Posted on 09/09/2009 6:04:19 AM PDT by Colofornian
September 11th marks the gruesome day when 152 years ago, some 120 men, women, and children were slaughtered in cold blood by a group of Mormons. The Mountain Meadows Massacre would be the "worst incident of organized mass murder of unarmed civilians" until the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995.
To understand how this happened, we must understand the relationship between the early Mormons and the rest of the nation
Shortly after being organized as a church, Joseph and his two hundred or so followers settled in Kirtland, Ohio. The church grew, but by 1837 many had begun to lose faith. The "Law of Consecration" was introduced and retracted. A bank founded by Smith and Rigdon failed. Disaffected members accused Smith of being "an insidious fraud." A mob attacked Joseph and Rigdon, tarring and feathering the former. Historian Fawn Brodie makes a controversial conclusion that Eli Johnson, one of those in the mob, may have been upset with Joseph for "being too intimate with his sister.
Smith had begun sending Saints to Jackson County, Missouri, a location he had proclaimed was once the Garden of Eden. He would later abandon Kirtland and go to Jackson County himself. The local Missourians were displeased with this new and insular religious sect moving in. Mormons tended to vote in blocs and they were buying up a lot of land. Tensions grew, and eventually violence against the Mormons broke out. When the Mormons were forcibly evicted from Jackson County, Joseph Smith gave a revelation of a parable in which land promised by the Lord could be reclaimed, by force if needed. This revelation increased the Missourians’ unease.
At about this time, prominent church leaders like Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer were excommunicated over various disputes with Joseph, including Joseph's "dirty, nasty, filthy affair" with his 16-year-old maid Fanny Alger, one of his first (unannounced) polygamous wives. About 80 Mormons signed a Danite Manifesto warning the dissenters to depart lest a "fatal calamity" befall them. Facing growing apprehension from the Missourians and dissent from within, Sidney Rigdon delivered a speech where he warned:
And that mob that comes on us to disturb us, it shall be between us and them a war of extermination; for we will follow them until the last drop of their blood is spilled; or else they will have to exterminate us, for we will carry the seat of war to their own houses and their own families, and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed...
The following month, a fight broke out when Mormons were illegally prevented from voting in an election. Later, Missourians began burning Mormon homes and plundering their possessions. General Alexander Doniphan arrived with a militia in an attempt to keep the peace, but the Mormons had set up their own militia and moved into Daviess County to fight back. They attacked the settlements of Gallatin, Millport and Grindstone Fork and burned them all to the ground. They continued to roam through the county, burning and plundering as they went.
A militia guarding Richmond and Liberty from the Mormons went against orders when it moved into the Mormon-run Caldwell County to intercept and disarm an approaching party. Fellow Mormons believed their comrades had been captured by a mob of Missourians, and they resolved to chase the mob out of the county. They didn’t realize it was a state militia they opened fire on. The Mormons won the battle, but inadvertently became enemies of the state. Exaggerated reports of the battle quickly spread. General Doniphan called for backup. A letter sent to the army explained:
The citizens of Daviess, Coroll, and some other normal counties have raised mob after mob for the last two months for the purpose of driving a group of fanatics, (called mormons) from those counties and from the State. These things have at length goaded the mormons into a state of desparation that has now made them the aggressors instead of acting on the defensive.
Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs wanted the Mormons out. He issued an extermination order stating:
...the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace...
Shortly afterwards, 250 bitter non-Mormons, many of whom had been forced to flee Daviess County during the Danite rampage, descended upon Haun's Mill in a surprise attack and killed 18 Mormons, including 10-year-old Sardius Smith.
Mormon settlements were now surrounded by state militia, and the Mormons were forced to leave the state. They gathered again at the Mormon settlement of Nauvoo, Illinois. By 1840, Nauvoo was a well established city. Joseph Smith became the Lieutenant General of the Nauvoo Legion, a militia of 2,000 riflemen. In 1844, Smith ran for President of the United States on a platform of theodemocracy. He also established the Council of Fifty, men appointed to take over political positions should the world’s secular governments collapse during Christ's return.
