to the Salt Lake Valley, tensions began to build between the settlers and the Paiutes. The Mormons, led by Brigham Young, believed that the indigenous peoples they encountered were descendants of an ancient splinter group of Hebrews called the Lamanites, who were the primary antagonists in a book of scripture called The Book of Mormon, that they claim was translated by the religion's founder, Joseph Smith. Informed by the church's doctrine at the time, the Mormon settlers believed that the indigenous inhabitants needed to be converted to Mormonism in order to receive spiritual salvation; Chief Wakara himself had been converted. Slave Trade Wakara and his band had a very profitable slave trade with Mexican traders; they traded captives (namely children) from other tribes (mostly the weaker nomadic Paiute and Goshute tribes rather than the armed and mounted Shoshoni tribe) as products of tribal warfare with the Mexicans for goods. In order to increase economic wealth, Chief Wakara pressured the Mormon settlers to engage in his prospering slave trade, threatening to kill the slaves unless the settlers bought them. Although initially opposed to the idea, Brigham Young relented to purchasing the slaves. Young viewed this as a way to purchase the slaves' freedom and believed it to be the moral duty of the settlers to raise the children as Mormons. The relationships between the settlers and the purchased slaves ranged from familial relations to treating the slaves as house servants. Division of the Land There were many small disputes regarding the distribution of the land in the Salt Lake Valley. The Paiute Indians frequently went on raids, stealing horses from other tribes and settlers and growing their herds. Chief Wakara led some of the most profitable raids in that region, notably increasing the head count in his band's herd. When the Mormon settlers came, there was an assumption that things would continue to go on as they had been and that there would be a sharing of the land. What the Paiute Indians did not understand was that the settlers were there to stay, and the land that the pioneers would claim ownership over the lands that they settled. Frequent Indian raids on the settlers' cattle and horses led to conflicts between Wakara's band and Brigham Young with the rest of the Mormon settlers. Things escalated on July 17, 1853, when Paiute Indians were trading near Jame's Ivie's cabin. A dispute