Posted on 08/16/2007 12:24:15 PM PDT by DanielLongo
The Mountain Meadows Massacre By Richard E. Turley Jr. Managing Director, Family and Church History Department Print E-mail
Richard E. Turley Jr., “The Mountain Meadows Massacre,” Ensign, Sep 2007
This September marks the 150th anniversary of a terrible episode in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On September 11, 1857, some 50 to 60 local militiamen in southern Utah, aided by American Indian allies, massacred about 120 emigrants who were traveling by wagon to California. The horrific crime, which spared only 17 children age six and under, occurred in a highland valley called the Mountain Meadows, roughly 35 miles southwest of Cedar City. The victims, most of them from Arkansas, were on their way to California with dreams of a bright future.
For a century and a half the Mountain Meadows Massacre has shocked and distressed those who have learned of it. The tragedy has deeply grieved the victims’ relatives, burdened the perpetrators’ descendants and Church members generally with sorrow and feelings of collective guilt, unleashed criticism on the Church, and raised painful, difficult questions. How could this have happened? How could members of the Church have participated in such a crime?
Two facts make the case even more difficult to fathom. First, nothing that any of the emigrants purportedly did or said, even if all of it were true, came close to justifying their deaths. Second, the large majority of perpetrators led decent, nonviolent lives before and after the massacre.
As is true with any historical episode, comprehending the events of September 11, 1857, requires understanding the conditions of the time, only a brief summary of which can be shared in this article. For a more complete, documented account of the event, readers are referred to the forthcoming book Massacre at Mountain Meadows.1
Historical Background In 1857 an army of roughly 1,500 United States troops was marching toward Utah Territory, with more expected to follow. Over the preceding years, disagreements, miscommunication, prejudices, and political wrangling on both sides had created a growing divide between the territory and the federal government. In retrospect it is easy to see that both groups overreacted—the government sent an army to put down perceived treason in Utah, and the Saints believed the army was coming to oppress, drive, or even destroy them.
In 1858 this conflict—later called the Utah War—was resolved through a peace conference and negotiation. Because Utah’s militiamen and the U.S. troops never engaged each other in pitched battle, the Utah War has been characterized as “bloodless.” But the atrocity at Mountain Meadows made it far from bloodless.
As the troops were making their way west in the summer of 1857, so were thousands of overland emigrants. Some of these emigrants were Latter-day Saint converts en route to Utah, but most westbound emigrants were headed for California, many with large herds of cattle. The emigration season brought many wagon companies to Utah just as Latter-day Saints were preparing for what they believed would be a hostile military invasion. The Saints had been violently driven from Missouri and Illinois in the prior two decades, and they feared history might repeat itself.
Church President and territorial governor Brigham Young and his advisers formed policies based on that perception. They instructed the people to save their grain and prepare to cache it in the mountains in case they needed to flee there when the troops arrived. Not a kernel of grain was to be wasted or sold to merchants or passing emigrants. The people were also to save their ammunition and get their firearms in working order, and the territory’s militiamen were put on alert to defend the territory against the approaching troops if necessary.
These orders and instructions were shared with leaders throughout the territory. Elder George A. Smith of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles carried them to southern Utah. He, Brigham Young, and other leaders preached with fiery rhetoric against the enemy they perceived in the approaching army and sought the alliance of Indians in resisting the troops.
These wartime policies exacerbated tensions and conflict between California-bound emigrants and Latter-day Saint settlers as wagon trains passed through Utah’s settlements. Emigrants became frustrated when they were unable to resupply in the territory as they had expected to do. They had a difficult time purchasing grain and ammunition, and their herds, some of which included hundreds of cattle, had to compete with local settlers’ cattle for limited feed and water along the trail.
Some traditional Utah histories of what occurred at Mountain Meadows have accepted the claim that poisoning also contributed to conflict—that the Arkansas emigrants deliberately poisoned a spring and an ox carcass near the central Utah town of Fillmore, causing illness and death among local Indians. According to this story, the Indians became enraged and followed the emigrants to the Mountain Meadows, where they either committed the atrocities on their own or forced fearful Latter-day Saint settlers to join them in the attack. Historical research shows that these stories are not accurate.