As in Missouri, the residents of Hancock County were becoming increasingly apprehensive about the growing Mormon presence. Not only were Mormons bloc-voting, but Joseph Smith himself was gaining an alarming level of power and apparently wanted more with his bid for the United States presidency. He was president of his church, mayor of his city, head of the municipal court, and had his own private militia. Some in Illinois saw the Mormon church as subversive to the law; Smith was successfully avoiding arrest attempts from Missouri. Word of Mormon polygamy was spreading, garnering a sense that Mormonism was an immoral religion that threatened traditional family values.
William Law was excommunicated when he voiced disagreement with Smith over polygamy and the church's dealings with the law. He subsequently established the Nauvoo Expositor, a newspaper meant to expose the church as a "public nuisance" and to publicize Smith's polygamy. Smith then ordered his militia to destroy the press and every copy of the Expositor. Smith and Hyrum were arrested for the crime and brought to Carthage jail, where they were murdered by a mob.
Mormons continued to be harassed throughout the county and eventually the state Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to disincorporate Nauvoo and dissolve its government. By 1846, the Mormons were abandoning Nauvoo and preparing to trek west.
A New Beginning
The Mormons finally had some peace in the Utah territory, although they remained suspicious of government intrusion. After being chased out of Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, enduring mob attacks, the massacre at Haun's Mill, and the murder of their prophet, Mormons were filled with a strong sense of persecution. (Persecution remains a part of the Mormon consciousness even today, although it is generally attributed to a sense that "the devil will fight against the Lord’s church.") In reality, however, the early Mormons participated in a back-and-forth struggle with wrongs committed by both sides.
This was a time when the temple ceremony contained the Oath of Vengeance, added after Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed:
You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto the third and fourth generation.
Brigham Young was President of the church and governor of the Utah territory. He encouraged self-sufficiency so that the territory could remain independent from the States. The federal government feared that Brigham Young was building his own independent theocracy, and Utah was increasingly viewed as a rogue territory that considered itself exempt from federal law. Brigham Young spoke of the United States as if it were a separate nation that was full of enemies. This attitude in Utah is reflected in an 1854 discourse by Jedediah Grant delivered at the Salt Lake City Tabernacle:
...I look for the Lord to use His whip on the refractory son called "Uncle Sam;" I expect to see him chastised among the first of the nations. I think Uncle Sam is one of the Lord's boys that He will take the rod to first...for his transgressions, for his high-mindedness and loftiness, for his evil, for rejecting the Gospel, and causing the earth to drink the blood of the Saints...
Brigham Young emphasized that peaceful travelers should be permitted to pass through Utah unmolested, but anyone who dared to cause trouble would have the Danites upon them. For his part, President Buchanan viewed Young as a danger, declaring:
...all the officers of the United States, judicial and executive, with the single exception of two Indian agents, have found it necessary for their own personal safety to withdraw from the territory, and there no longer remains any government in Utah but the despotism of Brigham Young... Governor Young has, by proclamation, declared his determination to maintain his power by force, and has already committed acts of hostility against the United States.
President Buchanan sought the support of Congress in “suppressing the insurrection and in restoring and maintaining the sovereignty of the Constitution and laws over the Territory of Utah.” He sent a militia with the intention of installing someone else as governor. When word of the approaching army reached Young, he began to prepare his Saints for war, having them stock up on supplies while a militia was sent to harass and slow the approaching federal army.
The Wrong Place, The Wrong Time
A group of families, known as the Fancher (or Fancher-Baker) party, had set out from Arkansas towards California. When they reached Utah, they had difficulty trading for much-needed supplies. The Utahns were not only suspicious of outsiders, but they were saving their supplies for what they feared would be an imminent battle with the United States.
Making things worse, a few months earlier the Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt had been murdered in Arkansas by Hector McLean. Pratt had converted McLean's wife and children to Mormonism and then married her as his twelfth polygamous wife. An angry McLean found Pratt and killed him, giving the Mormons another martyr.
Rumors spread that members of the Fancher party had previously harassed Mormons, were involved with Pratt's murder, and that one of them owned the gun used to kill Joseph Smith.
