120 MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN
WERE MASSACRED IN COLD BLOOD
EARLY IN SEPTEMBER, 1857
THEY WERE FROM ARKANSAS
Posted on 09/10/2010 4:09:40 PM PDT by Colofornian
On the morning of Sept. 11, a small group of dedicated men launched a surprise attack that resulted in the vicious slaughter of men, women and children. The assailants were forced to act, they believed, because their religious community was under siege by the United States government.
They perpetrated their murders with the blessing of their leaders and in the name of God, although the religion’s highest authorities would immediately disavow themselves of any connection with the massacre. In its wake, most Americans claimed the faith itself was inherently violent and supported military action against the associates of those who perpetrated the massacre.
This scene played out nine years ago in New York City and Washington, D.C., with al-Qaida’s terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But it also describes another Sept. 11 morning — in 1857 — when Mormon settlers in southern Utah, along with some Paiutes they had recruited, mercilessly killed more than 100 California-bound emigrants.
If history doesn’t exactly repeat itself, it certainly has a profound sense of irony in placing two of the most horrific acts of religious violence in American history on the same day, nearly a century and a half apart.
For decades afterward, the Mountain Meadows Massacre was a flashpoint for opponents of Mormonism. Works of popular fiction depicted Mormons as bloodthirsty zealots whose primary form of religious devotion was murdering “gentiles.” Testimony in the 1879 Reynolds v. U.S. trial placed Mormons alongside other “thugs” who “commit murder with impunity, on the ground that it was sanctioned and enjoined by their system of religious belief.”
Some Southern mobs cited vengeance for the fallen emigrants as their rationale for vigilante violence against Mormon missionaries who were not even born at the time of the massacre.
The raw wounds of mass violence do not heal easily. It took four decades after this incident for the rest of America to drop its suspicions and grievances enough to pursue the path of accommodation.
Mormons then became one of the great success stories of the 20th century, trailing perhaps only Catholics and Jews as once-reviled religious minorities who earned a modicum of acceptance and achievement in American society. Enough skepticism remains on each side to preclude a full embrace, but Mormonism and America have at least become skilled, if wary, dancing partners.
I didn't know that.
It is a very creepy site, and I knew nothing about it when I arrived, so it wasn't creepy because I somehow expected it to be so. I was in one other place once that had the same effect on me, and it did indeed turn out that someone had been murdered there by someone else who lived in the house and had never been brought to justice. So yes, I think the blood does cry out from the ground.
Well, tho the author was implying intolerance in the article's final graph, the headline-writer (editor) was the one trying to hard-peddle the idea.
But imagine that. People actually being "intolerant" of mass murder. Go figure.
WTF?
Trying to find parity by co-opting a tragedy that killed 3,000 people who were merely going to work and of various religions?
Pretty sick and twisted.
'Twas all interrupted by terrorist activity on Sept. 11th...144 years apart...
We don't measure terrorist tragedies only by the thousands of victims, do we?
The year of this event was 1857.
The three main things that happened vs. Mormons were in 1834, 1838, and 1844.
Many of the people involved with these murders weren't necessarily part of those events from MO & IL...and even then, if someone took your home away, you're going to sanction somebody 13-23 years later committing mass murder vs. those who weren't even involved in the previous stuff?
Give me a break. People will come up with anything to excuse their worst track record.
Here is a website iirc maintained by descendants of the party
Brigham Young tore down the original rock carn and cross monument at the site
http://1857massacre.com/MMM/brigham_young_desecrated.htm
Good rant but, may I amend your last two sentences?
You have no idea what it REALLY is like to be “oppressed” in this country. Watch it, or You Will find out.
Measure by the thousands? What does that have to do with my original objection?
My objection was the last two paragraphs:
The raw wounds of mass violence do not heal easily. It took four decades after this incident for the rest of America to drop its suspicions and grievances enough to pursue the path of accommodation.
Mormons then became one of the great success stories of the 20th century, trailing perhaps only Catholics and Jews as once-reviled religious minorities who earned a modicum of acceptance and achievement in American society. Enough skepticism remains on each side to preclude a full embrace, but Mormonism and America have at least become skilled, if wary, dancing partners.
***************************************
And being from California and driven or hiked much of it, I do know where Fresno and Tulare are. What was your point?
It's simple. You were fleshing out the everyday workers of NY who were attacked. [Which was a good pt, given that 'tis always better to see the reality of victims vs. just statistics...so I was just doin' the same thing...these were would-be ranchers who would have been among the founders of a whole new community...who had similar economic hopes as the 9/11/01 victims]
Measure by the thousands? What does that have to do with my original objection? My objection was the last two paragraphs
OK, now you've got me confused. Your objection about his last two paragraphs -- well, those two paragraphs focused on the Mormons in the 19th century...whereas your comments in post #24 -- which is what I responded to -- focused on Muslims in the 21st century [your comment: Trying to find parity by co-opting a tragedy that killed 3,000 people who were merely going to work and of various religions? Pretty sick and twisted.]
Dangit!
Now I am confused and got no quarrel with you ever.
I take your point about the innocents but, as the article came from Salt Lake, I felt the last two paragraphs were biased in saying the Mormons were once put upon and now have joined Catholicism or Judaism as mainstream blah, blah, blah.
And using 911 to make the point.
It was just unnecessary.
:)
I know. I get more flak from my family members than from Inmans. (And I was hopin' there'd be more "family" like you who'd give me flak...you've been my only hope thus far...:) )
but, as the article came from Salt Lake, I felt the last two paragraphs were biased in saying the Mormons were once put upon and now have joined Catholicism or Judaism as mainstream blah, blah, blah. And using 911 to make the point. It was just unnecessary.
