Review: Making Space on the Western Frontier: Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes

By: J. Stapley - May 10, 2007

As a boy, my father summered with his grandfather on the Kaibab plateau. On horseback, they drove the cattle for a week at a time. Recently, when I drove with my family to the great desert monuments, his stories filled me. There are more stories than his, though.

Making Space on the Western FrontierW. Paul Reeve, Making Space on the Western Frontier: Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 231 pgs. $35.00

Reeve appears to be situated to receive the baton from the great waning generation of Mormon historians. Graduating with a BS and MA in history from BYU and receiving a Ph.D. from the UU, Reeve has chalked up a battery of awards for his publications. Reeve started teaching at SVU and is now an Assistant Professor back at the University of Utah and this recent publication is an adaptation of his doctoral dissertation.

After a brief introductory chapter, Reeve offers a series of chapters which could be described as optics to view the complex interaction of the three discrete and titular cultures:

  • 2. Making Space: a brief study of the rituals and traditions by which each of the groups lay essentially metaphysical claim to the land.
  • 3. Power, Place, and Prejudice: An excellent overview on the discovery of mineral wealth in the traditionally Paiute region and how the Federal government systematically carved up the Utah territory to benefit the miners and capitalists in Nevada.

Chapters 4-6 look at the interaction and accommodation of each culture from their own perspectives, one chapter for each. Then, before the conclusion, chapter 7, “Dead and Dying in the Sagebrush”, offers the converse to chapter 2 and Reeve reviews each culture’s dealings with the dying and the dead.

Making Space is, without qualification, an excellent volume. Chapter 3 has a fascinating discussion of territorial vs. states rights and the plans of one US congressman to carve up Utah territory to virtual inexistence. From our modern industrial capitalist’s perspective, it is almost shocking to see the agrarianism of the Saints and how most Mormons would likely be siding with the Federal government in a similar modern situation.

I also think that we sometimes view Mormon history in a vacuum. Mormons had their own version of Manifest Destiny to fill the place that Brigham confirmed with vision. While the Miners of Nevada are the least likeable of the three cultures (greed, lust, and violence are hard to champion, at least in retrospect), Reeve tells a well documented story of the American frontier. Reeve deftly navigates the three cultural milieus and we see the costs each group paid for the existence they believed in. We also see how each culture adapted and survived.

While Reeve does get his mileage out of his metaphors, the volume is readable and engaging. My biggest criticism is that I wanted more. Specifically, I think that the competition between fraternal organizations and the Church to meet the various sociological needs of the settlers could have been explored. Also, I was surprised to find no mention of the Ghost Dance in the book.

In a year where we remember the terrible events of 1857, Making Space is a wonderful way to contextualize the settlement of the Great Basin. The Mormons were not alone in the mountain west. As important as our own stories are, they are not the only ones and in order to ultimately understand our own, we must understand them all.

9 Comments

  1. Fun review — thank you. It is sometimes hard for us to remember, I think, that the Latter-day Saints found themselves and lived out their lives in the wild, wild West. The land is unwelcoming even today in an age when air-conditioning makes life in these areas tolerable. In the nineteenth-century, it was bleak indeed — and yet for many Latter-day Saints it was a paradise precisely because it was so desolate that noone else wanted it. That meant they could practice their religion and create their Zion — which as you noted was based on a communal system, a Mormon socialism — unmolested by people who found their faith ridiculous. That is, of course, no longer the case in the land formerly known as Deseret.

    Comment by john f. — May 10, 2007 @ 4:55 pm

  2. nice review.i will read the book.

    Comment by smb — May 10, 2007 @ 5:21 pm

  3. One thing I loved about this book is the way Paul makes so many of his points with illustrative stories rather than through tedious analysis set out in tortured academese. It’s very accessible and interesting to read.

    I’m looking forward to Paul’s MHA paper, which continues some of the themes of Making Space.

    Comment by Ardis Parshall — May 10, 2007 @ 5:34 pm

  4. I did notice a healthy “thank you” to Ardis Parshall in the introduction to the book…but it seems like every book I read comes with one of those (grin). And I agree with your assessment of the volume’s readability. I’ll definitely look forward to his paper.

    Thanks for the kind words, John. I would only amend your comment to say that the Natives did want the land, and in the case of mineral wealth, the gentiles did too.

    Comment by J. Stapley — May 10, 2007 @ 5:42 pm

  5. You’re obviously reading only the best books, J. (bigger grin)

    Comment by Ardis Parshall — May 10, 2007 @ 8:51 pm

  6. This looks very interesting. Thanks for the review. And congratulations to Dr. Reeve.

    Comment by Edje — May 10, 2007 @ 9:49 pm

  7. Thanks for bringing this book to our attention. As a Nevadan with Mormon pioneer ancestors on one side and placer miners on the other, I sometimes feel like the intersection of Utah and California.

    Comment by John Mansfield — May 11, 2007 @ 6:29 am

  8. Thanks for the review, J. My copy came in the mail a couple weeks ago. This will move me to actually read it and not just let it sit on the shelf.

    Comment by Randy B. — May 11, 2007 @ 7:11 am

  9. I received a kind email from Paul Reeve. Among his comments was a note on the Ghost Dance:

    As for the Ghost Dance: it was started and practiced among the Northern Paiute, a tribe more closely related to the Shoshone than to the Southern Paiute. The two groups are sometimes confused, but the Southern Paiute are more closely related, culturally and linguistically to the Utes than to the Northern Paiutes. Euro-Americans frequently assigned names to tribes that made sense to the Euro-Americans, but makes little sense to the Indians themselves (like Columbus with the term Indian itself)and little sense in terms of their historic, cultural, or linguistic relationships. The Northern and Southern Paiutes are a good example. The Southern Paiute didn’t practice the Ghost Dance, of which I’ve found any evidence.

    To which I responded:

    I was aware of the distinction between the Northern and Southern Paiutes, but I am not even remotely schooled in the intricacies of their histories. A while back I visited the National Monument at Pipe Springs, which had a display on the Ghost Dance and I just assumed that the Southern Paiutes had participated to some extent or another.

    He remarked that such a mention among the Southern Paiutes is out of place.

    Comment by J. Stapley — May 11, 2007 @ 2:32 pm