Asked to account for this tragedy, the old Kaibabits Indian George explained it this way: “When white man come, lotsa Injuns here; alla same white man now. Injuns heap yai-quay [meaning lots of them die]; maybe so six, maybe so five, maybe so two in night. Purty soon all gone. White man, he come: raise’m pompoose. Purty soon lotsa white man.”
Early Explorations
Zion Canyon was known to the Indians from time immemorial, but its discovery by white men, so far as is known, dates only from the middle of the 19th century. However, the series of explorations in this region which finally led to its discovery cover the period of three quarters of a century beginning in 1776.
In that year a party of Spaniards passed through the region and crossed the Virgin River within twenty miles of Zion Canyon without knowing of its proximity. This was the remarkable expedition led by Fathers Dominguez and Escalante through portions of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona. The object of the expedition was two-fold. The Spanish government desired a direct route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Presidio of Monterey, California, and the priests themselves had dreams of founding new Indian missions in the unexplored territory beyond the Colorado River. The governor of New Mexico furnished provisions, Father Dominguez provided the horses and mules and Father Silvestre Velez de Escalante was the diarist of the party.[7]
The expedition set out July 29, 1776 from Santa Fe, passing through explored territory as far as the Gunnison river in southwestern Colorado, whence it struck out into the unknown. The priests were fortunate in finding a couple of young Ute Indians from Utah Lake, who acted as guides and who led them safely across the Colorado (Grand) and Green Rivers up the Duchesne to its headwaters and across the Wasatch Range to their home on Utah Lake.
Obtaining fresh guides, the party proceeded about two hundred miles into the deserts of southwestern Utah to Black Rock Springs near Milford, heading for the Pacific coast. They had been longer than expected on their journeyings. Fall was rapidly advancing. A snowfall on October 5 dashed their hopes of being able to cross the great Sierras still blocking their path to Monterey. Provisions were getting low and they were a long way from either Monterey or Santa Fe. Casting of lots determined that they should go back home.
Instead of retracing their circuitous route, they determined to take a short cut. They turned southeast, coming out of the desert that now bears Escalante’s name, a few miles west of Cedar City. The high mountains to the east forced them southward nearly a hundred miles along the foot of the rough and rugged escarpment known as the Hurricane Fault. This deflected them far from their intended course.
It was on this detour that they discovered the Virgin River and came closest to Zion Canyon. The party left the vicinity of Cedar City, crossed over the rim of the Great Basin at Kanarra and descended Ash Creek, tributary of the Virgin. A short distance below Toquerville they passed the three Indian cornfields with well made irrigation ditches, to which reference has already been made, and reached the Virgin River at the point where Ash Creek and La Verkin Creek joined it. Escalante called Ash Creek the Rio del Pilar. The main stream of the Virgin River above this point he named the Sulphur River because of the hot sulphur springs that flow into the stream about a mile distant from the point where the great Hurricane Fault crosses the river.
The party climbed out of the canyon alongside a volcanic ash cone or crater standing north of the present town of Hurricane. While some of the members of the party probably lingered to investigate the hot sulphur springs, others went ahead across the Hurricane bench and striking some Indian tracks, followed them out of the proper route and found themselves in the midst of an area of red sand dunes several miles in extent, sometimes called the Red Desert. This may be seen from the road approaching Zion from either St. George or Cedar City.
The sand dunes made traveling very difficult and by the time the party had plowed its way through and stood on top of a high bluff overlooking the corrugated valley below, both the horses and men were so tired they could scarcely make their way down the bluff to water at the site of old Fort Pearce. Here they found a desert shrub, the creosote bush (Hediondilla) and tamarisk trees (supposed to have been introduced from the old world).