That is so bogus FC this was NOT about another faith, this was about the Mobocrats who were renegades, men who were wolves similar to the KKK, and the Danites were no better, the good folks in the community did not agree with the violent of those who did dastardly deeds.
You did not live under those situations nor in that day and to hear you tell it meaning you are making this personal which being Lutheran did not even effect your life, (just becaues you happen to have some bad business dealings with someone who is LDS, Lutherans don't have crooks either I guess to hear you tell it!)you know all about it because you read some anonymous speculation on the internet.
Quick Answer: Who Were the Danites?
The Danites were a secretive group of Mormons organized and apparently abolished in the same year, 1838. They were founded by a man, Sampson Avard, who was striving to use the Church as a tool for power. Members were bound by oaths of secrecy to support what appeared to be a good cause, the defense of the Church in a time of mob persecution, but ultimately Avard sought to manipulate the Danites into a tool for retribution and violence. While much has been written about the Danites, it appears that they played a relatively minor role and their secret purposes were opposed once they were exposed to Joseph Smith. On the other hand, Joseph supported Avard's group for their openly stated purpose of helping to defend the Saints, and may have erred in not recognizing the dangers inherent in such an organization or the threat posed by the ambitious Avard.
Joseph was not the mastermind behind the Danites, but he gave them at least partial support initially, and his encouragement of militant action to defend the Saints may have made it easier for Avard and his Danites to flourish.
I do not accept the allegations that a violent group of secret Danites persisted for years as an approved tool of the Church - I find such claims to be without merit, though it has been the stuff of numerous movies, novels, and stories - all at least partly fictional. (For an example of rehashed modern allegations, see Wild Bill Rides Again: The Tanners on the Danites - an excellent article by Russell C. McGregor.)
Much of what anti-Mormon critics think they know of the Danites and Joseph Smith's association with them comes from testimony of Sampson Avard, who saved his own skin when he was arrested by testifying against Joseph Smith, the one whom the Missourians really wanted. Avard said Joseph was the one behind the Danites, that he was guilty of many great crimes against the Missourians, and that Danites swore to kill any who revealed their secrets or fought against Joseph Smith and the Church. For his traitorous and false testimony, Avard was released and Joseph was imprisoned for the next six months in terrible conditions in the Liberty Jail. If there were any truth to common rumors about the Danites or any truth to Avard's testimony against Joseph Smith, one would think that Avard would have lost his life for telling all. But, of course, Joseph had no such intentions. Avard was merely excommunicated for his apostasy.
Regarding the Danites, Mosiah Hancock, son of Levi Hancock, one of Joseph Smith's body guards, had this to say regarding the Danites:
Some people tried to class the Mormons with the Danites. The Danites were of a different stripe, however. The Danites tried to hold an outward friendship for the Prophet, and for the teachings of the Savior, but it was not skin deep. They tried to get a hog's office among the Saints, which proved their love for 'loaves and fishes'. They usually got a few traps that no decent devil would be justly proud of. Oft times they would locate a dwelling in a neighboring town on the prairie or in the woods. There they would let their bottom door swing in for all sorts of low-down characters to meet; where they could always boast of a deck of cards and a candle; and felt themselves safe from official scrutiny. They usually had plenty of horses when needed; and they were quite able to get up and speak in prayer meeting. They were hale fellows, well met with the black-legs and the apostates of the country. They would pay some tithing in order to pave the way for them to get benefits; and they would say, "Hurrah! for Mormonism" when they were around the Saints, and then some black-leg who belonged to the same gang would bawl out, "I'm a Mormon"! They have always been a clog in the Church and a clog in the counry wherever they have been. --Autobiography of Mosiah Hancock
Amazing, you are the first one to offer anything substantive AT ALL to what I’ve been posting. I don’t think you got Joseph Smith off the hook, he wasn’t known as General Smith for nothing and he had lead the aborted raid on Jackson County. But I do commend you highly for citing some original testimony. I’ll take a look at it as time permits.