The Fancher party left Cedar City to continue towards California and stopped in Mountain Meadows for a few days to let their cattle feed. Stake President Isaac Haight wanted to send a militia after the emigrants. Other leaders rejected the idea, but another plan was hatched: get the Paiute Indians to attack them instead. John D. Lee was sent to organize the attack, but the Stake High Council decided to get Brigham Young's advice before proceeding. They sent a messenger to Salt Lake City.
Meanwhile, Lee went ahead with the attack. He had the Native Americans attack the emigrant party, killing seven before the Fancher party could circle their wagons and dig in for what would become a five day siege. Desperate for fresh water, they sent two riders to a nearby spring. One was shot and killed, but the killers were some of Lee's men, not Native Americans. The survivor returned to his party, and Haight feared their ruse was exposed. If word was allowed to spread that Mormons were behind the attack, it could be all the reason the government would need to attack, take their land, and scatter the Saints once again. Haight decided that the Fancher party should not escape alive.
Major John Higbee was ordered to march a militia to the emigrant camp. Lee and William Bateman approached the wagons with white flags and informed the party that they had arrived to save them from the Native Americans. They said they had negotiated a truce: the Paiutes would allow the party to leave in peace, but only if they left their livestock and supplies behind. The militia would escort the party back to Cedar City.
The Fancher party had little choice. They agreed to the terms and were split into three groups - the youngest children and a few of the mothers in wagons, the older children and mothers walking behind, and the men in the rear. An armed militiaman walked beside each adult male. After about a mile of marching, Higbee shouted the order, "Do your duty!" Each militiaman turned to the man he was escorting and fired. Paiute Indians and other Mormon militiamen hiding nearby descended upon the women and children. Within five minutes, all were dead except 17 children deemed too young to be able to tell what happened. The militiamen swore an oath to keep the slaughter a secret.
Brigham Young initially reported that the Native Americans were at fault. The federal government investigated the incident in 1859 and concluded that the Mormons were involved. Haight, Higbee, and Lee fled before they could be arrested. Eleven years later, Young excommunicated Haight and Lee. Lee was finally arrested in 1874 and executed three years later. He would be the only person held accountable for the 120 deaths in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
So, just as a murderer or serial killer will slaughter a victim of a rape to cover their crime, so, too, this lds bishop ordered his religious followers to commit mass slaughter to cover up the initial murders -- after the Mormons had already tried to deceitfully cover up their involvement by having the Native Americans involved in the initial siege.
The punishment for Haight's crimes? Eleven years later, Young excommunicated Haight and Lee.
There ya have it: Swift "justice" from the one Mormons decided to name their most prominent school after.
From the article: In reality, however, the early Mormons participated in a back-and-forth struggle with wrongs committed by both sides...When the Mormons were forcibly evicted from Jackson County, Joseph Smith gave a revelation of a parable in which land promised by the Lord could be reclaimed, by force if needed. This revelation increased the Missourians’ unease.
Mormons still believe a temple will somehow be raised on very specific Missouri property -- property they don't own -- and that the Mormon jesus will return there.
From the article: Fellow Mormons believed their comrades had been captured by a mob of Missourians, and they resolved to chase the mob out of the county. They didn’t realize it was a state militia they opened fire on. The Mormons won the battle, but inadvertently became enemies of the state.
From the article: President Buchanan viewed Young as a danger, declaring: ...all the officers of the United States, judicial and executive, with the single exception of two Indian agents, have found it necessary for their own personal safety to withdraw from the territory, and there no longer remains any government in Utah but the despotism of Brigham Young... Governor Young has, by proclamation, declared his determination to maintain his power by force, and has already committed acts of hostility against the United States.
From the article: In 1844, Smith ran for President of the United States on a platform of theodemocracy. He also established the Council of Fifty, men appointed to take over political positions should the world’s secular governments collapse during Christ's return.
Huh? In the history of the world? In the history of North America? Go look at Aztecs (10,000 sacrificed in a day). Go look at indian massacres of whole towns (the bloodiest war in North America by percentage was not the civil war) or government massacres of indian towns. Indians massacred each other to the point of genocide all the time before the white man.
This happened 152 years ago. I think that is about 7 generations or so.
So what is your point?
Mormons will be massacring non-Mormons?
I’m more concerned with Muslims frankly. They have a much longer and more thorough track record.
