He aided European-American settlement of large areas of southern Utah and northern Arizona, where he was seen as an honest broker between Latter-day Saint settlers and the Natives.

Note that the first nine pages of Hamblin's autobiography "My Life with the Indians," were omitted in later reprints, so Mormon readers wouldn't know about the beautiful tall white nurse that appeared in Spring Prairie, Wisconsin in 1842, long before Hamblin had any neighbors, there were no nurses within miles of Spring Prairie in 1842.

In his memoir, Hamblin wrote of the moment he decided to support Young:"On the 8th of August, 1844, I attended a general meeting of the Saints.

When he was about to call a vote of the congregation to sustain him as President of the Church, Elders Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt and Heber C. Kimball (all members of the Quorum of the Twelve) stepped into the stand.

[8] In 1854, Hamblin was called by Young to serve a mission to the southern Paiute Indians and settled at Santa Clara in the vicinity of the modern city of St. George, Utah.

[citation needed] In August 1857, Brigham Young made Hamblin president of the Santa Clara Indian Mission.

Young directed Hamblin by letter to continue the conciliatory policy towards the Indians which I have ever commended, and seek by works of righteousness to obtain their love and confidence.

[9]Young had become aware in July of an approaching United States army ordered to invade the Utah Territory to put down a supposed "rebellion" among the Mormons.

Anticipating what would become known as the Utah War, Young urged Hamblin to "not permit the brethren to part with their guns and ammunition, but save them against the hour of need.

At Corn Creek near Fillmore, Utah, Smith, Hamblin, and Thales Haskell encountered the Baker–Fancher party, a wagon train of Arkansans en route to California.

[citation needed] Hamblin and his party continued on to Salt Lake City, where he stayed for roughly a week to "conduct Indian business and take a plural wife".

In Salt Lake City, Hamblin reported later that he was told that the Fanchers had "behaved badly" and had "robbed hen-roosts, and been guilty of other irregularities, and had used abusive language to those who had remonstrated with them.

It was also reported that they threatened, when the army came into the north end of the Territory, to get a good outfit from the weaker settlements in the south.

"[12] By one account, Hamblin was on his way home and was met by his adopted Indian son, Albert, who recounted the horror of the slaughter of the Baker–Fancher Party in the infamous Mountain Meadows massacre.

(Professor A. H. Thompson of the U.S. Geological survey once said, "I would trust my money, my life and my honor in the keeping of Jacob Hamblin, knowing all would be safe").

[15] As Hamblin continued south towards Santa Clara, he was told that a band of Paiutes was planning to attack a second wagon train, the Duke party.

Perhaps believing Lee's account that the Indians were primarily responsible for the Mountain Meadows massacre, he quickly returned south to prevent another slaughter.

[16][non-primary source needed] Upon reaching the massacre site, the diary of Sarah Priscilla Leavitt, Hamblin's third wife, recounts the horrors of her lying in the covered wagon as they got to the scene.

However, due to the amnesty proclaimed by the President of the United States to the Mormons, the new governor, Alfred Cumming, did not wish to discuss the matter.

[citation needed] However, they were also told that the Hopi would not cross over the Colorado River to live with the Mormons until the three prophets which had led them to their mesas returned to give them further instructions.

In 1870, he brought a minor Hopi leader, Toova, and his wife across the Colorado River to visit the Mormon settlements in southern Utah.

[citation needed] Earl Spendlove's article, "Let Me Die in Peace", states that Hamblin originally purchased Eliza, a Paiute from Utah of the Shivwit or Cedar Band, to free her from slavery.

Louisa Hamblin later wrote to her daughter that she had knit a pair of "pink stockings" for "Eliza's baby", illustrating that Jacob continued to help the Paiute woman he freed from slavery.

[citation needed] Hamblin was an invaluable diplomat between the Latter-day Saints and the Native Americans, surviving numerous dangerous encounters between the two.

Hamblin refused to return home, stating that "I have been appointed to a mission by the highest authority of God on Earth [Brigham Young].

The more intelligent part of the Indians believe in one Great Father of all; also in evil influences, and in revelation and prophecy; and in many of their religious rites and ideas, I think they are quite as consistent as the Christian sects of the day.

(See also, Millenium Hospitality book series by Air Force enlistee Charles Hall, where a tall white woman known as "The Teacher" recounts when she tried to introduce herself to the first (Mormon) settlers in Las Vegas, as they sat around the campfire.)

Hamblin, his brother and other Mormon settlers thought they were seeing the ghost of Jacob's second wife Rachel, who'd recently died after the Utah flood that washed their home away.