There were other Mormon Gunfighters like the Avenging Angels. One of the most murderious was Porter Rockwell who did his shooting for the church. A colorful westerner who deserves to be remembered. It was a time that needed people like that—the Mormons faced terrible repression and even murder at the hands of Anti-Mormons. One of the two pillars of the early Republican Party was anti-Slavery and Anti-Mormonism!
I see you are into revisionistic history. The 1856 Republican platform DID address what they referenced as the "twin relics" of slavery and polygamy.
Are you saying that if a Mormon today is "anti-polygamy," that Mormon is "anti-Mormonism"???
Your "brilliancy" underwhelms us with such thinking.
Well, let's see...Rockwell -- who allegedly murdered between 150 and 200 others -- was an adult living in the 1830s, 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s.
Let's review those 5 decades from both a Mormon & historical perspective:
1870s: The Mormons, as law-breakers committing bigamy/polygamy, were still not being arrested for polygamy (that didn't happen til the 1880s). Conclusion: No Lds were being murdered in the 1870s; no Lds were being "repressed" in the 1870s. [Rockwell died the same year -- 1878 -- as the Reynolds Supreme Court polygamy case was being decided]
1860s: America was too tied up in the Civil War to do much other than to pass the 1862 Morrill anti-polygamy act. Still, No Lds were being murdered in the 1860s; no Lds were being "repressed" in the 1860s [The railroad didn't pass thru Utah til 1869, so Utah was still rather isolated from the rest of the country]
1850s: There was indeed the threat of the Mormon wars with the feds in the latter 1850s. Never materialized other than Porter Rockwell leading ambushes of the supply caravans headed to Fort Bridger. FR poster Zakeet estimated 40 U.S. soldiers perished as a result of these Mormon raids. A Oct. 5, 1857 Brigham Young ordered raid on a U.S. Army supply caravan killed four soldiers in the attack; another three dozen soldiers died due to malnutrition and scurvy the Winter of 1857-58. In addition, there was THE first 9/11 terrorist attack in this country -- committed by Mormons -- upon children, moms & dads of a wagon train headed thru Utah on their way to California. The Mormons slaughtered 120 innocents, kidnapped 17 minors for a few years, and stole everything. An archeological excavation of the original monument site revealed that 10 women were shot in the face at close ranged by pistols; two youths were gunned down by rifles; one was slashed to death by a knife; another 15 died when their skulls were bashed in by the butt of a Mormon rifle. Conclusion: The Mormons waged war on 160 white people in 1857 who died at their hands; plus Mormons also killed Timpanogos Tribal members in the 1853-54 Walker (Walkara) conflicts.
1840s: In the latter 1840s, the Mormons became isolated in Utah and weren't bothered by anybody. In the early 1840s, Joseph Smith as mayor of Nauvoo built up a Mormon city that was bigger than Chicago by 1844. Sorry, but NOBODY was persecuting or oppressing the Mormons 1840 thru early June 1844 as Smith ran the largest militia around! Smith did make a major blunder: A disaffected Mormon published an "expose'" on Smith; Smith then used the City Council to wage war on the publishing house -- and Smith had it destroyed. When neighboring communities heard of this, Smith was rightfully arrested.
What maltreatment, then, did the Mormons endure in IL? In scouring the history books, I can find a small group of hoodlums did take it upon themselves to kill 4 Mormons between June 1844 and November 1845.
In the June 1844 case, they shot it out with a prisoner in Carthage, IL who had -- and fired -- from one of two loaded pistols in the course of just minutes on June 27, 1844. The armed prisoner? (Joseph Smith...and you let me know how many other prisoners with loaded weapons have survived thru the yrs) We're not talking about any huge great conspiracy there; there were some vigilantes on the loose, which was all too common in the 19th & early 20th centuries.
I didn't see FORMAL "anti-Mormon" activity aimed toward Nauvoo residents until October 1844, when a movement arose in Warsaw, IL and Carthage, IL to disencharter the city of Nauvoo. That was accomplished politically via the state legislature Jan. 1845. Given that the Nauvoo City Council had destroyed the First Amendment rights of one of its citizens and had operated as a 100% theocratic govt, there were consequences of that.
Obviously Nauvoo Mormons felt threatened in 1845 into early 1846 and Brigham Young negotiated an exit for early 1846. So what took place latter 1845 into early 1846?
(1) Lt. Everett & troops were sent to Camp Creek, IL in Oct 1845 to protect a threatened Mormon, Nathan Bigelow. [Some Mormons outside of Nauvoo had become "easy targets" for threatened hostilities] Bigelow accidentally shot Lt. Everett as Everett showed up with other troops to offer protection for Bigelow! (see Camp Creek, IL, 1845 )
(2) This and other things further triggered state troops marching on Nauvoo that month to arrest a dozen Lds leaders.
(3) November, 1845: Mobs burned two Mormon households; murdered two others (one allegedly by poison).
(4) December 1845: State troops entered Nauvoo to look for stolen items. Also a mob tried to citizen-arrest Brigham Young (nabbed somebody mistaken for him).
