September 11 Significant to Utah Native Americans [Real 19th-century Mormonism]

It takes courage for a little, white, Mormon girl to knock on the door of a Native American family’s house. Especially when she barely knows them. Especially when you live in the remote canyons. And especially on September 11, which is when Utahns remind themselves of a massacre that they wrongly believe was committed by Indians.

One morning there was a knock on our door. Grandpa and grandma had just returned from their early-dawn hike up the canyons. Grandpa opened the door to find our neighbor’s pretty little daughter with her border collie.

“Can you turn me into a Paiute and give me an Indian name?” she asked grandpa.

Grandpa laughed. Why would anyone want to be an Indian in Southern Utah? In this very area, Indians have been called wagon burners and baby killers ever since the Mountain Meadows massacre. The massacre had been committed by Mormons and falsely blamed on the Paiutes. Mormon militia had painted their faces and worn feathers to look like Indians, although the Paiutes never wore feathers themselves. They had dressed up to look like Indians with banners around their head, red paint and turkey feathers. They whooped and hollered, even though the Paiutes never had a culture of hollering.

Paiute elders have related the Mountain Meadows story to me numerous times. The oral histories I have heard from Paiute elders are sincere, strong, compelling and spoken from the heart. Indians know that the official Mormon accounts of the massacre are completely wrong. The massacre never even happened where the monument says it took place; rather it happened in the valley on the east side.

On September 11, 1857, not far from where we live, the entire Baker–Fancher emigrant wagon train was massacred. We live in Iron County and the perpetrators of the massacre included people from our very own rural town. Those killed were families from Arkansas, Missouri and other states bound for California who were slaughtered while they rested in Mountain Meadows, Utah. One of the men from the emigrant wagon had boasted to the Mormons that he had the gun that killed Mormon founder Joseph Smith, which was one of the factors that precipitated the massacre.

After a protracted battle, on the afternoon of September 11, the emigrants were persuaded to surrender with the promise of safe passage to my town. The men and older boys were separated from women and children. The Mormons didn’t want the attacks to be traced back to them, so after the unarmed emigrants had marched about a mile up the valley, all surrendering emigrant men and older boys were shot without warning. Then all women and children were shot. At least 120 individuals were massacred. Only 17 babies and children deemed too young to know that these were Mormons dressed as Indians were spared. While two curious Paiute Indians watched hidden from a distance, the attackers hastily and awkwardly buried the dead, leaving their bodies vulnerable to scavenging by wild animals. The hidden Paiutes were wondering which tribe of Indians was killing defenseless children and women.

As the perpetrators washed paint off their faces and cleaned themselves after the massacre, the Paiutes realized with horror that these were whites disguised as Indians. Knowing that the massacre would be blamed on them, the Paiutes rushed off to warn the others. And predictably, the entire massacre was blamed on the Paiutes. Indians in this region are a very superstitious people and don’t mess around with dead people, dead bodies or their possessions. The killers stripped the bodies of their valuables like rings or necklaces and collected the money boxes, gold, silver and jewelry of the wealthy Baker–Fancher party. All property of the massacred party, including cattle, mules, horses and chickens, was taken to the tithing office in my town and auctioned off to local Mormons. At least 17 surviving children were distributed among local families.

Even though the women, men and children were killed by guns and the Paiutes and area Indians didn’t have guns, local Mormons believed their church leaders and hated us for the massacre. For 150 years, they called Indians in the area wagon burners and baby killers. Insults were freely lobbed at us. The history sites, monuments, culture centers, schoolbooks and museums placed the blame for the massacre on local Paiutes.

Official Mormon history said the Paiutes had forced reluctant Mormons into the massacre. However, the Paiutes were hardly warriors; they were a dispersed root-digging people who could not even stop frequent slave raids from Mexicans, Utes and Navajos. Historians agree that the largest war party the Paiutes had ever amassed in history consisted of a mere 12 individuals. Yet the official Mormon account says that hundreds of enraged Paiute warriors had threatened the very existence of the large, well-armed Mormon settlements and had forced Mormon involvement in the massacre.

