Posted on 09/11/2011 10:15:02 PM PDT by SmithL
The southern Utah site of a wagon train massacre was dedicated Sunday as a national historic landmark 154 years to the day after the tragedy occurred.
About 350 people watched as Zion National Park Superintendent Jock Whitworth presented plaques to mark the Mountain Meadows Massacre Historic Site 30 miles north of St. George.
The 760-acre site is where 120 members of an Arkansas wagon train were shot and killed by a Mormon militia on Sept. 11, 1857. The Baker-Fancher wagon train stopped in the meadows on its way to California when it was attacked.
Government officials, church leaders and descendants of the pioneers spoke at the dedication ceremony, which took place under sunny skies two months after the U.S. Interior Department upgraded the site's status to a historic landmark.
Whitworth hailed the designation, saying it represents a "reconciliation" among different groups involved. Historic landmarks have "exceptional value and quality" in teaching Americans about their past, he added.
"Each national historic landmark is an indispensable chapter in our national story," he told the crowd. "They include the shining episodes, but they also include the darkest and most difficult, even the one that occurred here 154 years ago today."
The presidents of the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation, Mountain Meadows Association and Mountain Meadows Massacre Descendants led a prayer and then read the names of each victim and survivor of the wagon train.
The descendant organizations worked for nearly a decade to elevate the meadows to historic landmark status. In 2008, the Mormon church, whose leaders in the past had downplayed the faith's role in the massacre, took the lead in pushing for the landmark designation, filing the application with the parks service.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Lets get something straight. An anthropoligist examined the bones of the people killed and said that they weren’t shot but were bludgened to death with tomahawks. Clearly it was the indians and not the Mormons who killed them. And, the indians were justified because the people had left poisoned meat out for the indians, killing several.
Mormons killed them. But your attempt at satire was pretty good.
Wait just a minute...here!! Are YOU saying the AP is wrong here...and you have evidence that proves this?
Different story...but Quanah Parker dealt with deceit and lies all the time...from whites and Indians both.
I'd gather the real story, isn't what you think.
Nice try at revisional history. Henry Lee and others led the group that murdered the Gentiles at the direction of the Church Leaders. This has been acknowledged by the Church.
Yeah, right. But weren’t those Indians something-ites, descended from the lost tribe of Israel? Another claim for which there is zero historical proof?
Do you really think whites didn't scalp? Mutilate? Torture? Capture? Kill women and children?
Do you really think whites wouldn't try to "fake" a killing...to blame it on Indians?
And do you REALLY think it's "clear"? I mean REALLY?
Baloney. The evidence is pretty clear what happened there. The Mormons used Indians to hide their identity and when that failed, they took matters into their own hands. A Mormon was executed for planning this disgrace. Take your revisionist history elsewhere.
No, you get something straight Brigham Young ordered the massacre.
Geesh....even LDS, Inc. admits their members were involved.
I think on this point they knew when to "cut their losses".
Of course they've ceded many points...of the "old church"...but can't run from their prophets words and deeds...without hurting the very core of their religion. LDS, Inc...is smart enough to figure that out..at least to this point.
That said....The Hive...is always trying to spin the story.
HA!!
That’s pretty funny. Next you’ll say J Smith got the Book of Mormon off of some gold plates.
While looking from the monument across the brushy terrain , it was not hard to visualize the horror that had transpired there.
I went to high school with Jock.
If you are relating your post as fact, it is evident you have done no actual research into the massacre’s history. Or, you are attempting to justify what occurred by rewriting said history of September 11-16, 1857.
It is true that some of the Mormons dressed as Indians committed the massacre with the help of local Paiute Indians. But when they attacked, they found that the Arkansas party was well armed, knew how to use those arms and for five days fought back very hard. After killing and wounding some of the Paiutes, (AKA Diggers) who were foolish and had no idea how to fight. The Mormons then came up with the scheme for some Whites to parley and John D. Lee went in with a white flag of truce to offer the party safety from the Indians (both real and fake Mormon ones) if they would surrender their firearms. After much distrust, the party finally agreed, once done, women and children separated from the males, the Mormons and Indians then slaughtered all of the defenseless party except for 17 of the very young. These youngest were then adopted by Mormon families, but some were very aware and remembered had happened.
John D. Lee was the only one ever held accountable for the massacre, after his trial and conviction, in 1877 he was taken back to site of the Massacre at Mountain Meadows. There he was made to sit upon his own coffin and executed by a firing squad.
One of the saddest things I have read was related by one of the survivors. She said her family had just sat down for a breakfast of fried rabbit, when her sister’s head exploded.
The French brought the fine art of scalping to the American Indian.
CSI Utah
Welcome to reality. You're acting like Mitt Romney when he's confronted by inconvenient facts - deny the truth and lash out at the truth-tellers.
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