The Circleville Massacre
In Circleville, a small community in central Utah, one of the most violent acts of the Black Hawk War occurred. Unfamiliar Native Americans had raided the town’s cattle in 1866. As a result, the local and “friendly” Piedes, a Paiute band, were forcefully escorted into town and imprisoned on the suspect that they were in league with the raiders. When the Piedes tried to escape their imprisonment, several were killed. The surviving Piedes were again bound while the settlers decided what to about them. It was decided that every Piede old enough to tell about the incident would have to die. At least 16 Piede men, women, and older children had their throats slit and the remainder of the children were adopted into the community.
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The Circleville Massacre is remembered in Pauite oral history as follows:
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“There used to be a big old log house in Circleville, Utah, beside the road where it curves near where the potato cellars are. Years ago the white men at Circleville locked up in that house all the Indians who were living nearby and told them they were going to cut their throats. They began doing this by taking them outside one at a time and cutting their throats.”
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Similar to the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the Mormons in Circleville initially tried to cover up their crime and tried to make it seem like the Piedes were all killed while trying to escape. When Brigham Young learned of the full extent of the Circleville Massacre, years later, he was disgusted. The Circleville Massacre showed that the Saints did not always listen to Young’s advice of peace, instead taking extreme measures against those they had known for years.
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1. William J. Allred, Bishop of Circleville, to George A. Smith, 5 May 1866, George A. Smith Collection, Church History Department; Erastus Snow to General Wells, 25 April 1866, TMR, #1524.
2. Martineau, Southern Paiutes, 58-59. As qtd in Peterson, Utah’s Black Hawk War, 246-47.
3. Colonel R.N. Allred to Major William Seeley, 27 April 1866, in Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Our Pioneer Heritage, 9:180.
4. Daniel H. Wells to Erastus Snow, 3 May 1866, in JH, 3 May 1866, 3-5.