The Trial of Don Pedro León Luján and the Saga of Slavery on the Utah Frontier
New Year's Day 1852, in the Utah Territory, a Mexican trader from Abiquiú, New Mexico Territory was found guilty by a jury of violating the Trade and Intercourse Act of 1834. The law regulated "trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes," and required anyone trading with the American Indians west of the Mississippi (Indian country) to have a license issued by a government official of Indian affairs. It's true, Don Pedro León Luján's license did not permit him to trade with the indigenous people of the Utah Territory, but the true matter at hand had less to do with whether Luján was trading without a license, and more to do with whether he was trading in slaves. Three years earlier, when the first Mormon emigrant parties arrived in the Great Basin, the Utah Territory had been part of a Mexican province called Alta California, a vast state with its eastern border stretching partway into modern Colorado, its southern border partway into modern Mexico, and its we