(5) January 1846: Confrontation of Nauvoo police vs. IL state troops.
(6) February 1846: Brigham Young negotiates non-violent exit from Nauvoo.
Conclusion to 1840s: Mormons suffered from formal "repression" for two consecutive Winters (Winter of 1844-45; Winter 1845-46) -- about 6% of all months of the 1840s. The Mormon murdered victims in IL I found listed were Edmund Durfee, Joshua Smith, Hyrum Smith, and Joseph Smith -- and Joseph Smith died as a prisoner having fired 6 shots from a loaded weapon and had another loaded weapon on him that had been smuggled into his jail. Mormons William Rice and Samuel Hicks' homes were burned; and up to 12,000 Mormons followed Brigham Young vs. facing potential conflicts -- what many describe as a forced eviction.
1830s: See next post -- as this one already long
OK, last post I recapped 38 of Porter Rockwell's 43-45 adult years (he had two birthdates listed -- one for 1813 & the other for 1815).
I did this based upon the so-called "justifications" that Forward the Light Brigade was making for why Porter Rockwell could "get off" minus any justice for his murder of 150-200 individuals over the course of his life...plus Rockwell was arrested & implicated for the attempted assassination of Missouri Gov. Boggs (Boggs was shot, but lived).
I've covered ground for two of the 5 geographical areas associated with the early Mormons: Utah and Illinois. In this post, I will cover upstate NY and Kirtland, Ohio, and then briefly revisit 1860s over other violence committed by Utah Mormons.
The other three geographical areas associated with the Mormons in the late 1820s and all of 1830s were upstate NY; Kirtland, Ohio, and two counties in Missouri.
Upstate NY: There was no murder of Mormons or formalized "repression" in NY.
What about Kirtland, Ohio?
Well, in Kirtland, there was criminal activity by the Mormons: numerous statutory rape charges; and then there was Joseph Smith's Kirtland Safety Society fraud. For the record, as one FREEPER poster put it, the Mormons left Ohio after the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society. Their bank was NEVER chartered with the state; never had any contributed capital; never was led by any competent management; issued large amounts of counterfeit money...including $3 bills. Thousands were financially ruined in this fiasco...and was one of the triggered the Panic of 1837 and ensuing 5-year depression -- one of the worst economic downturns in this country's history.
As the Mormons were departing Kirtland, Lds columnist Doug Gibson mentions what assignment a newly appointed Mormon "apostle" (Lyman Royal Sherman) was given: "...opposition leaders sought to use a printing office to manufacture anti-LDS tracts. That printing office was destroyed by fire to prevent that, and historians believe it was the ever-faithful Sherman who set the blaze to thwart Smith’s enemies." (see Early Mormon Sherman died without ever knowing he was called to be an apostle)
So, we've covered Utah, Illinois, NY, Ohio. That leaves Missouri. And even of the above, I forgot to mention these 1860s episodes in Utah:
* 1864: RLDS Missionaries beaten and nearly murdered by Lds
* 1869: I read the book DOWN THE GREAT UNKNOWN: JOHN WESLEY POWELL'S 1869 JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY & TRAGEDY by Edward Dolnick (Perennial Books), 2001. Powell, of course, was the one-armed Civil War vet who became the first known white man/white party to venture down the Green/Colorado River thru the Grand Canyon. Shortly before finishing the trip, three of his party ventured out on foot into Utah Territory...never to be heard from again other than the Mormon leaders trying to pin the deaths of the three men on Indians. On pp. 283-285, Dolnick cites an amateur historian & former dean of the college of science @ So. Utah Univ. (Wesley Larsen) re: a letter Larsen found in 1980 in a trunk belonging to the John Steele family. Steele was a judge and a militia officer & father of the first white child born in Utah territory. The letter was written to Steele from William Leany. Both were devout Mormons. Book mentions Leany had run afoul of the Mormon church by giving an emigrant a meal & roof & veggies. Book excerpt: "Leany's fellow Mormons charged him with giving 'aid and comfort to the enemy.' To teach him a lesson, someone clubbed him over the head, fracturing his skull and leaving him for dead. Leany survived. By 1883, he and Steele were old men. Steele evidently suggested to his good friend Leany that the time had come for them both to repent of their sins. Leany wanted no part of it. The church had blood on its hands, but he had nothing to repent. Like an Old Testament preacher, Leany thundered that 'thieving whoredom murder & Suicide & like abominations' reigned in the land. Then came the sentence that, a century later, electrified Wes Larsen: 'You are far from ignorant of those deeds of blood from the day the picket fence was broken on my head to the day those three were murdered in our ward & the murderer killed to stop the shedding of more blood.'...Larsen...embarked on a frenzied round of detective work. The reference to 'our ward,' a local Mormon district run by a bishop, was the first clue. Leany and Steele had lived in the same ward only once through the years, in 1869. And in that same fateful year, Larsen found, only one trio of men...had been reported missing or killed in southern Utah. "Further, Larsen learned, only weeks before the Powell expedition reached Separation Rapid, Brigham Young had traveled throughout the region warning the faithful that the long-threatened invasion of Utah by Gentiles was imminent. When 'war' came, Young warned his listeners, blood would rise 'to their knees and even to their waist and to their horses' bridle bits.' The Mormon leader ordered sentries posted at all the passes leading into southern Utah. Then, at the worst possible moment, three white strangers wandered into no-man's-land spouting a cock-and-bull story about their trip down a river that everyone knew was impassable. The three men were dragged off and executed as spies, Larsen speculates, and the news of the unsanctioned executions triumphantly telegraphed to Salt Lake City..."In Larsen's scenario, the next step was an exact replay of the Mormon response to the 120 killings at Mountain Meadows. First came cover-up...then a vow of scilence on the part of those who knew the truth, and finally a finger of blame pinning the crime on the nearest Indians."