Even Lds prominent apologists (one representing FAIR) conceded in early August that Smith was practicing polygamy right out the gate of Mormonism -- 1831. And yet as late as...
...1842, Joseph Smith was still openly -- in print -- claiming that Dr. J.C. Bennett's accusations of Smith's polygamy -- what the Lds publication Times & Seasons references as "secret wife system" was, says Times & Season, a matter of his own manufacture
...and 1844, Smith's Times & Season was still lying: "The law of the land and the rules of the church do not allow one man to have more than one wife alive at once, but if any man's wife die, he has a right to marry another, and to be sealed to both for eternity; to the living and the dead! there is no law of God or man against it! This is all the spiritual wife system, that ever was tolerated in the church, and they know it. (Times & Seasons, Vol. 5, p. 715)
Does this mean that were Saudi Muslims to become peaceful over the next 150 years...
...should a discussion of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon arise...
...you'd be in favor of one of your descendents asking "what the point was" of even raising such a historical "footnote"?
If Muslims only numbered about 200 people, they would all be in jails as dangerous cultic lunatics.
I am not aware of ANYTHING in the Mormon scriptures that call for wiping out non-Mormons.
If you go back 152 years and work forward you will find very many similar violent incidents involving all sorts of people. Mountain Meadows was HARDLY a cultural anomaly in the long history of mankind.
The behavior of Muslims towards non-Muslims however, in its viciousness, its persistence and its effectiveness has no equal in the long history of violence of man against man.
First of all, we can agree that Muslims have a violent agenda. But that's not all Muslims, nor necessarily most Muslims. (Therefore, you project the intentions of the minority upon the majority)
Your comment above shows you didn't read the article, or at least all of it. Note this excerpt:
This was a time when the temple ceremony contained the Oath of Vengeance, added after Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed: You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto the third and fourth generation.
Now please explain how hostile vengeance on the minds of a minority of Muslims was different than the intent of this temple oath that many 19th century Mormons uttered?
The Muslims have been around since the 600’s. In that entire period of time they have not changed one bit.
I disagree with you. A lot of Muslims have changed more than one bit. (This comment betrays your lack of awareness that Muslims vary from culture to culture). Just as the vast majority of Mormons are probably no longer interested in carrying out the above oath...likewise, the more Muslims become secularized in Western nations, a smaller % of them are interested in carrying the agenda you mention from the 600s.
Certainly, there's a disconnect in your logic here if you claim 100% of Muslims are hooked line & sinker to a 7th century agenda -- all while you deny that a very small % of Mormons might still entertain a sacred temple oath that was uttered by their great and great-great grandparents.
True. most Muslims aren;t blowing themselves and other people up.
However, the teachings of the prophet Mohammad in the Quran and the writings in the Haddiths are very clear. I believe MOST practicing Muslims believe them.
The track record of Islam in its contacts with non-Muslims and non-Muslim societies has been unremittingly the same - intolerance, hostility and oppression.
With the exception of the Spanish in the Americas, no other religion has ever relied as much on the use of the sword to convert non-believers or to oppress them as has Islam. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what the Koran and Haddiths call for.
Islams believe the world is divided into two societies the House of War and the House of Peace. The House of War is where Islam does not control the mechanics of government in the form of a theocracy. The House of Peace is where it does and all non-believers are subject to the same Sharia Laws as non-Muslims.
It is no accident that radical violent groups have been spawned by Islam since its inception.
Unlike the Man of Peace who called for His followers to turn the other cheek, the founder of Islam called himself the Seal of the Prophets and stated he was sent to convert by the sword those refused to follow the teachings of Christ and Moses - as he interpreted them.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
O.K.
Then I guess you support reparations to American blacks for what slave-owners did to their grandparents.
Maybe Germany should be making reparations to all Jewsih Americans.
Perhaps France, Britain and Spain should be paying reparations to their former colonies.
I didn’t say anything about reparations to anyone. I simply stated that it wasn’t that long ago.
You know what they say about those who ignore history? Why do you want this particular historical event ignored? Perhaps that is a better question.
I don’t think ANY historical events should be ignored.
I just questioned the rationale for posting this now.
Today’s Mormons are not the same as yesterday’s Mormons.
