My Journey to Understand ... Black Hawk’s Mission of Peace

The Timpanogos were first discovered by Spanish explorer Juan Revera in 1765, and later Dominguez and Escalante in 1776. They describe in their journals having met "the bearded ones" who spoke Shoshone.

Some seventy thousand Timpanogos Indians - the aboriginal people of Utah - died from violence, starvation, and disease after Mormon colonists stole their land and destroyed their culture over a twenty-one-year timeframe, but few people know anything about them, who they are, or what they believed in.

Timpanogos leader Black Hawk witnessed the worst kind of man's inhumanity to man, and himself dying from a gunshot wound traveled a hundred and eighty miles on horseback to make peace with the white man, and apologizes for the pain and suffering he caused them, asking them to do the same and end the bloodshed.

This is not a book that is just about the Black Hawk War, but a boy who became his nations leader believing that love can overcome hate. Hypocritical morality. One who respected himself and appreciated others because we are all human. He understood the natural order that all inhabitants of Mother Earth are connected. He loved unconditionally, and forgave unconditionally, that being born human makes you superior to nothing. He knew that true freedom meant being in harmony with his fellow man and all that our Creator gave us. He fought to protect the sacred, his people, and human equality.

Phillip B Gottfredson, who has spent decades living among First Nations people seeking to understand Native American culture, provides a detailed synopsis of the Black Hawk War of Utah that decimated the Timpanogos Nation from 1849 and 1873.

His account brings a much-needed perspective to a war that has historically been examined from the one-sided perspective of the Mormons. In collaboration with tribal leaders, he shares the Timpanogos version of the story, writing from the vantage point of the native peoples of Utah - a reference point that has been deliberately ignored.

Join the author as he shares his extraordinary spiritual journey into the Native America culture. and highlights a war that has been overlooked and misunderstood for far too long.