While it is true that some of the emigrants’ cattle were dying along the trail, including near Fillmore, the deaths appear to be the result of a disease that affected cattle herds on the 1850s overland trails. Humans contracted the disease from infected animals through cuts or sores or through eating the contaminated meat. Without this modern understanding, people suspected the problem was caused by poisoning.
Escalating Tensions The plan to attack the emigrant company originated with local Church leaders in Cedar City, who had recently been alerted that U.S. troops might enter at any time through southern Utah’s passes. Cedar City was the last place on the route to California for grinding grain and buying supplies, but here again the emigrants were stymied. Badly needed goods weren’t available in the town store, and the miller charged a whole cow—an exorbitant price—to grind a few dozen bushels of grain. Weeks of frustration boiled over, and in the rising tension one emigrant man reportedly claimed he had a gun that killed Joseph Smith. Others threatened to join the incoming federal troops against the Saints. Alexander Fancher, captain of the emigrant train, rebuked these men on the spot.
The men’s statements were most likely idle threats made in the heat of the moment, but in the charged environment of 1857, Cedar City’s leaders took the men at their word. The town marshal tried to arrest some of the emigrants on charges of public intoxication and blasphemy but was forced to back down. The wagon company made its way out of town after only about an hour, but the agitated Cedar City leaders were not willing to let the matter go. Instead they planned to call out the local militia to pursue and arrest the offending men and probably fine them some cattle. Beef and grain were foods the Saints planned to survive on if they had to flee into the mountains when the troops arrived.
Cedar City mayor, militia major, and stake president Isaac Haight described the grievances against the emigrant men and requested permission to call out the militia in an express dispatch to the district militia commander, William Dame, who lived in nearby Parowan. Dame was also the stake president of Parowan. After convening a council to discuss the matter, Dame denied the request. “Do not notice their threats,” his dispatch back to Cedar City said. “Words are but wind—they injure no one; but if they (the emigrants) commit acts of violence against citizens inform me by express, and such measures will be adopted as will insure tranquility.”2
Still intent on chastening the emigrants, Cedar City leaders then formulated a new plan. If they could not use the militia to arrest the offenders, they would persuade local Paiute Indians to give the Arkansas company “a brush,” killing some or all of the men and stealing their cattle.3
They planned the attack for a portion of the California trail that ran through a narrow stretch of the Santa Clara River canyon several miles south of the Mountain Meadows. These areas fell under the jurisdiction of Fort Harmony militia major John D. Lee, who was pulled into the planning. Lee was also a federally funded “Indian farmer” to local Paiutes. Lee and Haight had a long, late-night discussion about the emigrants in which Lee told Haight he believed the Paiutes would “kill all the party, women and children, as well as the men” if invited to attack.4 Haight agreed, and the two planned to lay blame for the killing at the feet of the Indians.
The generally peaceful Paiutes were reluctant when first told of the plan. Although Paiutes occasionally picked off emigrants’ stock for food, they did not have a tradition of large-scale attacks. But Cedar City’s leaders promised them plunder and convinced them that the emigrants were aligned with “enemy” troops who would kill Indians along with Mormon settlers.
On Sunday, September 6, Haight presented the plan to a council of local leaders who held Church, civic, and military positions. Haight failed to mention that Lee and groups of Paiutes were already advancing toward the emigrant camp. The plan was met with stunned resistance by those hearing it for the first time, sparking heated debate. Finally, council members asked Haight if he had consulted with President Young about the matter. Saying he hadn’t, Haight agreed to send an express rider to Salt Lake City with a letter explaining the situation and asking what should be done.
A Five-Day Siege But the next day, shortly before Haight sent the letter to Brigham Young, Lee and the Indians made a premature attack on the emigrant camp at the Mountain Meadows, rather than at the planned location in the Santa Clara canyon. Several of the emigrants were killed, but the remainder fought off their attackers, forcing a retreat. The emigrants quickly pulled their wagons into a tight circle, holing up inside the defensive corral. Two other attacks followed over the next two days of a five-day siege.
