The Whites Want Every Thing: Indian-Mormon Relations, 1847-1877

American Indians have been at the center of Mormon doctrine from its very beginnings, recast as among the Children of Israel and thereby destined to play a central role in the earthly triumph of the new faith. The settling of the Mormons among the Indians of what became Utah Territory presented a different story—a story that, as told by the settlers, robbed the Native people of their voices along with their homelands.

The Whites Want Everything restores those Native voices to the history of...