The Walker War in 10 Events
Statue of Walkara in Manti, UT First off, who was Walkara? When the first Mormon settlers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, Walkara (alternately spelled as Wakara or Wahkara), best known to the settlers as "Chief Walker," was probably the most powerful and influential man of the American Indian population living in Utah. By this time, he was believed to be in his late 30s or early 40s, having been born into the Timpanogos Ute tribe in the early 19th century near the Spanish Fork River. Walkara attained great wealth and notoriety in the 1830s and early 1840s stealing thousands of valuable horses from the ranchos and Catholic missions along the Old Spanish Trail in California, occasionally with the help of trappers like James Beckwourth and Thomas "Peg Leg" Smith. Fluent in the languages of many indigenous tribes, as well as English and Spanish, Walkara was also known as a skillful trader, sometimes trading in slaves captured from other tribes to Mexic