After the initial attack, two Cedar City militiamen, thinking it necessary to contain the volatile situation, fired on two emigrant horsemen discovered a few miles outside the corral. They killed one of the riders, but the other escaped to the emigrant camp, bringing with him the news that his companion’s killers were white men, not Indians.
The conspirators were now caught in their web of deception. Their attack on the emigrants had faltered. Their military commander would soon know they had blatantly disobeyed his orders. A less-than-forthcoming dispatch to Brigham Young was on its way to Salt Lake City. A witness of white involvement had now shared the news within the emigrant corral. If the surviving emigrants were freed and continued on to California, word would quickly spread that Mormons had been involved in the attack. An army was already approaching the territory, and if news of their role in the attack got out, the conspirators believed, it would result in retaliatory military action that would threaten their lives and the lives of their people. In addition, other California-bound emigrant trains were expected to arrive at Cedar City and then the Mountain Meadows any day.
Ignoring the Council’s Decision On September 9 Haight traveled to Parowan with Elias Morris, who was one of Haight’s two militia captains as well as his counselor in the stake presidency. Again they sought Dame’s permission to call out the militia, and again Dame held a Parowan council, which decided that men should be sent to help the beleaguered emigrants continue on their way in peace. Haight later lamented, “I would give a world if I had it, if we had abided by the deci[s]ion of the council.”5
Instead, when the meeting ended, Haight and his counselor got Dame alone, sharing with him information they had not shared with the council: the corralled emigrants probably knew that white men had been involved in the initial attacks. They also told Dame that most of the emigrants had already been killed in these attacks. This information caused Dame, now isolated from the tempering consensus of his council, to rethink his earlier decision. Tragically, he gave in, and when the conversation ended, Haight left feeling he had permission to use the militia.
On arriving at Cedar City, Haight immediately called out some two dozen militiamen, most of them officers, to join others already waiting near the emigrant corral at the Mountain Meadows. Those who had deplored vigilante violence against their own people in Missouri and Illinois were now about to follow virtually the same pattern of violence against others, but on a deadlier scale.
The Massacre On Friday, September 11, Lee entered the emigrant wagon fort under a white flag and somehow convinced the besieged emigrants to accept desperate terms. He said the militia would safely escort them past the Indians and back to Cedar City, but they must leave their possessions behind and give up their weapons, signaling their peaceful intentions to the Indians. The suspicious emigrants debated what to do but in the end accepted the terms, seeing no better alternative. They had been pinned down for days with little water, the wounded in their midst were dying, and they did not have enough ammunition to fend off even one more attack.
As directed, the youngest children and wounded left the wagon corral first, driven in two wagons, followed by women and children on foot. The men and older boys filed out last, each escorted by an armed militiaman. The procession marched for a mile or so until, at a prearranged signal, each militiaman turned and shot the emigrant next to him, while Indians rushed from their hiding place to attack the terrified women and children. Militiamen with the two front-running wagons murdered the wounded. Despite plans to pin the massacre on the Paiutes—and persistent subsequent efforts to do so—militiaman Nephi Johnson later maintained that settlers did most of the killing.
Communication—Too Late President Young’s express message of reply to Haight, dated September 10, arrived in Cedar City two days after the massacre. His letter reported recent news that no U.S. troops would be able to reach the territory before winter. “So you see that the Lord has answered our prayers and again averted the blow designed for our heads,” he wrote.
“In regard to emigration trains passing through our settlements,” Young continued, “we must not interfere with them untill they are first notified to keep away. You must not meddle with them. The Indians we expect will do as they please but you should try and preserve good feelings with them. There are no other trains going south that I know of[.] [I]f those who are there will leave let them go in peace. While we should be on the alert, on hand and always ready we should also possess ourselves in patience, preserving ourselves and property ever remembering that God rules.”6
When Haight read Young’s words, he sobbed like a child and could manage only the words, “Too late, too late.”7
Aftermath The 17 spared children, considered “too young to tell tales,” were adopted by local families.8 Government officials retrieved the children in 1859 and returned them to family members in Arkansas. The massacre snuffed out some 120 lives and immeasurably affected the lives of the surviving children and other relatives of the victims. A century and a half later, the massacre remains a deeply painful subject for their descendants and other relatives.