Next post: 1830s Missouri
1830s Missouri:
Just as the period of time of formal repression against Mormons was actually quite limited in Illinois -- two consecutive winters in the mid-1840s comprising about 6% of that entire decade...likewise the actual "rough handling" of Mormons in Missouri occurred...
...over less than five months...for the ENTIRE DECADE of the 1830s!!!
This included...
...Perhaps a month to 40-45 days in September/October 1838 (with the violence ALL occurring that year in October 1838)...
...Plus over a 100-day period in Jackson County late Spring/Early Summer of 1833 + early Fall of that year as well...
In 1833, the "perps" in the first 100 of those days was generated by less than 50 people in a single county (400-500 did attend a council in mid-July but we have no record of how may in attendance acted upon anything...showing up at an event doesn't make you an oppressor or persecutor...and the committee who then attempted to foist themselves upon the Mormons were only 12 men (per eventual Lds "prophet" Joseph Fielding Smith in Essnetials in [LDS] Church History, pp. 133-134.
Joseph Fielding Smith also said a mob of 500 (p. 135) existed where no violence was done but threatened (July 23, 1833). Smiths says "about 1200 members forced to leave Jackson Co." (p. 209); yet the committee which forced them out only specified 11 such families thus forced-out per Smith's earlier reference. [They forced 9 of 11 families to leave within a few months' warning...the two remaining would finish up their business goods, per Smith, p. 135]
1838:
When we review the Encyclopedia of Mormonism put out by Mormon leaders...it mentions:
(a) Lds leader Sidney Rigdon's June 19, 1838 "Salt Sermon" and his July 4, 1838 "inflammatory" sermon where he "warned of a war of extermination between Mormons and their enemies";
(b) This was followed up by Joseph Smith's declaratioin of a Jihad vs. Missouri citizens on Oct. 14, 1838, where Smith threatened to "establish our religion by the sword. We will trample down our enemies and make it one gore of blood from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. I will be to this generation a second Mohammed, whose motto in treating for peace was 'the Quran or the Sword.' So shall it eventaully be with us -- Joseph Smith or the Sword" (Lds History of the Church, Vol. 3, p. 167).
What about the October 1838 violence?
•Oct. 18, 1838, Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Lyman Wight, D. W. Patten at the head of 40 men made a descent on Gallatin, MO, the county seat of Daviess, and they burned the only store and stole their goods. Previous to the 25th of October a great part of the Mormons residing in Caldwell County had returned home with their dividend of plunder.
* Oct. 25, 1838, the Battle of Crooked River: Mormon forces attacked (unknowingly?) the Missouri state militia under the command of Samuel Bogart. This incident became one of the principal points of conflicts in 1838 Missouri. The battle resulted in the death of three militia and the LDS leader, David Patten. One of the militia was taken prisoner by the Mormons. Source: http://www.carm.org/religious-movements/mormonism/are-christians-persecuting-mormons
So, it 'twas the Danites, initiated by Lds militia officer Sampson Avard, who threatened and then actually began the October 1838 violence. The Missouri National Guardsmen say Mormons fired first on their 250-man troop; the surviving Mormons (about 20) insisted the Guard fired first. Almost all of the Mormon fatalities were armed able-bodied men.
All of this preceded the battle of Haun's Mill Oct. 30, 1838, in which 17 Mormons were killed and 14 injured. (And Mormon historians distorted info for generations about the Hauns, who weren't Mormons at all! Jacob and Harriet Hawn (spelled with an actual "w" -- not "u") were not Lds!
Conclusion about the 1830s:
1833: The repression of Mormons by a handful of Jackson Co. residents over part of 1833 can be -- and should be -- condemned. 11 Mormon families wound up leaving that county over a forced eviction.
Oct 1838: This was a mini civil war, with Lds leaders Rigdon & Smith acting as protagonists; with Lds militia firing upon Missouri National Guardsmen. The fighting went both ways.
All told, from 1833 Missouri thru 1869 Utah, the Mormons killed more non-Mormons -- by far -- than vice-versa!
WOW! first time I have seen the murderer Porter Rockwell lauded as a hero!