The consensus among historians is that deception was necessary to protect the direct complicity of Mormon prophet Brigham Young in the massacre and to protect their religion. The Book of Mormon also teaches that Indians are not the original inhabitants of America; rather we are the apostate Lamanites who had wiped off a white race called the Nephites who lived in America before the Indians. The Nephites were, according to the Mormon religion, a cultured, white people who were on God’s side. And the Lamanites are the sinful, dark-skinned Indians who had wiped off this entire white race in America that occupied this land before the Indian Lamanites arrived from Israel.

That didn’t help, and Mountain Meadows didn’t help either. Store owners, cashiers, farmers, ranchers, local employers and others righteously treated us badly. After all, they believed we had massacred innocent white women and children at Mountain Meadows. Just like the Arabs are despised in America for 9/11, we were despised in Southern Utah for the massacre on 9/11 of 1857. For 150 years. Until as recently as 2007.

That’s when the Mormon Church expressed regrets to Indians and admitted that it was the church leaders and members who had committed the massacre and had blamed it on Indians. But this “regret” wasn’t widely disseminated. And in private communication to its members, the church continues to strongly implicate Indians in the massacre. The church concedes that the Mormons killed the men but as of the present insists that Indians clubbed all women and children to death. However, forensic pathologist Shannon Novak and her team found bullet holes in the skulls of women and children, which ran counter to the church’s claim that the Paiutes clubbed them to death.

Indians continue to be hated in southern Utah today. Mormons are good people and I love them, but they still believe Indians committed the Mountain Meadows massacre. For 150 years, we weren’t treated well because of what the locals thought we had done. We still aren’t treated much better. Every single day Indians continue to suffer indignities in this region, whether it is someone mistaking us for an illegal from Mexico or the police being called to check out a “suspicious individual,” who usually happens to be an Indian walking home from work because he is too poor to afford a car. So why would anyone want to be an Indian in southern Utah, and that too a Paiute?

Grandpa gave this little girl a hug, grandma cooked her a traditional Indian breakfast, while I called her dad to tell him his daughter and their dog were safe at our place.

Said the little girl, “After my mom died, no one wants to be friends with me at school. If you turn me into a Paiute girl, I can wear beautiful costumes at your powwows and dance like a butterfly. Then everyone in school will like me and will want to be friends with me again.” Then she added, “And because I love Paiutes!”

I smiled at her use of the word ‘costume.’ Grandpa hugged her again. “Hon, if I knew magic, I would happily turn you into a Paiute girl. But I don’t know magic. And I am not Paiute myself. I am from a different tribe.”

Her face sank and grandpa couldn’t bear to see the sad expression of a girl who had recently lost her mother, so he continued. “But I can definitely show you how to be an Indian at heart and I can also give you an Indian name. You need to know three things to be an Indian at heart. First, take good care of the land and respect the spirit in the land, the mountains, the animals, the trees. Everything you see around you, whether it has life or it doesn’t, has a spirit, and must be respected. Second, take good care of your family, your dad. That includes your dog, who is also part of your family. Finally, be a good friend to Indians and the Paiutes. We can always use a few good friends like you in Utah.”

As the girl’s face brightened into a broad smile, my grandma added, “And you’re always welcome to dance at the next powwow which will be around Thanksgiving. I can teach you how to dance.”

The little girl couldn’t have been happier. “What’s my Indian name?” she asked, her eyes very bright and sparkling.

The original 9/11 terrorist act in the U.S. occurred on Sept. 11, 1857 in Southern Utah.

Some of the perps -- Mormons -- dressed up as Paiutes.

From the article: Why would anyone want to be an Indian in Southern Utah? In this very area, Indians have been called wagon burners and baby killers ever since the Mountain Meadows massacre. The massacre had been committed by Mormons and falsely blamed on the Paiutes. Mormon militia had painted their faces and worn feathers to look like Indians, although the Paiutes never wore feathers themselves. They had dressed up to look like Indians with banners around their head, red paint and turkey feathers. They whooped and hollered, even though the Paiutes never had a culture of hollering...Paiute elders have related the Mountain Meadows story to me numerous times. The oral histories I have heard from Paiute elders are sincere, strong, compelling and spoken from the heart. Indians know that the official Mormon accounts of the massacre are completely wrong...At least 120 individuals were massacred. Only 17 babies and children deemed too young to know that these were Mormons dressed as Indians were spared.

