The mountain meadows massacre
"Called "the darkest deed of the nineteenth century," the brutal 1857 murder of 120 men, women, and children at a place in southern Utah called Mountain Meadows remains one of the most controversial events in the history of the American West. Although only one man, John D. Lee, ever faced prosecution (for what probably stands as one of the four largest mass killings of civilians in United States history), many other Mormons ordered, planned, or participated in the massacre of wagon loads of Arkansas emigrants as they headed through southwestern Utah on their way to California. Special controversy surrounds the role in the 1857 events of one man, Brigham Young, the fiery prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who led his embattled people to the "promised land" in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. What exactly Brigham Young knew, and when he knew it, are questions that historians still debate.
The tragedy in Mountain Meadows on September 11--a date that would later come to stand for another senseless loss of life--can only be understood in the context of the colorful history of the most important American-grown religion, Mormonism. Today, Mormonism has gone mainstream and Mormons seem to be just one more strand among many in the nation's religious fabric. Mormonism, however, as it existed in the mid-nineteenth century, was an altogether different matter. Brigham Young's provocative communalist religion endorsed polygamy, supported a theocracy, and advocated the violent doctrine of "blood atonement"--the killing of persons committing certain sins as the only way of saving their otherwise damned souls. It is not surprising that practicioners of such a religion might grow suspicious of persons outside of their religious community, nor should it be surprising that non-Mormons living in, or traveling through, the very Mormon territory of Utah might feel like "strangers in a strange land."
In July 1847, seventeen years after Joseph Smith and a group of five other men founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York and three years after an Illinois lynch mob killed Smith, Brigham Young and his band of followers entered Salt Lake valley. When a territorial government was formed in Utah in 1850, Young, the second head of the Church of Latter-day Saints, became the territory's first governor. The principle of "separation of church and state" carried little weight in the new territory. The laws of the territory reflected the views of Young. In a speech before Congress, federal judge and outspoken Mormon critic John Cradlebaugh said, "The mind of one man permeates the whole mass of the people, and subjects to its unrelenting tyranny the souls and bodies of all. It reigns supreme in Church and State, in morals, and even in the minutest domestic and social arrangements. Brigham's house is at once tabernacle, capital, and harem; and Brigham himself is king, priest, lawgiver, and chief polygamist."
For the best research on this very important, yet skipped over topic, please see some of the links below as well as a book called "The Mountain Meadows Massacre", by Juanita Brooks, or "Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows", by Will Bagley.
Personally THIS LINK gives a very concise summary of the events.
The tragedy in Mountain Meadows on September 11--a date that would later come to stand for another senseless loss of life--can only be understood in the context of the colorful history of the most important American-grown religion, Mormonism. Today, Mormonism has gone mainstream and Mormons seem to be just one more strand among many in the nation's religious fabric. Mormonism, however, as it existed in the mid-nineteenth century, was an altogether different matter. Brigham Young's provocative communalist religion endorsed polygamy, supported a theocracy, and advocated the violent doctrine of "blood atonement"--the killing of persons committing certain sins as the only way of saving their otherwise damned souls. It is not surprising that practicioners of such a religion might grow suspicious of persons outside of their religious community, nor should it be surprising that non-Mormons living in, or traveling through, the very Mormon territory of Utah might feel like "strangers in a strange land."
In July 1847, seventeen years after Joseph Smith and a group of five other men founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York and three years after an Illinois lynch mob killed Smith, Brigham Young and his band of followers entered Salt Lake valley. When a territorial government was formed in Utah in 1850, Young, the second head of the Church of Latter-day Saints, became the territory's first governor. The principle of "separation of church and state" carried little weight in the new territory. The laws of the territory reflected the views of Young. In a speech before Congress, federal judge and outspoken Mormon critic John Cradlebaugh said, "The mind of one man permeates the whole mass of the people, and subjects to its unrelenting tyranny the souls and bodies of all. It reigns supreme in Church and State, in morals, and even in the minutest domestic and social arrangements. Brigham's house is at once tabernacle, capital, and harem; and Brigham himself is king, priest, lawgiver, and chief polygamist."
For the best research on this very important, yet skipped over topic, please see some of the links below as well as a book called "The Mountain Meadows Massacre", by Juanita Brooks, or "Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows", by Will Bagley.
Personally THIS LINK gives a very concise summary of the events.
References:
- http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mountainmeadows/leeaccount.html
- https://www.lds.org/ensign/2007/09/the-mountain-meadows-massacre?lang=eng
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre
- http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.com/
- http://www.cesnur.org/testi/morm_01.htm
- http://www.buryingthepast.com/index.htm
- http://mountainmeadows.unl.edu/archive/index.html
- http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mountainmeadows/carletonreport.html