Help A Forgotten People

Author & Historian Phillip B Gottfredson 

THANK YOU! We have reached our goal !  I am grateful to everyone who has helped me achieve my goal, and to GoFundMe.com for providing this worthwhile service.  I couldn't have done this without everyone's help.  I will be closing this account soon.  - Phillip B Gottfredson  :-)







Hi, my name is Phillip Gottfredson and I am a historian and I need your help to raise funds to publish my book "Black Hawk's Mission of Peace" that has taken 20 years to research, document, and write.

Sometimes you come across a story that is so heartbreaking and inspiring it compels you to devote all your time and resources to. And that's what happened to me when I began to investigate the truth regarding the Black Hawk War in Utah.  Following years of dedicated research, I was shocked to find a Native American tribe no one has ever talked about because they have been deliberately ignored and left out of  Utah's history.  They are the Timpanogos who are Snake-Shoshoni and were first discovered by Spanish explorers Domingus and Escalante in 1765.  Still struggling to survive the result of the genocide that happened over 150 years ago, this tragedy has been covered up and forgotten. 

What began as a mere curiosity researching the Black Hawk War in Utah led to an extended period of exhaustive research, I had read all the books I could find on the subject when it became clear to me that all accounts were written from a one-sided perspective. I found that celebrated scholars and award-winning authors who have written about the Black Hawk War never asked or cared what the Native Americans they studied have had to say about their work. Nor did they ask them how they would analyze or, interpret their books, or if they have their own version of the particular story being told. Consequently, virtually every account about Utah's indigenous peoples is biased and based on assumptions, replete with half-truths, ambiguities, platitudes, and omissions. In 2003 I did what no historian has ever done… I turned to the Native peoples of Utah to get their side of the story.

My book, “Black Hawk’s Mission of Peace” is about a courageous young  Snake-Shoshoni Timpanogos warrior named Black Hawk who suffered unimaginable pain as he witnessed the brutal murder of his family while his world collapsed about him, still, he remained true to the sacred teachings of his ancestors. Its also about my extraordinary spiritual journey into the Native American culture to learn for myself their most sacred teachings and life-ways that made Black Hawk the great human being that he was. My book is both educational and inspiring, filled with my own experiences that were at times best described as surreal they were that powerful. My life was forever changed in a good and loving way. My book will inspire you to follow the path in your heart and realize your full potential as a human being. To become all that Creator gave you to be.

Excerpts from the book:
"People need to understand that Mormon polygamist leader Brigham Young spent over 1.5 million dollars of church funds to "exterminate" the "Indians of Utah" resulting in six bloody massacres, and some one hundred and fifty deadly confrontations that took place between 1849 and 1870. Over two hundred whites and nine hundred American Indians were killed. This does NOT include the untold thousands of Timpanogos who died from starvation and disease wrought by Mormon colonization. Of the some 70,000 Timpanogos living along the Wasatch at the time, government agency records reveal that Utah Indian population decreased by a staggering 90% or more leaving just twenty-three hundred Timpanogos alive when they were forced onto the Uintah Valley Reservation, there five hundred more died in the first winter from starvation. This is what gets left out of history and swept under the rug.

Black Hawk was an amazing human being. He was mortally wounded in battle while attempting to rescue a fallen warrior Whitehorse.  During the rescue attempt, Black Hawk positioned his horse between himself and Mormon militia when a bullet passed through his horse and into Black Hawk’s stomach. Still, Black Hawk Managed to get his brother to safety. Complications from the wound to his stomach didn't heal properly and caused him much suffering for years to come eventually resulting in his death.

I look at Black Hawk, and I see him as a human being who witnessed the worst kind of man’s inhumanity to man, and himself dying from a gunshot wound, yet he traveled a hundred and eighty miles on horseback to make peace with the white man. When he spoke with them, he said, “You have taken away our land. You have killed our women, children, and men. And you have spread disease among us. You have upset the natural order of things.” He then apologized for the pain and suffering he had caused them and suggested they do the same and end the bloodshed. Black Hawk set a powerful example to all he visited. He asked nothing in return, only that the bloodshed would end, to preserve life, and restore peace. Black Hawk was a true warrior whose only ambition was to save his people from total extinction. It took a lot of courage to put aside ego, anger, and resentment, and stand up for what he believed in, all while he was in severe physical pain. Still, he had the compassion to speak to those who had destroyed the only world he knew, asking for forgiveness, that would never come. You don’t see the settlers doing this. And so, it took a greater man, and a true warrior to do what he did.

Chief Black Hawk died in 1870, and in 1919 members of the Mormon church exhumed the mortal remains of Black Hawk and put him on public display in a window of a hardware store for amusement. His remains were then taken to Salt Lake City where he was put on public display in the LDS Museum on Temple Square for some 60 years. 

In 1996, it took an act of Congress, the help of National Forest Service archeologist Charmain Thompson, and the humanitarian efforts of a boy scout Shane Armstrong to find and rebury the remains of Black Hawk at Spring Lake, the place of his birth.  Shane Armstrong told me in an interview that he felt it in his heart he should find Black Hawk's remains, Inspired at the age of 14, Shane on his own makes contact with Thompson. Together they locate the lost remains of Black Hawk in a basement storage room, in a cardboard box, on Brigham Young University campus. No one has ever apologized or expressed any remorse to the Timpanogos Tribe."  

This book is a collaborative effort between myself and the Timpanogos Nation. I feel that the lives of their ancestors and all they suffered will be in vain if we do not acknowledge them now.

I want to show my gratitude by gifting to the Timpanogos copies of my book to the Tribes Council so that they may give it to their children, and their children for generations to come. This is the first book about the Timpanogos anyone has ever written. 

And by the way, during the Black Hawk War, my great-grandfather Peter Gottfredson was a young man, and being a friend of the Timpanogos was invited into the camp of Chief Black Hawk on numerous occasions. Peter authored a book titled "Indian Depredations in Utah" which is one of the oldest firsthand accounts of the Black Hawk War. My book will be a companion book. It seems more than a coincidence I should be following in the footsteps of my great-grandfather.

I just signed a book deal with Simon and Schuster/Archway yesterday 8/30/2019.  I desperately need to raise $3800 to meet final publishing expenses, please see details below.

Please help. it’s important to educate people about the truth.  We need each other.  Become an important part of my two-decades-long journey and give the Timpanogos people a voice. We are so grateful for your help to get this book published. Let’s do this together.  Every penny donated goes directly from my personal account to the publisher, NO exceptions!

Upfront costs to publisher                                                                  $ 3850


Most publishers require money up-front to design the cover, formatting the manuscript for printing, and the actual cost of printing.    

Rewards: Make a donation of $100 or more and receive a free personally autographed copy of my book once it is published.
All donors names will appear on the Acknowledgment Page of the book.   

For more information on Black Hawk's Mission of Peace please visit our website.

with kindness... THANK YOU! 


Phillip B Gottfredson
Utah Black Hawk War Historian
Indigenous-Day Award Recipient