From Sally Denton's book, 2003 book entitled: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857 (Vintage Books, division from Random House): One child died as they arrived at Hamblin's ranch. Another, one-year-old Sarah Dunlap, had had her left arm nearly severed by a musket ball. Clinging frantically to her, their dresses soaked in blood, were her sisters Rebecca, six, and Louisa, four. They had all seen the slaughter of their seven brothers and sisters, as well as both parents, and Rebecca had pried her baby sister from the arms of their dead mother. Rebecca and Louisa had also watched as the Mormon killers, disguised as Indians, washed off their war paint in one of the meadow streams. They would eventually be among the first witnesses to report this occurrence, thereby attributing the murders to white men rather than Paiutes. (p. 140)

From the article: ...predictably, the entire massacre was blamed on the Paiutes. Indians in this region are a very superstitious people and don’t mess around with dead people, dead bodies or their possessions. The killers stripped the bodies of their valuables like rings or necklaces and collected the money boxes, gold, silver and jewelry of the wealthy Baker–Fancher party. All property of the massacred party, including cattle, mules, horses and chickens, was taken to the tithing office in my town and auctioned off to local Mormons.

One of the ways we know that the Mormon church was implicated – either as part of the plot or criminal cover-up – is how the wagon train's plunder was dealt with:

“The plunder proceed with a strange quiet. Women from Cedar City and nearby settlements arrived to remove the calico dresses and lace pinafores of the women and children, pulling off their expensive shoes, and ripping earrings, brooches, and rings off the corpses, most to be turned over to the church. 'Their fine stock, their pleasure vehicles, their musical instruments, and abundant and elegant outfit, excited the cupidity of the sacerdotal robbers,' the Salt Lake Daily Tribune later reported...” (Sally Denton's 2003 book entitled: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857 Vintage Books, division from Random House P. 149)

“'There was no clothing left on man, woman or child, except that a torn stocking leg clung to the angle of one.” Haight, Higbee, and Dame would argue asa well over the distribution of goods. The bloody clothing and bedding that had been gathered by the women and others were taken to the cellar of the church tithing office in Cedar City...As for the reported $100,000 worth of gold said to be on the train, most of what was retrieved—the actual amount would never be revealed—was turned over to the church treasury in Salt Lake City. The forty wagons were given to local Mormons for use in hauling lead ore from Nevada. The carriages emblazoned with stags' heads were transported to Salt Lake City, where at least one of them was used by Brigham Young. Approximately nine hundred head of cattle were corralled near Cedar City, branded with the church's 'cross,' and driven north to the capital.” (Denton, p. 150)

Klingensmith was a Lutheran to Mormon convert who became a witness in the Lee trial: "He told how he traveled to Salt Lake City in October 1857 and in the presence of Lee and another witness discussed with Young the details of the murders and the distribution of the plunder. Klingensmith testified that Young ordered him to turn over all the loot from the massacre to Lee. The cattle had been branded with a cross--the church designation...” (Denton, p. 224)

From the article: Even though the women, men and children were killed by guns and the Paiutes and area Indians didn’t have guns, local Mormons believed their church leaders and hated us for the massacre. For 150 years, they called Indians in the area wagon burners and baby killers. Insults were freely lobbed at us. The history sites, monuments, culture centers, schoolbooks and museums placed the blame for the massacre on local Paiutes...Store owners, cashiers, farmers, ranchers, local employers and others righteously treated us badly. After all, they believed we had massacred innocent white women and children at Mountain Meadows.

This article brings up an interesting angle not usually discussed in accounts of the Mountain Meadows Massacre: What the Paiutes suffered @ the hands of the Mormon false rumor mill for 150 years. Even as late as yesterday, we had a Mormon Freeper poster still blaming only the Paiutes -- while 100% deflecting any Mormon responsibility for the atrocity. (see Utah massacre site dedicated as national landmark (see post #2)

From the article: ...the Paiutes were hardly warriors; they were a dispersed root-digging people who could not even stop frequent slave raids from Mexicans, Utes and Navajos. Historians agree that the largest war party the Paiutes had ever amassed in history consisted of a mere 12 individuals.