Although Brigham Young and other Church leaders in Salt Lake City learned of the massacre soon after it happened, their understanding of the extent of the settlers’ involvement and the terrible details of the crime came incrementally over time. In 1859 they released from their callings stake president Isaac Haight and other prominent Church leaders in Cedar City who had a role in the massacre. In 1870 they excommunicated Isaac Haight and John D. Lee from the Church.
In 1874 a territorial grand jury indicted nine men for their role in the massacre. Most of them were eventually arrested, though only Lee was tried, convicted, and executed for the crime. Another indicted man turned state’s evidence, and others spent many years running from the law. Other militiamen who carried out the massacre labored the rest of their lives under a horrible sense of guilt and recurring nightmares of what they had done and seen.
Families of the men who masterminded the crime suffered as neighbors ostracized them or claimed curses had fallen upon them. For decades, the Paiutes also suffered unjustly as others blamed them for the crime, calling them and their descendants “wagon burners,” “savages,” and “hostiles.” The massacre became an indelible blot on the history of the region.
Today, some massacre victims’ descendants and collateral relatives are Latter-day Saints. These individuals are in an uncommon position because they know how it feels to be both a Church member and a relative of a victim.
James Sanders is a great-grandson of Nancy Saphrona Huff, one of the children who survived the massacre. “I still feel pain; I still feel anger and sadness that the massacre happened,” said Brother Sanders. “But I know that the people who did this will be accountable before the Lord, and that brings me peace.” Brother Sanders, who serves as a family history consultant in his Arizona ward, said that learning his ancestor had been killed in the massacre “didn’t affect my faith because it’s based on Jesus Christ, not on any person in the Church.”
Sharon Chambers of Salt Lake City is a great-granddaughter of child survivor Rebecca Dunlap. “The people who did this had lost their way. I don’t know what was in their minds or in their hearts,” she said. “I feel sorrow that this happened to my ancestors. I also feel sorrow that people have blamed the acts of some on an entire group, or on an entire religion.”
The Mountain Meadows Massacre has continued to cause pain and controversy for 150 years. During the past two decades, descendants and other relatives of the emigrants and the perpetrators have at times worked together to memorialize the victims. These efforts have had the support of President Gordon B. Hinckley, officials of the state of Utah, and other institutions and individuals. Among the products of this cooperation have been the construction of two memorials at the massacre site and the placing of plaques commemorating the Arkansas emigrants. Descendant groups, Church leaders and members, and civic officials continue to work toward reconciliation and will participate in various memorial services this September at the Mountain Meadows.
Notes 1. The book, authored by Latter-day Saint historians Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen M. Leonard, will soon be published by Oxford University Press.
2. James H. Martineau, “The Mountain Meadow Catastrophy,” July 23, 1907, Church Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
3. John D. Lee, Mormonism Unveiled: The Life and Confessions of the Late Mormon Bishop, John D. Lee (1877), 219.
4. Mormonism Unveiled, 220.
5. Andrew Jenson, notes of discussion with William Barton, Jan. 1892, Mountain Meadows file, Jenson Collection, Church Archives.
6. Brigham Young to Isaac C. Haight, Sept. 10, 1857, Letterpress Copybook 3:827–28, Brigham Young Office Files, Church Archives.
7. James H. Haslam, interview by S. A. Kenner, reported by Josiah Rogerson, Dec. 4, 1884, typescript, 11, in Josiah Rogerson, Transcripts and Notes of John D. Lee Trials, Church Archives.
8. John D. Lee, “Lee’s Last Confession,” San Francisco Daily Bulletin Supplement, Mar. 24, 1877.
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Not unlike what happened in Waco, Texas between the Branch Davidians and the BATF/FBI.
