The initial Mormon settlement in the Salt Lake Valley occurred in a joint occupancy zone between Utes and Shoshones, and therefore caused little immediate disruption. But as settlers moved south along the Wasatch Front, they began competing with Utes for the scarce resources of these valuable oasis environments. Pushed from the land, Utes led by Wakara retaliated in a series of subsistence raids against isolated Mormon settlements. The Walker War (1853-54) signaled the beginning of Ute subsistence displacement and the "open hand, mailed fist" Indian policy of Brigham Young--feeding when possible, fighting when necessary.

Between 1855 and 1860, Indian Agent Garland Hurt organized Indian farms at Spanish Fork, San Pete, and Corn Creek, hoping to encourage Utes to settle down and farm. Believing that staying in one place meant certain starvation--a belief borne out by consistent crop failures--Utes resisted agrarian settlement and the farms collapsed. In 1861 President Abraham Lincoln set aside the two-million-acre Uintah Valley Reservation for the Ute bands, but Autenquer, a San Pitch war leader, rallied Ute and Southern Paiute resistance to removal in a series of attacks and subsistence raids known as the Black Hawk War (1863-68). By 1869, starving and suffering from Mormon retaliation, Utes turned to civil leader Tabby-to-kwana who led them onto the reservation.