page_title: Utah War
section_title: Exodus to the Utah Territory
hierarchical_section_title: Utah War / Background / Exodus to the Utah Territory
caption_attribution_description: English: A map of the Mormon Trail.
context_page_description: The Utah War, also known as the Utah Expedition, Utah Campaign, Buchanan's Blunder, the Mormon War, or the Mormon Rebellion was an armed confrontation between Mormon settlers in the Utah Territory and the armed forces of the United States government. The confrontation lasted from May 1857 to July 1858. There were some casualties, mostly non-Mormon civilians. The war had no notable military battles.
context_section_description: Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), often called Mormon pioneers, began settling in what is now Utah (then part of Alta California in the Centralist Republic of Mexico) in the summer of 1847. Mormon pioneers began leaving the United States for Utah after a series of severe conflicts with neighboring communities in Missouri and Illinois resulted, in 1844, in the death of Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter-day Saint movement.
  Brigham Young and other LDS Church leaders believed that the isolation of Utah would secure the rights of Mormons, and would ensure the free practice of their religion. Although the United States had gained control of the settled parts of Alta California and Nuevo México in 1846 in the early stages of the Mexican–American War, legal transfer of the Mexican Cession to the U.S. came only with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the war in 1848. LDS Church leaders understood that they were not "leaving the political orbit of the United States", nor did they want to. When gold was discovered in California in 1848 at Sutter's Mill, which sparked the famous California Gold Rush, thousands of migrants began moving west on trails that passed directly through territory settled by Mormon pioneers. Although the migrants brought opportunities for trade, they also ended the Mormons' short-lived isolation.
  In 1849, the Mormons proposed that a large part of the territory which they inhabited be incorporated into the United States as the State of Deseret. Their primary concern was to be governed by men of their own choosing rather than "unsympathetic carpetbag appointees", whom they believed would be sent from Washington, D.C. if their region were given territorial status, as was customary. They believed that only through a state run by church leadership could they maintain their religious freedom. The U.S. Congress created the Utah Territory as part of the Compromise of 1850. President Millard Fillmore selected Brigham Young, President of the LDS Church, as the first governor of the Territory. The Mormons were pleased by the appointment, but gradually the amicable relationship between Mormons and the federal government broke down.
caption: The Mormon Trail from Illinois to Great Salt Lake City.
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