I personally knew ministers who issued letters of racial identity just 20 or 30 years ago to allow non-North Western Europeans to buy property in restricted communities. All the individuals I know who did so regret having done it. Should they be penalized for having done this? I don;t think so.
People change with time - usually.
Muslims have not demonstrated ANY change in their way of thinking. It has been persistently pernicious.
SCP...ya gotta at least put some perspective here: I'm not sure why a few people get bent out of shape over several hours of posts per month by a handful of posters -- all the while over 60,000 Lds missionaries spend 80-hour weeks proselytizing -- the bulk of which is done on Christian homes or homes with Christian backgrounds. (That's half a million hours of weekly Lds proselyzing -- 26 million hours a year -- and that does include the rest of the Mormons).
Besides, probably 70-80% of the threads I post come from Mormon sources and few come from what Lds would call "anti-Mormon" sources. In some threads, the Mormons have more say up front than I do because the Mormon-sourced story is longer than my comment.
This way, religious expression of both sides is covered.
Dude
You are becoming obsessive
Should read "does not"
Do you know who John D. Lee is? Because your posts seem to indicate that I somehow want revenge, and in that case, if I wanted revenge on the descendants of the perpetrators, it would be me who pays.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m talking to a wall.
And when Paul said he would rather spend eternity in hell if only his fellow Jews could be saved (Romans 9:1-3), I think that's rather "extreme," wouldn't you? I think had we been Paul's companion, we'd told him to take a "calm pill."
Most of the threads I post are being published daily -- yet we don't accuse these publishers & journalists of being religiously obsessive. All I'm doing is passing these articles on -- and adding my own commentary, which is what a Free Republic is all about.
Yeah,yeah, yeah.
But it’s not the demonstrative loud-mouths you should be concerned about.
It’s the quiet ones.
Keep an eye on the Amish.
(/sarc)
It’s important to know this stuff. Yes, the slaughter was cold blooded premeditated murder, and I’m defending anyone or anything here, but the Mormons generally got thumped when they engaged in a fair fight.
No. I don’t know who Lee was.
I just know the general details of the massacre.
It was hardly an event that shaped American history.
I’m an early American history buff - like American Revolution and before, along with the Civil War, plus other areas of hsitory.
Mormon history is not something that particularly interests me although I did read parts of the Book of Mormon.
I’m HARDLY an historical wall beacuse I don’t know who your ancestor was.
LOL. You know absolutely nothing about Mountain Meadows Massacre if you don’t know who Lee was. Read the last paragraph of the OP and educate yourself.
Sounds like someone may be worried about Mitt Romney running again for President, and pre-emptively hoping to ruin his effort.
It was allegedly done by operatives directed by Brigham Young and the motive was a combination of hostility towards non-Mormons and greed as anything of value was taken by the Mormons and some young Mormons were kidnapped and raised by Mormons.
SOME TIME AGO I read a book by an individual who presented herself as a descendant of Mormon ancestry. SOME TIME BEFORE THAT I read ANOTHER book called Massacre at Mountain Meadows about the same incident.
In ONE of these books they refer to a group of selected Mormons - I can't recall their name - possibly Danites - whose function was to hunt down and recover or kill apostate Mormons who tried to leave Brigham Young's paradise.
ONE of these books said that a large number of Mormons were actually recent recruits from immigrants from the British Isles who really had little knowledge of Brigham Young.
If I remember correctly, after Mr. Smith's demise, another Mormon became leader of the Mormons but Brigham Young killed him or had him killed so he could take over.
Brigham Young came across as a very negative, violent, dark personality.
But every religion has its Torquemada and it did happen a long time ago. Time moves faster in America than in Europe - its relative. To most Americans today WW1 is ancient history.
But I will read the entire article after work hours - I don;t have the time to read it now.
Its fascinating stuff, but its impact on contemporary American certainly doesn't even approach that of Wolfe and Montcalm at the Plains of Abraham, and precious few modern Americans have the slightest clue about that or even a Wampanoag Chief named Metacomet (or Metacom) who almost drove the English out of New England with his “rebellion”.
Here in the Western United States, it has a great and lasting impact. Mormons were instrumental in the settling of the Western United States, especially the Intermountain West.
We’re probably just fly-over country to you American History buffs.
