Posey War

The first part of the trial concluded without incident but when the court adjourned at noon, Sheriff Oliver took the two boys to lunch. Sheriff George A. Hurst, who was present at the court proceedings, wrote the following:

Joe Bishop's boy was walking upon a large stick as though he were crippled or incapacitated. ... After hearing evidence presented for and against the accused, Joe Bishop's boy was found guilty and at 12:00 noon he was placed in the hands of Sheriff Oliver, to have lunch. He was to reappear at 3:00 p.m. for sentencing. Immediately upon the adjournment of court, all the white men left and went home for lunch, leaving no one there but the sheriff, George A. Hurst, Jr., a few school children, and a band of angry Utes. ... After quite a while trying to persuade the Indian boy to go without any avail, Sheriff Oliver got on his horse, rode up to Joe Bishop's boy ... and insisted that he come along without any further trouble and get their lunch. Whereupon, the young Ute threw away the big stick that he had been walking on, grabbed the reins of the horse the sheriff was riding, and jerking with all his might. At this point, Sheriff Oliver whipped out his gun and attempted to shoot the Indian, but the gun spiked, and would not fire. Joe Bishop's boy grabbed the horn of the saddle with one hand, the other seizing the gun that Oliver held. He wrenched the gun from the sheriff's hand and with one leap, sprang into the saddle of Jess Posey's [Chief Posey's son] race horse with Jess, stood holding and headed north. As he started off he tried to get the gun to work. He had only gone about 200 yards when he succeeded and over his shoulder he shot the sheriff's horse in the neck.

— George A. Hurst

After that Chief Posey fled with his people, closely pursued by a posse in a Ford Model T. Posey opened fire at that point with his .30-06 rifle, disabling the vehicle and temporarily ending the chase. Now that Posey was a wanted man, he went north with his band from their homes in Allen Canyon to the desert around Navajo Mountain. There followed a series of yellow newspaper reports accusing the chief and his band of being either directly or indirectly involved in a number of various crimes, including rape and murder.[8][9][7]

On March 22, the Times-Independent ran an article titled: "Piute Band Declares War on Whites in Blanding" [sic]. The article also said that county commissioners had requested permission from Utah Governor Charles Mabey to allow the use of a military scout plane to bomb and strafe the natives. This was not approved. A $100 reward was placed on Posey's head by the state, dead or alive. C. F. Sloane of the Salt Lake Tribune was in Blanding at the time and wrote hideously inaccurate reports of the situation. Sloane wrote that Blanding was surrounded for "thirty-six hours of terrorism", with Utes in war paint riding through the streets. He also claimed that Posey was forming a "mobile squadron" to rob the San Juan State Bank and that there were "sixty men skilled in the art of mountain warfare awaiting the call to service". On one occasion, a citizen of Blanding asked a newsman why he was not writing the truth; the newsman responded, "We're not ready to go home yet, and if we don't keep something going, we'll be getting a telegram to come home." Rumors began to circulate that another Indian war was about to begin so the Mormon settlers in Blanding and Bluff reacted quickly and mobilized a larger, mounted, posse to find Posey and his followers. They also tried to suppress any outside interference which had caused problems during the earlier conflicts. The posse trailed the chief's band and quickly caught up with them the next day, twenty miles from Blanding, inside a rugged area of desert strewn with canyons. The natives fought an unsuccessful rear guard action, from the top of Comb Ridge, to allow the women and children time to escape. All eventually surrendered though, over the course of the next few days. Posey escaped, but he was wounded by a bullet in one of his hips by a settler named Bill Young while trying to evade capture. Again the newspapers created their own versions of the story, one said that Posey was killed in a flash flood that washed him down a canyon, another said that he died of natural causes, being that he was in his sixties. Many Utes believed poisoned Mormon flour was the culprit but it is generally accepted that Posey died from blood poisoning caused by the gunshot wound. During the fighting, which lasted until March 23, Posey allegedly shot and killed the son of Joe Bishop when the two began to argue on top of the ridge. Posey was said to have been angry that Bishop's son and the other boy had caused so much trouble. Other accounts say the Bishop boy was killed by the posse.[10][8][11]