Nelson Winch Green reports Smith's recollections of the existence of enslavement of indigenous peoples in Utah.
Nelson Winch Green, Fifteen Years Among the Mormons (New York City. NY: Charles Scribner, 1858), 270
We then returned to my mother's who had tea ready, and when the meal was finished, Bowman went up town to put his affairs in readiness for the journal; and we saw him no more that night. With his company he had three Indian slaves, purchased as he said in Mexico.
That slavery exists not only among these Mexican and Indian traders, but also among the Mormons, and by authority of the Prophet is perhaps not generally known ; but it has been reduced to a regular system, in the territory, under their administration. Young Indian girls and boys, who are captives among the various tribes, are purchased, and trained as servants, and are now much as a recognized item of property there as the negro slaves of Louisiana.
The next morning, our house was filled with our immediate neighbors, the acquaintances of Bowman, as it was generally know he was to leave the city at an early hour, and would bide his friends adieu, after he had taken his breakfast at our house. Notwithstanding great efforts had been made by the Heads of the Church, to create a prejudice against him, he yet had many true friends among us, though none dare to advocate his cause openly.