That is EXACTLY my interpretation of this entire posting.
But Romney has other problems aside from fundamentalist opposition to his religion. The Massachusetts Health Care Plan, regardless of how it was altered by his liberal successorts, will sink him.
Hardly. Its interesting stuff in its own right. I like cowboy action shooting and enjoy Louis L’Amore as well as real history about the west too.
But the Indian “wars” out there take up much more space and time. The “Mormon War” turned out to be a tempest in a teapot.
If you want real OLD history go east - but just for a visit. Its crawling with liberals and not a very nice place to live if you think like a real American.
If you want OLD history, go to Europe....or perhaps read your Bible.
American West History IS history. All of it....—— including the American Indian and the Mormons. It impacts us here in the West more than it would you out there in New Jersey.
;)
“If you want OLD history, go to Europe”
No thanks, I like it here in America fine but have read alot about it especially Ancient and Medieval European and Ancient Egyptian history”
“....or perhaps read your Bible.”
Every day
Are you a guy or a woman?
That is EXACTLY my interpretation of this entire posting. [ZULU}
Sorry to disappoint you both, but no, I don't wake up thinking about Mitt. (But we could try playing FREEPER Jeopardy and you could make your next selection of the category "Judging Heart Motivations for 20" if you'd like)
All I did was post an article already written by somebody who knew the 152nd anniversary this event was coming up this week. And why is it important for us to recognize this event?
Well, Tennessee Nana and Ruy Dias de Bivar were discussing this massacre on a FR thread last week -- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2327995/posts
Tennessee Nana, who has read more of this event, said:
Of course there will be an accurate rendering of the Mountain Meadows massacre where Brigham Young ordered the murders of 120 unarmed men women and children and babes in arms who were under a flag of truce, and kidnapped several children 7 and under and held them captive in starvation, want and squallor for two years before the US Army made them give them back...
And brigham young stolle the wagons, horses and cattle, and other belongings and money of his victims and never returned any of it... Even the bloody clothes on the bodies of his victims was stripped from their dead bodies..
Then Brigham Young left the bodies of his victims out on the prairee for two years and animals ate their flesh and scattered the bones...until the US Army, (again) buried their bones etc..and placed a memorial over the huge common grave..after which Brigham young ordered the memorial pulled down, and the grave destroyed and desecrated...
And Ruy Dias de Bivar, said in response: I read a history by a Mountain Man (I wish I could remember his name) who was a scout for the US Army when they retrieved the children from the Mormons. He said only firm discipline by the officers prevented the soldiers from lynching every Mormon they could find. the Cedar City Stake house still stank like a slaughter house two years after the massacre because that is wher the bloody unwashed clothing was stored.
You see, what you don't understand is that the atrocities committed on 9/11, 1857 didn't end @ the deaths of these men, women, and children. What if the victims of 9/11 in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania...
...had their 7 & under kids kidnapped for two years?
...were stripped of their bloody clothing by Muslims, only to hang bloody & unwashed for two years in one of their mosques?
...what if their naked corpses were just left for years at the sites where the massacres occurred?
...And what if a prominent Muslim leader ordered the destruction of a 9/11 Memorial -- and was rewarded by having the most prominent Muslim university in the world named after him?
(And these questions don't even address the culprits, one of whom "paid for" his massacre crimes by being "ex-communicated" by Brigham Young...wow! What justice!)
Bottom line: What we wouldn't stand for if it occurred anytime in the past 8 years becomes a weak ho-hum yawn just because more daylight (though less light) has passed since it took place.
I’m a gal. Does it matter?
No, it doesn’t. But somehow I thought you were.
I didn’t mean to disparage in any way western history, or Mormons or Mormonism.
I read a lot of books and in my 63 years of life I have gone through a great many. Its hard to remember everything I read. I read history like most people read novels and sometimes I forget characters, but remember the general script.
“Bottom line: What we wouldn’t stand for if it occurred anytime in the past 8 years becomes a weak ho-hum yawn just because more daylight (though less light) has passed since it took place.”
Not really. I didn’t mean to trivialize a horrific act. After the 2oth Century, I guess you get jaded about horrors.
