After Huntington’s journal had come to light in LDS archives later, Provo historian David Bigler (in 1998) fleshed out the details of that September 1 council:
“Hamblin and some twelve Indian chiefs on September first met with Brigham Young and his most trusted interpreter, 49-year-old Dimick Huntington, at Great Salt Lake. Taking part in this pow-wow were Kanosh, the Mormon chief of the Pahvants; Ammon, half-brother of Walker; Tutsegabit, head chief of the Piedes;Youngwuds, another Piede chieftain, and other leaders of desert bands along the Santa Clara and Virgin Rivers. Little was known of what they talked about until recently when it came to light that Huntington (apparently speaking for Young) told the chiefs that he ‘gave them all the cattle that had gone to Cal[ifornia by] the south rout[e].’ The gift ‘made them open their eyes,’ he said. But ‘you have told us not to steal,’ the Indians replied. ‘So I have,’ Huntington said, but now they have come to fight us & you for when they kill us they will kill you.’ The chiefs knew what cattle he was giving them. They belonged to the Baker-Fancher train.” (”Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West,” David Bigler, 1998, pp. 167-168.)
Huntington’s journal can be read at
http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com
Utah historian Hubert Bancroft shed further light on Dimick Huntington’s activities:
“Major Carleton, of the first dragoons. In a despatch to the assistant adjutant-general at San Francisco, dated Mountain Meadows, May 25, 1859, he says: ‘A Pah Ute chief of the Santa Clara band, named Jackson, who was one of the attacking party, and had a brother slain by the emigrants from their corral by the spring, says that orders came down in a letter from Brigham Young that the emigrants were to be killed; and a chief of the Pah Utes, named Touche, now living on the Virgin River, told me that a letter from Brigham Young to the same effect was brought down to the Virgin River band by a man named Huntingdon.’ A copy of the major’s despatch will be found in the Hand-book of Mormonism, 67-9. Cradlebaugh says that after the attack had been made, one of the Indians declared that a white man came to their camp with written orders from Brigham to ‘go and help to whip the emigrants.’ “ (”History of Utah,” p. 561.)
Juanita Brooks quoted from Young’s letter to Jacob Hamblin of August 4, 1857: “Continue the conciliatory policy towards the Indians.....for they must learn that they have got to help us or the United States will kill us both......We have an abundance of ‘news.’ The government have appointed an entire set of officials for the Territory. These Gentry are to have a bodyguard of 2500 of Uncle’s [Sam’s] regulars.”
Of this excerpt, Brooks comments: “In the version of this letter.....printed in ‘Jacob Hamblin, Personal Narrative,’ by James A Little, the phrase ‘for they must learn that they have either got to help us or the United States will kill us both’ is not included. Neither is the entire paragraph which gives the ‘abundance of news.’ The reason for this deletion seems clear.” (Brooks, p. 35.)
The reason for the deletion of this passage in a pro-Mormon edition of Hamblin’s narrative is INDEED clear: The passage clearly shows that Young instructed Hamblin to prepare the southern Indians to help the Mormons act against the U. S. government forces. The excerpt also makes clear that, contrary to some Mormon apologists’ assertions that Young had no foreknowledge of why the Army was marching on SLC, and that therefore ‘justified’ Young in prosecuting his guerrilla war against Johnston’s Army, Young in fact knew very well that the army was sent to depose Young as governor and escort the newly-appointed governor and “an entire set of officials” to replace the territorial judges who had fled Utah fearing for their lives at the hands of Young’s “Danites.” Young’s foreknowledge of the army’s mission means that his orders to prevent the army from entering the Salt Lake Valley constituted an act of treason against the United States, as also did his illegal declaration of martial law; so that is why Mormon apologists deceitfully omit this part of Young’s letter when writing on the subject.
Brooks further offers: “Jacob Hamblin.....decided to take a group of the chiefs to Great Salt Lake City for an interview with the great Mormon chief, Brigham Young. His handwritten diary, as yet unpublished, says: ‘I started for Great Salt Lake City in company with Thales Haskell and Tutsegabit...He had felt anxious for a long time to visit Brigham Young. We fell in company with George A. Smith. Conosh [Kanosh, the Pauvant chief] joined us. Other Indian chiefs also joined our company. When we arrived in the city there were ten of them went up to see Brigham Young, the great Mormon chief. We encamped on Corn Creek on our way up; near a company of Emigrants from Arkansas, on the-——’
“Here the account stops abruptly, for the next leaf is torn out.....What Brigham Young told the chiefs in that hour was not recorded, but we might hazard an opinion that it was not out of harmony with his written instructions that ‘they must learn that they have got to help us or the United States will kill us both.’.....At that time Brigham Young had to be sure of his allies, for he was conducting a war against tremendous odds. The previous Mormon policy had been to keep the natives from stealing and plundering and to teach them the peaceful pursuits of farming and cattle raising, but now Brigham Young seemed determined that he would no longer “hold them by the wrist,” as he told Captain Van Vliet a few days later. The Indians must have started back home immediately, for in seven days they were harassing the emigrants at Mountain Meadows, and in ten days they participated in the massacre of the company.” (Brooks, pp. 40-42.)
In light of this information, it doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to deduce what Young told the Indians in that meeting ten days before the MMM. It also doesn’t take a great brain to understand why someone tore the next page out of Hamblin’s diary: it probably gave more details of Young’s “counsel” to Hamblin, Huntingdon, and the Indians as to what to do with the Baker-Fancher train. Bagley documents in “Blood of the Prophets” where pages of journals and other incriminating documents were torn out and destroyed, to eliminate the “paper trail” of evidence which points to Brigham Young’s involvement in the MMM.