How does this mesh with official accounts today that the Paiutes were primarily involved in the early siege of the Fancher-Baker party several days before Sept.11 -- and that some remained to club women & children to death on Sept. 11, 1857? Well, it's interesting. BYU received permission from the Mormon church to conduct an archaelogical excavation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre site in 1998 – and began the excavation in August 1999.

...Utah state archeologists Kevin Jones reaffirmed to church and law enforcement officials the legal requirement that any unidentified remains uncovered must be forensically examined, and failure to comply would be a felony. (Denton, p. xxii - see title & source below)

Still, a team of anthrolopologists, archaeologists, and other church and state scientists from around Utah began working long hours poring over the remains. “It was a marathon forensic study. As the scientists from around the region gathered, news of the discovery leaded to the national press, unleashing a storm of public controversy over the unexpected skeletons...Delicately removing hundreds of pieces of bone from the opening dug by the backhoe, the scientists worked eighteen hours a day to determine how and when the victims were killed. Before the examination could be completed, however, it was stopped. For descendants of both victims and perpetrators, for institutions of church and state implicated in what the bones signify, the issue was as volatile and ominous as it had been nearly a century and a half before. Utah governor Mike Leavitt, himself a direct descendant of someone who participated in the murders, ordered the bones be reburied as quickly as possible; he then directed state officials to find administrative or other means to do just that...Before the probe came to a standstill, the scientists reconstructed eighteen different skulls and reported publicly that the killings were more complicated than previously believed. But the dead would not be allowed to speak. (Sally Denton's book, 2003 book entitled: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857 Vintage Books, division from Random House, pp. Xxii – xxiii)

From the article: Just like the Arabs are despised in America for 9/11, we were despised in Southern Utah for the massacre on 9/11 of 1857. For 150 years. Until as recently as 2007. ...the Mormon Church expressed regrets to Indians and admitted that it was the church leaders and members who had committed the massacre and had blamed it on Indians. But this “regret” wasn’t widely disseminated. And in private communication to its members, the church continues to strongly implicate Indians in the massacre. The church concedes that the Mormons killed the men but as of the present insists that Indians clubbed all women and children to death. However, forensic pathologist Shannon Novak and her team found bullet holes in the skulls of women and children, which ran counter to the church’s claim that the Paiutes clubbed them to death.

Ah, forensic “complications” with official Mormon accounts, eh?

1857? Really? And this is somehow relevant to people and problems of 2011? Get a life.

Actually most of the posters who criticize Mormonism have a life - a true life in Jesus Christ. Something that Mormons will never know as long as they hold on to the false gospel of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.

Is it relevant to people today? Sure it is, to save them from the poison of Brigham Young. A neutral reader of the Mountain Meadows Massacre history cannot help but realize that Brigham Young orchestrated the events and cover-up. Brigham Young was just as responsible for the massacre as John D. Lee and thugs who performed the actual acts. Why would someone trust his or her eternal destiny to the "gospel" espoused by a lying, murderous kidnapper?

Mountain Meadows PING

Insults were freely lobbed at us.

SUREly not!!

#13

The Articles of Faith
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression.
We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.
We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.
We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.
We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.
We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.
We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may
We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.
We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

Joseph Smith

Rights and use information.

Brigham Young was just as responsible for the massacre as John D. Lee and thugs who performed the actual acts.

"I am a true believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ, I do not believe everything that is now being taught and practiced by Brigham Young.

I do not care who hears it. It is my last word - it is so.

I believe he is leading the people astray, downward to destruction.

But I believe in the gospel that was taught in its purity by Joseph Smith, in former days.

I have my reasons for it.

"I studied to make this man's [Brigham Young] will my pleasure for thirty years.

See, now, what I have come to this day!

"I have been sacrificed in a cowardly, dastardly manner." (Lee enunciated this sentence with marked emphasis.)

Excerpted from --> http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mountainmeadows/leeexecution.html

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