My guess is the Mountain Man was probably Kit Carson. I know he was working for the U.S. military back then. He was active in the Navajo Wars as a scout.
That’s understandable. Lee was mentioned figuratively in the opening post, I assumed you read it.
Being a descendant of the only man who paid for this horrendous crime has been quite a burden on many in my family. The Udall family of politicians are also descendants.
I await the day when the truth is finally exposed, including the awful nature of Lee’s crimes as well as those who commanded him. I may wait forever.
***My guess is the Mountain Man was probably Kit Carson. I know he was working for the U.S. military back then. He was active in the Navajo Wars as a scout.***
It was NOT Kit Carson.
Since you are interested in American history let me ask you a question.
How did Joseph Smith’s prophecy fo Christ’s return lead to the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890?
fo=of
proofread,
proofread,
proofread!
Did the Ghost Dancers believe they were dancing for Christ?
If Kit Carson was not the Mountain Man, who was? John Beckworth?
I mean JIM Beckworth.
***Did the Ghost Dancers believe they were dancing for Christ?
If Kit Carson was not the Mountain Man, who was? John Beckworth?***
FOUND HIM!
FIFTY YEARS ON THE TRAIL by John Young Nelson.
Chapter 15
Our mission was, in addition to burying the bodies,
to chastise the Mormons for their cruelty, and the troops
required no inducement to do this. They had not for-
gotten the capture of our provision trains, and many
were the deep anathemas hurled at the unrelenting
scoundrels as we made for the scene of action.
Arrived there, the most horrible spectacle imaginable
met our gaze. There were skeletons all over the place
shining in the sun, picked as clean as ivory by the
vultures and wolves. Many were lying in the few
yards’ space that separated the ashes of the corral from
the water-course. Beside them were their pails and
other articles for carrying water, showing how they had
fallen. Here and there, hanging on the sage brush,
were tresses of women’s hair, and bones were scattered
about wherever the wolves had gnawed them.
The soldiers were much overcome at the sight, and
many brave men shed tears as they stooped to pick up
all that remained of their fellow creatures. Every trace
of a human being that we could find we reverently
buried, and then retraced our steps homeward, making
a slight detour of between seven and eight miles to call
at a Mormon settlement which we had been told was in
the vicinity.
There we went to the principal house in the place.
The village was deserted by the men, who had all fled,
not caring to settle scores with us. Indeed, from the
time we left Salt Lake we had not come across a male
Mormon of any description.
In the stables of this house we found several fine
carriages and horses, quite out of keeping with the sur-
roundings. These at once excited our suspicions. The
women that we saw were also dressed in silks and satins,
and wearing these garments as ordinary day clothing.
The house we ascertained belonged to John D. Lee, the
bishop of the district.
No one would give any information ; the women
knew nothing, and flatly refused to answer any of our
queries. We determined not to be done, and orders
were given that every house in the place should be
thoroughly searched. Whilst doing this we found a
child in one of them, a pretty fair-haired little thing
of about three years of age. Her hair hung in ringlets
down her back, and she was both bright and intelligent,
of a breed not to be expected amongst the class of
people who inhabited the place.
She was brought to me, and I took her to the officer
commanding the expedition. He put her on his knee
and began playing with hen We thought as we could
get nothing out of the women we would try the child.
After a time she became very talkative, and we
romped about with her, crawling over the floor and
amusing her to the best of our ability. When her con-
fidence was thoroughly obtained we led her on with
questions, so that when one of the elegantly dressed
women was brought in, she pointed at her and said,
“ That my mamma’s frock,” pointing to the dress that
the woman was then wearing. Then she said, “ Naughty
Indians come and kill mamma, papa, and aunty.”
This was conclusive proof that we had found the perpetrators
of the outrage, and it was as much as the officers could
do to prevent the men from lynching every woman in
the village.
Nelson was not always accurate in his story. He says only one child was saved while other writers mentioned children found eleswhere.
As for the Ghost Dance, Wovoka was raised in a white man’s home (David Wilson) to believe Jesus would return in 1890 as Joseph Smith claimed. Some say David Wilson was a Christian others say he was a Mormon.
Wavoka preached this to the Indians that the messiah would return then and resurrect the dead about 1891.
