Explorers
Dominguez-Escalante Expedition
Southestern Utah remained untouched by Euro-Americans until 1776. Fray Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Fray Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, Catholic Franciscan friars, were commissioned by the Spanish government to open an overland route from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Monterey, California.[1] This new route would be important for economic, defensive, and missionary purposes. Spain had two lines of settlements spanning north from Mexico; one up the Rio Grande Valley and the other up the Pacific Coast. If a route could be opened to tie the settlements of the New Mexico and the California missions together, Spain could control a significant portion of the North American West. The padres led a party of ten (including themselves) beginning July 29, 1776.[2] The expedition lasted 159 days, returning to New Mexico in January of 1777, traveling over 1,700 miles. While the party was unsuccessful in reaching California, the journal kept by Domínguez and Escalante is the first record of the interior basin of North America. The padres’ perspectives on the landscape and Native cultures offer a glimpse of what the territory may have been like from time immemorial.
The padres' route took them north from Santa Fe into Colorado. The party explored as far north as present-day Bowie, Colorado. They then veered west, and traveled into what is today Utah, following the Green River over to Utah Lake, near present-day Payson. Along the way, they encountered different Native nations. The padres took every opportunity to leave gifts and lay a foundation for future missionary work.[3]
By October of 1776, the party had traveled further southwest, near present-day Minersville.[4] They were facing an early winter, low provisions, and unknown territory. The padres were anxious about potentially closed mountain passes, as well as having to winter in Monterey. They also feared that delaying a quick return could “frustrate” the good will fostered with the Native people they had encountered thus far.[5] They decided to continue south, intending to find a quicker route back to New Mexico and spread their faith to even more Indigenous peoples. This decision brought the party into present-day Iron and Washington counties.[6]
While traveling through southern Utah and northern Arizona, the Dominguez-Escalante party met a few Southern Paiute bands. Near present-day Cedar City, the party encountered around twenty women gathering grass seed. A few women were “forcibly detained,” but after soothing their fears, the party learned that “many” of their people lived in the area.[7] The women also helped the travelers to estimate the location of the Colorado River.[8] While traveling further south, the padres recorded finding Indigenous farmlands with “well-dug irrigation ditches.”[9] The Southern Paiutes were wary of the travelers; many fled rather than interact with the strangers, and more than one conscripted guide lost the party in canyons.[10] Despite this wariness, the party found the Southern Paiute people to be incredibly generous. After running out of food and water, bands led the party to water and shared their own finite food sources.[11] The small party likely would not have survived without the Southern Paiute aid.
Often referred to as Mountain Men, fur traders and pathfinders were a new group of Euro-Americans to venture into Utah. During the decades between the Dominguez-Escalante expedition and recorded American trapping expeditions, Mexico achieved independence from Spain. Mexican independence allowed more opportunities for American trappers to venture west.[12] Pathfinders were eager to find a route connecting Missouri to the Pacific Coast, and secure areas rich with beaver. The first pathfinder to achieve this was Jedediah Smith.[13] He opened two different overland routes to California, by traveling south through present-day St. George, Utah and back east through the Sierra Nevadas.
Smith kept a descriptive record of his journeys, from landscapes to Indigenous peoples. His maps show true “geographical concern” beyond just a commercial venture to find beaver.[14] Smith was an early investigator for this new territory, sharing details about timber, water, and game for future explorers and settlers.[15] Smith had hoped to trap all winter in the “moderate climate” of the Southwest, but the population sizes of beaver were not enough to open a new trapping territory. [16]
Smith’s expeditions greatly influenced mapmakers, including John C. Frémont.[17] Frémont led and directed multiple western expeditions. The United States Congress printed thousands of copies of his report that inspired and assisted many emigration efforts to the Pacific Coast. Frémont’s descriptions of Utah were a primary inspiration for the eventual settlement of Utah by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His report included many details about the region from the “great” grazing capabilities and potential for agriculture, ultimately writing, “individual and national wealth may be found” in the territory.[18] His expedition included the first scientific exploration of the Great Salt Lake and his travels also brought him through Southern Utah. He and his men paused near Mountain Meadows and wrote the valley was “a very suitable place to recover from the fatigue and exhaustion of a month’s suffering in the hot and sterile desert.” [19]
Many travelers ventured through Utah, from trappers and traders to emigrants en route to California or Oregon. The first permanent Euro-American settlers, however, did not arrive until 1846.
Citations
[1] Leroy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen, Old Spanish Trail Santa Fe to Los Angeles (Arthur H. Clark Company, 1954), 41.
[2] Silvestre Velez De Escalante, The Dominguez-Escalante journal: their expedition through Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico in 1776, (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995), 5, 143.
[3] Escalante, The Dominguez-Escalante Journal, 68.
[12] Hafen and Hafen, The Old Spanish Trail, 92-93.
[13] Jedediah S. Smith, The Southwest Expedition of Jedediah S. Smith His personal account of the journey to California, 1826-1827 (University of Nebraska Press, 1977), 8-9.
[14] Smith, Southwest Expedition, 23.
[17] Alexander L. Baugh, “John C. Frémont’s 1843–44 Western Expedition and Its Influence on Mormon Settlement in Utah,” in Far Away in the West: Reflections on the Mormon Pioneer Trail, edited by Scott C. Esplin, Richard E. Bennett, Susan Easton Black, and Craig K. Manscill (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015), 23–55, https://rsc.byu.edu/far-away-west/john-c-fremonts-1843-44-western-expedition-its-influence-mormon-settlement-utah.
Edward Leo Lyman, “Rethinking Jedediah S. Smith’s Southwestern Expeditions,” Utah Historical Quarterly 84, no. 4 (2016): 277, https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume84_2016_number4/6.
[18] John Charles Fremont, Report of the exploring expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the year 1842, and to Oregon and north California in the years 1843-44, (Gales and Seaton, 1845), 277.
Images
Jedediah Smith, circa 1835, The Fine Arts Press (Santa Ana, CA.: 1934), drawing, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jedediah_Smith.jpg.
John Charles Frémont and John James Abert, Map of an exploring expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the year and to Oregon & north California in the years 1843-44, Edward Weber & Co, and United States Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Senate, 1844), map, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/96688042/.
Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, Plano geografico de los descubrimientos hechos por Dn. Bernardo Miera y Pacheco y los RRs. Ps. Fr. Francisco Atanasio Dominguez y Fr. Silvestre Veles : S. Felipe Rt. de Chiguagua, 1778, manuscript map, Yale University Library Digital Collections. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2002707?child_oid=1009965.
Lee Greene Richards, Father Escalante Discovers Utah Lake, 1776, 1935, pendentive, Wikimedia Commons, photo by Beneathtimp, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pendentive_-_Father_Escalante_Discovers_Utah_Lake,_1776_-_Utah_State_Capitol.jpg.