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MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE
Total Articles:
21
The Mountain Meadow's Massacre was a dark chapter in Mormon history. More than 120 pioneers, families traveling from Arkansas to California in 1857, were attacked and slaughtered by Mormons at Mountain Meadows, a grassy oasis in southern Utah. Most of the victims, which included infants in their mothers' arms, were executed after the travelers surrendered their weapons. Mormonism has covered up the truth about the MMM.
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From The Salt Lake Tribune:
It's the professor vs. Mary Ann.
A fledgling Idaho film festival, founded by former Gilligan's Island co-star Dawn Wells, has pulled a University of Utah
professor's documentary about the Mountain Meadows Massacre from its lineup.
Organizers of the first Spudfest Drive-In Film & Music Festival, starting Wednesday in Driggs, Idaho, say filmmaker Brian
Patrick's Burying the Past: Legacy of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, is too violent for the family-oriented event. Patrick said
festival officials told him last week that they received calls from members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
threatening to picket the film or boycott the festival.
They said, 'The local bishop and church authorities here are up in arms,' Patrick said Monday. These people have said the film is
hateful and mean-spirited, and they don't want their people to see it and, if [the festival] is going to show it, there's going
to be big trouble.
Patrick countered that his award-winning film - which details the 1857 incident in which a group of Utah Mormons killed 120
Arkansans headed to California - is a balanced presentation, featuring independent historians and those representing the LDS
Church. The church even helped me make the film, he said.
Patrick got a call Thursday from an attorney on SpudFest's board, saying the film would be pulled.
SpudFest's publicist, Kim Wells (no relation to Dawn Wells), said organizers did not hear complaints from LDS members. It's just
not family-friendly, Wells said of Patrick's film. After the board of directors of the festival saw it, they said because it's
about a massacre, frankly, it is too adult for a family film festival.
Another film on the SpudFest schedule, the Utah-made World War II drama Saints and Soldiers, had to undergo minor editing to
avoid an R rating for its wartime bloodshed. Wells said the festival's board of directors watched both films, and The violence in
'Burying the Past' was more disturbing than the violence in 'Saints and Soldiers.' Also, Wells said, Saints and Soldiers is
scheduled for evening screenings, while Burying the Past was slated for daytime shows.
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2384399
| From The Albuquerque Tribune:
It tells how more than 120 pioneers, families traveling from Arkansas to California in 1857, were attacked and slaughtered by Mormons at Mountain Meadows, a grassy oasis in southern Utah.
Most of the victims, which included infants in their mothers' arms, were executed after the travelers surrendered their weapons.
"One reason so few people know about it is that it was very effectively covered up by the Mormon church," Hutton said. "Another reason is nobody in this country likes to criticize religious organizations. It makes people nervous."
Santa Fe resident and former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, great-great-grandson of the only person convicted in the killings, appears in "Mountain Massacre."
So does Ferenc "Frank" Szasz, a UNM professor whose specialty is history of American religion.
"Frank calls the massacre the greatest act of religious violence on American soil up until the Sept. 11 (2001) terrorist attacks," Hutton said.
As cruel coincidence would have it, the Mountain Meadows executions happened on Sept. 11, 1857.
Continue Reading Story
| Two months before the MMM, the "Alta California" newspaper referred to the anger of Utah Mormons upon learning of the murder of Parley P. Pratt in Arkansas in June:
"Whether the hot blood which must now be seething and boiling in the veins of Brigham Young and his satellites in Salt Lake is to be cooled by the murder of Gentiles who pass through their territory, whether the destroying angels of Mormondom are to be brought into requisition to make reprisals upon travelers, whether, as has been done before, saints disguised as Indians are to constitute themselves the supposed ministers of God's vengeance in this case, we are not informed, but have no doubt that such intentions are prevalent among those saintly villains, adulterers, and seducers of Salt Lake." (July 9, 1857.)
This one statement, published two months before the MMM, is more than enough to show that the attack on the Fancher train was not an isolated incident perpetrated by "renegade Mormons" acting out of revenge for alleged wrongdoings of the Fancher party, as Mopologists deceitfully continue to assert. When this article was written, the Fancher train was traveling across the Great Plains, and yet a newspaper in California predicted the fate of such passing emigrants and the method by which the Mormons would exact vengeance for Pratt's murder: "Mormons disguised as Indians" made the initial attack on the Fancher train.
Southern Utah Mormons in cahoots with Indians also attacked the Dukes train, which had preceded the Baker/Fancher train through southwestern Utah. A member of the Dukes train, S. B. Honea, stated "that he passed through Great Salt Lake
City on August 17, that he saw everywhere preparations for war, that the company were harassed by Indians all the way, that in southern Utah they hired Mormon guides and interpreters to the sum of $1,810, and then were robbed on
the Muddy [River] of 375 head of cattle. [George B.] Davis described the Indians who stole the cattle as having among them some with light, fine hair and blue eyes, and light streaks where they had not used sufficient paint. He gave the number of cattle taken as 326 head.....On October 17, the first members of the Duke train of emigrants arrived half-starved at San Bernardino with the Mormon theft of their cattle to add to the tale of the massacre."
(Juanit Brooks, "The Mountain Meadows Massacre," pp. 125, 126, 146.)