There must be a Mormon running for political office.
“For further reading, try “Massacres of the Mountains: A History of the Indian Wars of the Far West” by J. P. Dunn. There’s a chapter about Mountain Meadows, and lot’s about the Indian Wars, starting with the Pueblo Uprising.”
I’m sorry but I don’t get it. It’s about a book, that’s all.
Braveheart isn’t real? I’ve got that movie memorized as true history. Are you sayin Jollywood got to me again? Darn, I wish they wouldn’t do that. It’s like “300” that muslims are complaining about. Nobody knows the exact history of the Spartans so the movie itself is just a movie. I though very well done.
That's how long it has been since Hollywood has done a good factually based movie.
PEARL HARBOR may have done well at the box office, but it had so many factual errors, I can't even begin to list them all. TORA! TORA! TORA!, on the other hand, was excellent (at least by Hollywood's low standards) from the viewpoint of historical accuracy but was also a box office flop.
Don't even get me started on TITANIC. This was nothing more than exploitation of a historical event as background to showcase a sleazy love story and show off Leonardo DiCapitated.
In another 150 years, look for Hollywood to sound the alarm on al Qaeda, maybe.
It is about those writing the screenplay turning this tragedy into a “Mormon” conspiracy. They want to portray Church authorities as turning a blind eye to a massacre. They have also sought to sell the movie on the “secret cult” angle, an approach that only hillbillies buy into, but do nonetheless. They also try to imply that Church members accept or dismiss this horrific massacre. That is not the case. More troubling, is now FReepers are suggesting that Hollywierd can be trusted for truth finding and objective documentary. It belies their own prejudices.
You are exactly right about Patton and Tora Tora Tora. I didn’t think back far enough. Of course, we can all agree that it was a different day in Hollywood. It was before Nixon. That is about when the “storytelling” began. They know they can rewrite history, because unlike yourself, people wouldn’t know the difference. I did not see the other films, but I’ll take your word for it.
The book I recommended in my post was written in the 1870’s and has nothing to do with Hollywierd or Freepers. I stand by my recommendation.
Journal of Discourses, 26 vols., 2:, p.311-312
It was observed this morning that the government of the United States was the best or most wholesome one on the earth, and the best adapted to our condition. That is very true. And if the constitution of the United States, and the laws of the United States, and of the several States, were honored by the officers, by those who sit in judgment and dispense the laws to the people, yes, had even the letter of the law been honored, to say nothing of the spirit of it, of the spirit of right, it would have hung Governors, Judges, Generals, Magistrates, &c., for they violated the laws of their own States.
Such has been the case with our enemies in every instance that this people have been persecuted. If a person belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was guilty of stealing while living in the States, or if any of that Church were found guilty of murder, or any other transgression of the civil law, they ought to have been tried by the law, and have received the punishment affixed to the crime. Did any of the Latter-day Saints object to that! No, not one. Joseph the Prophet never objected to it, but on the contrary he urged it, prayed for it, and wished the Church to be delivered from all transgressors.
While we were in Illinois, if every transgressor of the law of that State, in our community, had been taken up and tried and punished, every Saint would have said, "Amen, we are better without than with them." So we say here, we are far better off without wicked men than with them. I would rather be in the midst of these mountains with one thousand, or even five hundred, men who are Latter-day Saints, than with five hundred thousand wicked men, in case all the forces of the earth were to come against us to battle, for God would fight the battles of the Saints, but He has not agreed to fight the battles of wicked men. I say again that the constitution, and laws of the United States, and the laws of the different States, as a general thing, are just as good as we want, provided they were honored. But we find Judges who do not honor the laws, yes, officers of the law dishonor the law. Legislators and law makers are frequently the first violators of the laws they make. "When the wicked rule the people mourn," and when the corruption of a people bears down the scale in favor of wickedness, that people is nigh unto destruction.
We have the proof on hand, that instead of the laws being honored, they have been violated in every instance of persecution against this people; instead of the laws being made honorable, they have been trampled under the feet of lawyers, judges, sheriffs, governors, legislators, and nearly all the officers of the government; such persons are the most guilty of breaking the laws.
