You are quite correct about the low profile of Mountain Meadows. I’m a little younger than you, and I never heard of MM till about five years ago, actually when reading a Mark Twain travel book. And I’ve been reading histories of this period for 40 years. I’d known of Haun’s Mill, for instance, for decades, although that may be partly because I grew up not far away.
For instance, there was a major massacre of “scabs” by labor unionists in Herrin County, IL during the 20s, and I’d never heard of it till a few months ago. 20 men were killed, after surrendering, as in MM.
Certain incidents in American history just seem to disappear, perhaps because they don’t fit the “theme” that a historian is trying to illustrate.
If 20 unionists had been killed in Herrin, or 100+ Mormons killed at MM, I’m sure these killings would be a lot more prominent in American histories. Then they would fit the theme of evil bigoted white men oppressing labor, religious minorities, etc.
But when evil bigoted whites are massacred, especially by the “good guy” minority, it doesn’t fit the theme and is therefore ignored.
Certain incidents in American history just seem to disappear, perhaps because they don’t fit the “theme” that a historian is trying to illustrate.
That and obscuring history. Notice what is missing from the final inscription!
Maj. Carleton, in his report to Congress, describes the scene at Mountain Meadows: women’s hair caught in sage bushes, children’s bones found in their mothers’ arms, and wolves picking at the bones. It was, he wrote, “a sight which can never be forgotten.” Carleton buried the remains and piled rocks into a monument topped by a wooden cross on which he inscribed “Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord.” Soon after, Brigham Young and his men tore down the monument. Over the next century, it would be rebuilt and destroyed several times, standing in the nearly inaccessible and otherwise unmarked massacre site. As time passed, the descendants of the victims demanded a permanent monument to honor their ancestors, and Brigham Young’s descendants wanted to clear his name. In an attempt to keep both parties happy, the state finally built a permanent monument in 1990, an ambiguous inscription engraved in a granite wall: “In Memoriam: In the valley below, between September 7 and 11, 1857, a company of more than 120 Arkansas emigrants led by Capt. John T. Baker and Capt. Alexander Fancher was attacked while en route to California. This event is known in history as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.”
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/massacre/meadows.html