Sullivan Richardson stories

MORMON INDIAN RELATIONS

by Sullivan Calvin Richardson

4 TESTIMONY OF NIXY THE APACHE

The MILLENNIAL STAR, Volume 39, page 28, gives the testimony of a young Apache Indian who had gathered money to help build the temple. This synopsis of his address is quoted:

Gentlemen, I am not an Elder in the Church of Jesus Christ, only a loyal member, but I want to tell you people what the Book of Mormon and Mormonism have done for me.

About six years ago about this time of the year, as I came to my father's tent, I saw two strange men, like these Elders you see here tonight. I said to my father who was the Chief, "What do these men want?"

He said, "They have come worshipping the Great Spirit and they have a history of our forefathers."

Then I said, "Tis a lie".

My father told me not to be too hasty but to give them a hearing, which I did, and they proved it.

Now, gentlemen, before that time I was the wildest, fiercest of all my tribe ...the quickest with my knife, and a drunkard and a gambler. Since I was baptized into the Mormon Church I have never used my knife nor hatchet, nor drank any kind of liquor, used any kind of tobacco nor profaned the name of God.

Gentlemen, this is what the Mormons have done for me. I took six scalps after you Americans civilized and educated me, but never once since I joined the Mormons.

You are continually howling about the Mountain Meadow Massacre. My father was a young man at that time. Gentlemen, we the Apaches, killed those people. Those people killed a squaw and her buck for stealing a little cloth, and inflicted many other wrongs upon us, and we, the Indians, wanted revenge and we got it.

Let me tell you, gentlemen, my tribe is the meanest and fiercest of all the Indian tribes in the United States, and the Mormon people coming there has saved many a white man's scalp.

Now I want to bear testimony that the Book of Mormon is a history of my peoples' fathers, and I know it. I believe in the Great Spirit, God, and His Son, Jesus Christ. I know Joseph Smith was inspired and chosen of God to bring forth the Book of Mormon for the saving of our people.

(He was so well educated ...he can read and write several languages besides English and his own Indian Language. This education did not soften his feelings and spirit, but this testimony shows what the influence of the Gospel does for them. Copied by S. C. Richardson)

Another testimony was given by an Indian when I was quite young, on authority that I accepted without questioning. He also declared his people were really guilty ones in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and gave as the cause, the brutality that was inflicted by people in trains during the gold rush to California. One is too horrible to tell, yet does show how little feeling was shown by some who had no mercy when they felt the power was in their own hands.

The awful case was that a young squaw went to their camp to beg food for her hungry papoose. When they would give none, as she was leaving, she got a chance to steal a "scone" of bread (it may have been more) and was getting away with it, when they caught her and punished her by cutting off her breast, brutally disfiguring her.

As in the case of "Nixy", his people were so incensed, that when they got the chance and were once turned loose at the Meadows, there was no holding them.

CONVERSION OF JACK GALBREATH

Jack Galbreath, the "half Indian", was to be in conference in Hollywood, April 23, 1933, but had to return home and Brother Steed gave a sketch of his life.

He was born a Catholic. His revered mother died when he was about seven. (He doesn't know his age.) In Catholicism, as he began to study, he could find nothing to satisfy him for the eternal life of his adorable mother.

He tried Protestant faiths, but found them no better ...no greater hopes. His father was a Mason and had no time for religion. Jack was urged to work and study until he became a Master Mason, but nowhere did he find hope, or what he desired for his mother.

Then Mormonism came. In it he found just what he had sought... satisfaction for every desire. In a hospital, during an operation, he declared his spirit left his body and he was assured that the Gospel is true.

Through his endeavor, 220 boys and girls who had won prizes in schools, games, and different work, were given a trip to the Cardston Temple. There they felt its influence, and saw its beauty and heard the teachings concerning the baptismal font, etc., making it "the time of their life".