MORMON SETTLEMENTS IN MISSOURI VALLEY. 277 the prey of disease, poverty stricken, too cowardly to venture out from the shadow of their tepees to gather their scanty crops, unlucky in the hunt, and too dispirited to be daring or successful thieves. Further north, between the Niobrara or L'eau qui Court and White Earth rivers, were five or six hundred almost equally abject Poncas. The Pawnees had their villages south of the Platte and west of the Otoes, and the country to the north was yet the scene of frequent conflicts with their hereditary enemies, the Sioux. All west of the river was Indian country. A white man not specially licensed was a trespasser. The country was un- organized, practically unexplored, and to the world little else but a name. Sarpy had a trading post or so ; the Presbyterians had established a mission ; and a few troops were stationed at old Fort Kearney, now in the limits of Nebraska City. With these exceptions, the prairie sod of the Indian country was still unbroken by the plow of the white settler. A religious sect calling themselves Mormons, or Latter Day Saints, was founded in New York, in 1830, some sixteen years before the time mentioned. Its members increased rapidly. Successive vain attempts were made to secure a home, isolated from mankind, in Jackson, Clay and Caldwell counties, Mis- souri; and when finally driven from Missouri, in 1840, the Mormons gathered on the banks of the Mississippi in Illinois. They were welcomed for their voting power, and easily ob- tained a charter for the town of Nauvoo, so favorable it prac- tically made them an independent state within a state. But soon the surrounding inhabitants combined to drive them out. Five years of constant riot culminated in the assassination of the founder of their religion, Joseph Smith, the revocation of the charter of Nauvoo, and the complete overthrow of the Saints by superior physical force. After the election of Brigham Young as president of the Twelve Apostles, the Mormons promised to leave Illinois "as soon as grass grew and water ran," in the spring of 1846, provided meantime, they were permitted to dispose of their