Well, now you're makin' sense...and untanglin' my confusion. Yeah, I didn't fully agree w/his last graph, either -- on exactly the same conclusion as you.
The other part, tho, of the way he argued makes it an interesting point of consistency: And that is, if you're going to take umbrage @ Muslim terrorist violence forever & a day, then why the "free pass" given to Mormons? I mean, obviously, terrorist thugs using their religious badge to massacre men, women, and children...of course, that should be highly provocative and held in remembrance! Well, Utah had a "Ground Zero," too...one not honored by the Mormon church who owns the property.
And, unlike, the millions of $ our govt has spent in trying to track down Bin Laden & other killers, the Utah territorial govt spent more $ trying to cover up the terrorist massacre in its midst than trying to uncover these execution-style crimes upon the innocent.
Perhaps so. Nevertheless, none of that excuses the Mormons who committed the massacre.
Speaking as a Mormon, I consider the Mountain Meadows massacre the most horrific crime of violence committed on U.S. soil — in some ways, worse than either the Oklahoma City bombing or the September 11 attacks.
Earlier generations of Mormons, undoubtedly shamed by the actions of their co-religionists at Mountain Meadows, were reluctant to discuss the massacre. However, that attitude has changed since the publication of Juanita Brook's book, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, in 1950. I am pleased to see that the leaders and members of the church are more willing to talk and write about the massacre.
In 2008, the LDS Church announced that it would seek federal landmark status for the site of the Mountain Meadows massacre. According to the Federal Register, hearings on the nomination are scheduled for 3 November 2010. The nomination itself (which includes an interesting history of the massacre) can be found on the National Park Service website.
Comments on the nomination can be submitted to J. Paul Loether, Chief, National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmarks Program, National Park Service; 1849 C Street, NW., (2280); Washington, DC 20240; E-mail Paul_Loether@nps.gov.
Would you support the re-installation of the Cross erected by the victim’s families that Brigham Young tore down as part of the memorial rock carn?
It was the child-victims that proved to be especially appalling. The cold-blooded murderers deemed anyone that could be taken as a serious witness against them as a direct "threat." [Ya know, the exact same mentality a rapist takes; thereby becoming a rapist-murderer]
It wasn't just the Fancher family of Arkansas that suffered greatly: Of the Cameron/Miller Group, only three children of Josiah Miller and Matilda Cameron Miller, survived.
Malinda Cameron Scott Thurston charged in 1877 that Mormons, under the authority of Brigham Young; killed eleven of her relatives, kidnapped the surviving children, and stole the property of her family.
Source: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ut-mountainmeadowsvictims2.html
The child-victims in this group included 9 yo James William Miller and 16 yo Henry Cameron.
(In this way, Logo...as much as I appreciate your forthcoming comment...I don't think I've ever heard any Mormon hold Brigham Young accountable -- if not for any "pre" role in the massacre...'cause frankly, that info went to the grave with some people...but 'tis no doubt about the post-crime cover-up.)
Also, a number of people make a mistake in saying only those 8 & over were killed. While that might have been the order given -- to kill according to the "magic" Mormon number of eight ["magic" because Mormons both say that is the age of baptism and they say children are completely "innocent" til then...if they're "innocent" why do Mormons say they baptize them for the remission of sin?].
Anyway, three 7 yo were shot down: Mary Lavina Baker and twins Magaret and Sara Fancher...
The Fancher youth were simply bullet-holed:
...like the twins' 10-yo brother, Martin...
...along with his 14 yo brother, Thomas...
...and his 15 yo sister, Mary...
...and his 17 yo brother, William...
...and his 19 yo brother, Hampton...
Only the two youngest of the Nancy Dunlap children were returned (not to be confused with the three Mary Dunlap children)...because the others were shot dead by Mormons. And two "wards" who were a brother and sister of a 25 yo (probably teens) weren't "returned"...'cause, they, too, were shot dead by Mormons.
I'm sure this isn't a full list of child victims. How many of the women murdered were pregnant? Even pregnant women not at the scene suffered life loss, as Nancy Jane Wood miscarried upon hearing the news that her husband had been murdered.
Kaehurowing said in an earlier post that this was just a one-time crime amongst the Mormons. But that also downplays not only the post-massacre conspiracy that took place among the Mormons for generations, but the crime of kidnapping that occurred for the two years after the massacre. (The Mormons took the rest of the under-8 children and kept them and didn't initiate turning them over to proper authorities...the Army had to ride in and retrieve them!)
Mass murderers...child-kidnappers for two years...horse thieves of the finest horses in the West [remember what you could be shot for in the mid-19th century!]
Somehow this account wasn't on the lips of the Mormon missionaries in the late 1850s and 1860s as they ventured into the UK to proselytize about joining their ranks in Utah.
Well, I would have to agree with Colofornian; The crime of Brigham was committed after the act and his complicity in covering up the crime of murder.
He probably didn’t know a thing about it but, when presented with the evidence, did all he could to hide the facts and motivations.
BTTT
“Testimony in the 1879 Reynolds v. U.S. trial placed Mormons alongside other “thugs” who “commit murder with impunity, on the ground that it was sanctioned and enjoined by their system of religious belief.” “
Wow! Amazing what lurks below the surface.
“Mormon Meadows happened once.
“Islamic atrocities happen every day.
Mormons no longer commit physical atrocities - just spiritual ones.
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