Two sides:
[In my best WWF intro voice] In this corner, we have dozens of well-armed Mormon militia flanked by Paiute Indians. In the challenged corner, we have at least 18 4 & under kids (17 survived); several other dozen minors; dozens of more women; and the rest father-dads...not all well-armed at all.
Is that what you mean by two sides?
Can you tell me what a wagon train from Arkansas has anything to do with Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and Utah? Can you tell me how these folks were in any way threatening like the folks in Ohio, Missouri or Illinois that you elude to?
The ONLY WAY that you (& others who keep referencing TOTALLY SEPARATE incidents in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois) can keep trying to get away with this "two sides" friction fiction is to assume that somehow these Arkansas Gentiles were linked up as part of the grand persecuting conspiracy that also involved locals in three other communities (Kirtland, Jackson/Zion, and Nauvoo).
I've got news for you: There was no grand Gentile conspiracy on the part of settlers in Kirtland, Jackson/Zion, and Nauvoo.
That is pure friction fiction. Folks back in the 1830s and 1840s were quite isolated one from another, for one thing. You keep wanting to reduce this to "two sides" when in fact, it was a "multiple cube" kind of thing. Roll the dice when #1 comes up, that represents the Kirtland folks. #2=Jackson/Zion area folks. #3=Nauvoo folks. #4=Arkansas Wagon Train. #5=LDS folks who initiated violence in Missouri. #6=LDS who were victimized in more than one place. In other words, it's not a two-sided die; it's at least six sided...
Finally, major problems for LDS did not kick into high gear in Nauvoo until Smith & his cohorts brazenly broke the law & engaged in trespassing & vandalism. Someone who is mayor of the city & in control of a militia group & is running for U.S. president--all earmarks of most of Smith's "Nauvoo experience"--hardly made him a minority picked-on voice during his time there.
As for Missouri, there was two-way blood letting initiated by both sides (with LDS getting the worst of it both initially and in the final blow). But I'm not sure if it was all that more significant than what we've heard in history about the Hatfields and the McCoys going at it re: an ongoing feud.
Basically, where I would say that LDS have a legitimate beef about Missouri was the overall treatment they rec'd from the state leaders there. After violence opened up there, the state leaders should have done more to offer local LDS protection. But again, these state leaders were not in cahoots with anyone from Ohio or Illinois. (So stop reducing this thing to "two sides" as if everything was a conspiracy...interesting that much of all you read on "September Dawn" threads is the supposed "conspiracy" of a release date to coincide with Mitt's run.
I have never posted anything that used the Mormon persecution in the East as an excuse for the atrocities committed by Mormons at Mountain Meadows. Those who committed these heinous acts may have felt justified because of past wrongs but they were mistaken and their actions were evil. All those who participated in this barbaric episode will face God's justice in the end. That participation extends to those who may have planned and authorized those events.