The darkest decades for Utah's Indigenous population
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Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Library of Congress, Warren K Leffler/Getty
Long-term population data for Indigenous Utahns is extremely hard to come by — but the stats available show it took decades for communities to start to rebuild after the influx of white settlers in the 19th century.
- This is Old News, our attempt to find the trendlines that were missed when they were forming.
Catch up quick: Historians have estimated that 20,000 Indigenous Americans lived in Utah when the Mormon pioneers arrived in 1847 — but that figure is probably low.
- It appears to come from an estimate taken by U.S. Census officials in 1860 — after more than a decade of settlement and displacement.
By the numbers: Census figures in the following decades show massive losses throughout the West until about 1890, when Indigenous populations in most states plateaued until the 1940s.
- Researchers have estimated that by the mid-1890s, the average life expectancy at birth for Indigenous Americans was around 40 years — a decade shorter than for white people.
Context: Around the late 19th century, the U.S. government shifted its tactics from removal to assimilation. The era of land allotments and boarding schools had begun.
- Some proponents argued individual land ownership and separation from indigenous cultures would save Native populations from extinction.
Instead, mortality rates skyrocketed — and were notably worse for people who were allotted land.
The latest: The recent explosion of the American Indian population by Census counts is largely driven by people increasingly deciding to identify as Indigenous.
- Yes, but: The number of citizens enrolled in Utah's tribal nations also is many times higher than population estimates a century ago.
