outbreak of hostilities, Daniel Wells appealed to General Morrow for assistance in quelling the new uprising fearing that the limited conflict could quickly spin out of control.