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In Utah the practice of purchasing Indian children originated as a natural response of the Mormons who had inadvertently fallen into the midst of the trade However, as the missionary opportunities such purchases presented became quickly apparent, the Mormons went out of their way to not only emancipate children from both Utes and Mexican slavers but to actively seek out opportunities to barter for them themselves. George A. Smith, for example, was not offered, but himself asked for, a child in compensation for an ox an Indian had stolen and butchered. Others asked Indians to locate children for them One of the duties assigned to Mormon missionaries sent to work among the Indians was to "secure all the Indian children they could."

The laws passed in Utah against the trade were directed at Mexican traders and were passed in hopes of shutting off the major slave market and bringing to a halt the Indian wars that were perpetuated by the slave raids. But in New Mexico just the opposite occurred. Spanish/Mexicans sometimes deliberately provoked not only intertribal warfare but also warfare between the settlements and the Indians for the very purpose of acquiring captives. Raids made in the name of military action justified the acquisition of captives who could be sold into the communities And individual, unofficial raids against Indian camps perpetuated ongoing hostilities.

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