page_title: Jacob Hamblin
section_title: Later missions to Native Americans
hierarchical_section_title: Jacob Hamblin / Later missions to Native Americans
context_page_description: Jacob Hamblin was a Western pioneer, Mormon missionary, and diplomat to various Native American tribes of the Southwest and Great Basin. He aided European-American settlement of large areas of southern Utah and northern Arizona, where he was seen as an honest broker between Mormon settlers and the Natives. He is sometimes referred to as the "Buckskin Apostle," or the "Apostle to the Lamanites." In 1958, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
context_section_description: In 1858, while he was in Salt Lake City, Hamblin was made a sub-Indian agent. That same year he was called on a mission to the Moquis (Hopis) of northern Arizona. He traveled southeast through Pipe Springs, crossed the Buckskin Mountain (Kaibab Plateau), and forded the Colorado River at the Crossing of the Fathers which is now under Lake Powell at Padre Bay. This was somewhat north of the later crossing at Lee's Ferry which he discovered. Upon his arrival at the village of Oraibi, he was told by the Hopis that it was prophesied that he and his companions would come and bring the Hopi knowledge which they formerly had. However, they were also told that the Hopi would not cross over the Colorado River to live with the Mormons until the three prophets which had led them to their mesas returned to give them further instructions. (See Hopi mythology). The Hopi also questioned why they should cross the Colorado River to meet the Mormons when they would soon have settlements to their south in any case. At the time there were no plans for Mormon settlements to the south of the Hopi, although Hamblin helped found Mormon settlements on the Little Colorado River years later.
  Hamblin went home, but returned on several occasions to keep up good relations with the Hopis and the Navajos. In 1862, three Hopi men accompanied him to Salt Lake City to meet Brigham Young. In 1870 he brought a minor Hopi leader, Toova, and his wife across the Colorado River to visit the Mormon settlements in southern Utah. Tuba eventually joined the LDS Church, and invited the Mormons to settle near his village of Moencopi where they founded Tuba City, named in honor of their Hopi friend.
  Earl Spendlove's article, "Let Me Die in Peace," states that Hamblin originally purchased Eliza, a Paiute from Utah of the Shivwit or Cedar Band, to free her from slavery.  Hamblin adopted Eliza when she was a teen. Hamblin and Eliza bore one child, a girl named Clara Melvina Hamblin, on November 5, 1876 (see Autobiography of Sarah Priscilla Hamblin donated by Sharon Black).  Jacob later took wives Priscilla and Louisa, along with Mary Elizabeth, Clara Melvina, Jake (Jacob Jr.), and the rest of his kids to Kanab, Arizona.  A Paiute known as Old Poinkum had run off with Hamblin's bride Eliza and hid her in New Harmony Valley, Utah; Eliza left her baby girl Clara with Jacob and Priscilla.  Later, after Priscilla Hamblin left Nutrioso ranch in Arizona, she and Jacob moved to Eagar, then Alpine, Arizona.  Priscilla never told Clara Melvina about her mother Eliza (whom Jacob nicknamed "Suzie").  However, Priscilla's kids eventually figured out that Clara was not Priscilla's biological child, as Priscilla had coal black hair and did not look like the like Priscilla's other kids.  Louisa Hamblin later wrote to her daughter that she had knit a pair of "pink stockings" for "Eliza's baby".  (Note:  Jacob and Eliza have living relatives:  Priscilla Turner, Jim Turner, Theresa Bingham, Douglas Bingham.  Eliza's cause of death and place of burial unknown.)
  Hamblin was an invaluable diplomat between the Latter-day Saints and the Native Americans, surviving numerous dangerous encounters between the two. In 1870 he also acted as an adviser to John Wesley Powell before his second journey through the Grand Canyon. Hamblin acted as a negotiator to ensure safety for Powell's expedition from local Native tribes. Powell related that Hamblin "speaks [the Indians'] language well and has great influence over the Indians in the region round about. He is a silent, reserved man, and when he speaks it is in a slow, quiet way that inspires great awe." Said a Native Chief to Powell, "We believe in Jacob, and look upon you as a father .... We will tell [the other Indians] that [Powell] is Jacob's friend."
  Hamblin attributed much of his success with the Indians to his conviction that he "had received from the Lord an assurance that I should never fall by the hands of the Indians, if I did not thirst for their blood." Indeed, on many occasions, Hamblin dealt with hostile Indians with no companion and carryi
caption: Hopi village of Oraibi
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