The Plains Indians misunderstood the message to mean the whites would disappear and the buffalo return if they did the Ghost Dance.
Interesting.
I never heard of that Mountain Man. Have to check him out.
When did they engage in a fair fight?
I pray that this comment is not a premonition on your part....and that the prominent muslim is not now residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW in DC.
The infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre, inscrutable enough just on the basis of the known facts, has been clouded over the past century and a half by myths and misconceptions.
Some such myths surround the 1875 and 1876 trials of John D. Lee, the only man ever tried and convicted for his role in the 1857 mass murder of Arkansas emigrants near Cedar City, Utah, by Mormon militia men.
In a May 22 session at the 44th annual Mormon History Association Conference meeting this year in Springfield, Robert H. Briggs, an attorney from Fullerton, Calif., and an author of articles on the massacre, appraised Lee's first trial.
The trials, the first of which ended in a hung jury, "presented a legal proceeding with implications far beyond the guilt or innocence of the individual defendant, a case in which the fate of the accused was threatened with being overwhelmed by larger issues and conflicts."
He called it "a case in which irreconcilably divided parties strenuously advanced positions to further their particular interests while all the while interpreting the trial through the prism of their own interests."
Brother Briggs said that for non-Mormons in the territory who opposed the Church's political dominance, the massacre was "Exhibit A" for what they regarded as "Mormon lawlessness."
The strategy of the prosecution was to establish links in the massacre to Church leaders in Salt Lake City, he said. "If they could implicate George A Smith [an apostle], that would be great, because that would just put them one step away from Brigham Young." In this, the judge who presided allowed them quite a bit of latitude, he added.
The jury was empaneled with eight Mormons and four "gentiles," and from the beginning, all sides recognized the probability that the case would end with a hung jury, Brother Briggs said.
Newspaper reporters at the trial scene sent dispatches mostly by telegraph, and the story was disseminated in every state in country, he said. "The prosecution, anticipating that they would receive much favorable coverage, and realizing that they might have a hung jury, made the very sagacious decision to try the case to the broader court of public opinion, which they were very successful at."
The trial ended with eight Mormons and one gentile voting to acquit and the other jury members to convict.
"Why did no Mormon juror vote to convict Lee?" he asked. In response he said that prosecutor Robert Baskin's closing argument went way beyond the issue of Lee's guilt and said the Mormon hierarchy was responsible, that the Mormons had a religious duty to shed blood, that Mormon men laid down their manhood when they became members of the Church by following the leaders.
"He has a whole section in there in which he says, 'I arraign Brigham Young.' "
Brother Briggs said Baskin insulted the Mormon men in the jury relative to their having made temple covenants.
"The strategy succeeded brilliantly," he commented. "During the otherwise slow months of 1875, the dramatic trial testimony had transfixed the nation. The Mormons', and particularly Brigham Young's, public reputation had declined precipitously. The Liberals [a political party in the state] were able to exploit the fact that despite the strong evidence of Lee's wrongdoing, the 'guilty' had failed to convict him. And the fact that not a single Mormon juror voted for conviction reinforced the widely held perception of the Mormon laity as a dupe of the Mormon hierarchy."
He concluded, "The Lee trials, particularly the first one, played a pivotal role in fomenting the national moral crusade that eventually transformed Utah's society, and politics and economy."
Yes. After this, for the next 15 years, Congress & fed marshalls stepped up pressure on both individual Mormon polygamists (even tho this was a separate issue -- it still represented Mormon lawlessness re: infractions & crimes) as well as the Mormon church itself.
America's "moral crusade" continued through at least 1898 -- when grassroots America produced 28 banners of 7 million signatures as an attempt to pre-empt Congress from seating then recently elected Utah would-be Democratic congressman B.H. Roberts.
What did Mormon Roberts do that so riled pre-activist America? Well, around 1893, Roberts took another plural wife -- years after even the Lds manifesto in 1890 which was supposed to start closing the door on polygamy.
Lds officials secretly solemnized over 200 additional plural unions between 1890-1910...and Utah voters voting in a Democrat polygamist who flaunted yet another plural union in their face was too much for Americans tired of relentless Lds lawlessness. Roberts was turned back and did not take a seat in Congress despite the wishes of Utah voters.
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