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A Glance at the Historical Roots of Mexicans in Utah

2024; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 92; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5406/26428652.92.1.06

2642-8652

Armando Solórzano,

Latin American and Latino Studies

Utah is an exceptional state in comparison to other states in the American Southwest. Its exceptionality is marked by being the last area colonized by the Spaniards, by the initially scarce Mexican population in the area, and by the overwhelming influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My intention in this succinct historical sketch is to provide a background for the Mexican and Latino experience in Utah and to show the depth of their roots in the area.The name "Utah" derives from the Ute, or Noochee, peoples who are Indigenous to modern-day Utah and Colorado. As with many other Native populations, the Utes' economic and social system was based on hunting, gathering, and fishing, and they were highly skilled at managing their quasi-desert environment. Their cosmology contemplated the cycle of life and sustained their belief in the immortality of the spirit or soul. This fabric of belief was widely shared among Indigenous cultures throughout the greater southwest region for generations before Spanish colonization began.1Along with their cosmovision, the Utes maintained a common language with the Aztec Indigenous group. The Uto-Aztecan language family, spoken for five thousand years, was common in what is currently known as northwestern Mexico. This language emerged from the sustained contact between the two tribal groups and utilized similar sounds that pointed to hunting and gathering instruments used by both groups.2 Moreover, the Uto-Aztecan language is also linked with other Native peoples, including the Mixtecs, Zapotecas, Mayas, Totonacas, and Purepechas, all from whom contemporary Mexico emerged.3For many Mexicans and Mexican Americans, Aztlán is the mythical homeland of the Aztecs, a sacred land full of fruits, water, and flowers. According to their mythology, Aztlán is the point of departure from which the Aztec people traveled until they arrived at Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). For Mexican Americans, the concept of Aztlán provides a foundational connection to the American Southwest as a homeland. To be sure, the historical location of Aztlán is a highly contested topic. Scholars have situated this land in the northern gulf of California, in the territory of New Mexico, or in the present-day states of Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming. Fray Gerónimo de Zárate Salmerón, a seventeenth-century Franciscan, claimed that the ancestral home of the Aztecs was situated at Lake Copala, a reference to Utah Lake in present-day Utah.4 Beginning in the 1540s, the Spaniards called the actual Utah territory Lake of Copala, meaning "the mythical home of the Mexicans, Aztecs, or Indians."5Likewise, in the 1980s, Cecilio Orozco, a professor at California State University at Fresno, speculated that the Aztec/Mexica civilizations originated in Utah. The genesis of the Nahuatl/Aztec people had "its center in Utah where the Green River, the Colorado River, and the San Juan River meet to go through the Grand Canyon." Orozco argued that in 502 BC, an Indigenous group left Utah and eventually settled in the valley of Mexico and founded Tenochtitlan. As evidence, Orozco pointed to the similarities between figures on the Aztec calendar carved in Mexico in 1479 and pictographs etched in 500 BC in Sego Canyon near Thompson, Utah.6 Whether or not Orozco's theory is accurate, it demonstrates the depth of the connection between the myth of Aztlán and Utah.Spain claimed a North American empire that reached from South America to present day Oregon. From the late sixteenth century, Spanish colonies grew in modern-day New Mexico and California. Finally, in 1776, the government of New Spain authorized the friars Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez to explore the northern territory beyond Nuevo México, in the first documented European expedition to enter what is now Utah. Indigenous people traveled with the Spaniards as guides, interpreters, and keepers of their horses and mules. Without the guidance of Lorenzo Oliveras, Lucrecio Muñiz, Andres Muñiz, Juan de Aguilas, and Simón Lucero, Escalante's journey would have not been "one of the most remarkable explorations in North America."7The expedition had two aims: to look for a route to connect Santa Fe and Monterrey and to convert Indigenous peoples to Christianity. Not surprisingly, the Spaniards gave Spanish names to the places they traveled and peoples they converted along the way. Many of the Spanish names were later changed by Latter-day Saints to accommodate the geography of Utah to their own religious beliefs.In September 1810, Mexico started its war of independence against Spain and reclaimed all Spanish possessions. The Mexican government never reclaimed the land from the Utes, Paiutes, Goshutes, Shoshones, and Navajos who lived in the territory.Between 1820 and 1840, hundreds of British and American traders and trappers crossed the Mexican border into the Rocky Mountain region, with the intention of trading horses and mules and trapping animals for their fur. The rivalry between Mexicans and traders became prominent due to the Mexican taxation system. To protect themselves against Mexico's "arbitrary and unwarranted" taxes, the traders invoked the protection of the United States. The trading companies claimed the territory for the United States.8 Other trappers became Mexican citizens, as was the case with Juan Rowland, Carlos Beaubien, Antoine and Louis Robidoux, José Ricardo Campbell, David Waldo, William Wolfskill, and Ceran St. Vrain. Antoine Robidoux became president of the Junta de Ayuntamiento in New Mexico and built the first trading post in Utah, Fort Uintah.The dispute over Utah's territory intensified considerably among Americans, Mexicans, Canadians, Spaniards, and British interests. Peter Skene Ogden, of the Hudson Bay Company, openly denied Mexicans the ownership of the land. He claimed that the land belonged to the Indians and the Indians belonged to the Spaniards.9 The Mexican government, according to Ogden, had no role to play in the dispute over the territory and its people.In 1847, several caravans of Latter-day Saints entered the Great Basin without the consent of the Mexican government. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were fleeing the religious persecution they experienced in the states of Illinois and Iowa. One of their intentions was to establish themselves in Mexico and enjoy the religious freedom protected by the Mexican Constitution.Six months after their arrival, the United States and Mexican governments signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the dispute over the borderlands. Fifty percent of the Mexican territory, including the modern states of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Nevada, and Utah, was annexed to the United States. The Latter-day Saints' priorities included expanding the population and building Zion, the Kingdom of God on earth. For this purpose, they immigrated thirty thousand converts from England and established the economic and religious foundations embedded in Mormonism.The movement of Mormons into Mexico extended beyond 1847 and the time of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. As Utah Territory struggled to gain statehood before 1896, federal anti-polygamy laws led some Latter-day Saints to cross the Mexican border and establish colonies in the states of Chihuahua and Sonora. The success of these colonies, however, faltered from the impact of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Many Latter-day Saints had to leave Mexican territory and cross the border of the United States to reunite with other members of their faith, especially those who were living in Blanding and Monticello.10The period of the Mexican Revolution became a pivotal time for the diplomatic relationships between the Mexican government and Utah's officials. To start, in 1911, Utah created the State Bureau of Immigration, whose goal was to promote Utah as "a splendid state for the best classes of immigrants." Utah needed Mexican workers to labor in the mines and on the railroads, and Mexico had plenty of them to offer. In 1912, four thousand Mexicans were hired to work in Bingham Canyon mines. One year earlier, in 1911, Mexico had established the Mexican Consulate in Salt Lake City. These emerging diplomatic relationships also considered the negotiation of the legal status of Mormons living in Mexico during the turbulent times of the Mexican Revolution.The roots of Mexicans in Utah, then, are deep—stretching, as they do, from tales of Aztlán to the exploration of the area by Domínguez and Escalante to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and on to the work of thousands of Mexicans, who gained representation through the Mexican Consulate. Although the history of Mexican Americans/Hispanics/Latinx is still in the making, this succinct historical sketch delineates only the surface of historical events and mythologies that have profoundly shaped the identities and outlook of present-day Hispanic/Latinx communities in the Beehive State.