To diverge a little, in regard to those who have persecuted this people and driven them to the mountains, I intend to meet them on their own grounds. It was asked this morning how we could obtain redress for our wrongs; I will tell you how it could be done, we could take the same law they have taken, viz., mobocracy, and if any miserable scoundrels come here, cut their throats. (All the people said, Amen.)
This would be meting out that treatment to wicked men, which they had measured to innocent persons. We could meet them on their own ground, when they will not honor the law, but will kill the Prophets and destroy the innocent. They could drive the innocent from their homes, take their houses and farms, cattle and goods, and destroy men, women, and children, walking over the laws of the United States, trampling them under their feet, and not honoring a single law.
Suppose I should follow the example they have shown us, and say, "Latter-day Saints, do ye likewise, and bid defiance to the whole clan of such men?" Some who are timid might say, "O! our property will be destroyed, and we shall be killed." If any man here is a coward, there are fine mountain retreats for those who feel their hearts beating, at every little hue and cry of the wicked, as though they would break their ribs.
After this year we shall very likely again have fruitful seasons. Now, you cowards, if there are any, hunt in these mountains until you find some cavern where no person can find you, and go there and store up grain enough to last you and your families seven years; then when the mob comes, take your wives and your children, and creep into your den, and there remain until the war is over.
Do not apostatize to save your lives, for if you do, you are sure to lose them. You may do some good by laying up a little more grain than you want, and by handing out a biscuit to a brave hearted soldier passing by, hungry and fatigued. I could hide myself in these mountains, and defy five hundred thousand men to find me. That is not all, I could hide this whole people, and fifty times more, in the midst of these mountains, and our enemies might hunt until they died with old age, and they could not find us. You who are cowards, lay up your crops another year and hide them away.
You know that almost every time that Gentiles address us in public, they are very mindful to caution the Latter-day Saints "not to fight, now don't fight." Have we ever wanted to fight them? No, but we have wanted to preach to them the Gospel of peace.
Again, they say, "We are afraid that you, Latter-day Saints, are becoming aliens to the United States; we are afraid your hearts are weaned from the brotherhood down yonder." Don't talk about weaning now, for we were weaned long ago, that is, we are or should be weaned from all wickedness and wicked men. I am so perfectly weaned that when I embraced "Mormonism," I could have left father, mother, wife, children, and every relation I had, and am weaned from everybody that will turn a deaf ear to the voice of revelation. We are already weaned, but remember, we are not weaned from the constitution of the United States, but only from wickedness, or at least we should be. Let every man and woman rise up in the strength of their God, and in their hearts ask no favors of the wicked; that is the way to live, and then let the wicked persecute, if they choose.
Are we going to fight? No, unless they come upon us and compel us either to fight or be slain.
It’s in my LDS Collector’s Library. But like I said, it’s waaaay out of context.
Convenient how they left out the part about the possibility of persecutors coming to Utah, attacking innocent Mormons, and we could respond the way the “gentiles” treated us. It leaves out all the context—that this was a statement that the Mormons believe in self-defense, and were sick of being pushed around by their so-called “Christian” brothers.
You are right. I didn’t even recognize the quote when I read from it. So, I was wrong about it not being in there. I won’t dodge that. Your point is accurate. Brigham Young never said “this is what we will do”. Rather, he used it to describe the treatment they had received for so many years. This blatant use out of context does, however, reaffirm my point that the website and its article are misleading.
Still, you can explain what happened, but not justify it. It's a terrible episode in the country's history.
That’s my point. Who is justifying it?
I’m still trying to figure out what the big deal is with all the Mountain Meadow Massacre mania recently. Was it a horrible crime? Yes, clearly, and it was shameful.
Does that mean that an entire faith is guilty of what some members did 150 years ago? No.
Is that shameful incident representative of an entire Church? No.
So, what is the point of all the publicity now?
The account is well written as expected; but penned with buckets of white-wash.
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