From Josiah Gibbs' 1910 book "Mountain Meadows Massacre":
"(Note - Charles Fancher was the son of Capt. Charles Fancher, who was in command of the train, and was 11 years old. He was small for his age. He had a brother about 9 years of age, who was also small for his years, and which, no doubt, was the reason for their escape from the fate of those who were believed to be over 8 years old. Mormon children are baptised at 8 years, when, from the Mormon viewpoint, they reach the age of responsibility. Thus it was that the emigrant children under 8 years were not regarded by the Mormon priests as being responsible for the sins of their parents, who were murdered in obedience to the endowment oath to 'avenge the blood of the (Mormon) prophets and martyrs.' It was from the lips of Charley Fancher, soon after his arrival from the vicinity of the tragedy, that I heard the first story of the massacre. In
his childish way he said that 'some of the Indians, after the slaughter, went to the little creek, and that after washing their faces they were white men.' During his stay in Salt Lake City I frequently played marbles with Charley Fancher on First South, a half block or so west of Main street. - The Author.)"
| The Mountain Meadow Massacre wasn't the only Massacre that Utah Mormons did
Following is an excerpt from "A History of Paiute Country" by Linda King Newell which was published in 1999 with a grant from the State of Utah Centennial History Project. Newell is co-author of "Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith". You can check this book out of about any library in Utah. I'm not sure of its availability outside the state. In April 23, 1866 an unknown number of friendly and innocent Paiute Indians were taken into custody in Circleville Utah for their own "protection". Although there were Indian problems with the Utes during this time period, the Paiutes of Circleville were a peaceful band that tried to live peacefully among the Mormons (kind of like some of us ex-mormons are trying to do).
From the James Munson and Oluf Larsen journals:
They (the Mormon townspeople) sent messengers requesting that the Paiutes go into town and hear a letter read to them. Many did. They gathered in the meetinghouse to hear Bishop William Allred address them. According to a previous plan, the Circleville men who outnumbered the Indians three to one came in unarmed and intermingled with them. The bishop read the message from Fort Sanford, stressing that the settlers wanted only peace with their band, but the Indians would have to help by lending them their guns. In return, the Paiutes could work for the whites and be paid in goods. When the Indians showed reluctance to give up their weapons, the settlers acted: "each man knowing his place and what was expected of him, grabbed hold of his Indian
to disarm [him]. They all showed resistance but their bows and arrows and knives were taken from them." Next, "their arms were tied to a stick which was passed behind their backs and under their arms." Bishop Allred would later put his own twist to the incident in his report to LDS church authority George A. Smith, writing that it took some time to convince the Indians, but they "reluctantly surrendered their weapons". Captain James Allred (Mormon army) and his men went to the camp to apprehend those who had earlier refused the "invitation"
The rest of the Paiutes were taken to the meetinghouse, where the women and children were separated from the men and taken to an unused cellar that had been dug for a proposed flourmill. The prisoners numbered about sixteen men and probably about as many women and children (undetermined- I think many more).
Rex Fullmer's account from James Munson's journal:
"Towards evening
some of the [captives] succeeded in getting loose and commenced an attack upon the guard, knocking two of them down. The guard was afraid of a general break
hence the guard opened fire and shot two of the Indians.
.after a short consultation it was decided that the settlement would be in danger if the Indians were allowed to escape. Though the people loathed the thought of killing them, it was nevertheless concluded to do so."
Although no account tells who gave or carried out the instructions no decision of this sort would have been without the knowledge and consent of those in charge, namely Captain James Allred and Bishop William Allred. Fullmer estimated that about a dozen Paiute men remained in the meetinghouse. One by one the guards began taking them outside, leading them around to the side of the building, where one person clubbed them in the back of the head, stunning them, then another cut their throats with "a large sharp knife"
. Once the Paiute men were dispatched the settlers began taking the women and older children from the cellar, killing them by the same method. Fullmer wrote that," A number of children were spared alive, and also an older boy, who however, was killed the next day as he was considered dangerous to the peace of the settlement." After the carnage, the settlers placed all the bodies in the cellar and filled it with dirt. Nothing today remains to mark the common grave
.
Flew the Coop continues:
This tragic event near Utah highway 89 probably will never be marked with a historic marker like other historic spots in Utah. Perhaps when we drive through Circleville on the way to Lake Powell or Arizona, we can pause for a moment of silence for these murdered innocents and vow to ourselves to not let the sordid history of these extreme religionists be forgotten.
| LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Jon Voight and Lolita Davidovich are starring in "September Dawn," an indie Western written and directed by Christopher Cain, the father of actor Dean Cain.
"Dawn" is a love story set against the 19th century massacre of a wagon train of settlers in Utah at the hands of a renegade Mormon group. Voight plays the leader of the renegade Mormon faction, while Davidovich is a member of the wagon train who stands up to Voight's threats.
The feature, which sources said is budgeted in the $11 million range, started shooting this week in Alberta, Canada.
Cain is no stranger to Westerns, having directed "Young Guns" and 1998's "Magnificent Seven" TV series.
Oscar winner Voight will appear in the upcoming "Glory Road." Davidovich last appeared in "Hollywood Homicide" and "Dark Blue." She is best known for her title role in "Blaze" opposite Paul Newman.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsA...
| The first time I recall reading or hearing anything about Mountain Meadow Massacre was a couple of years ago, during my "awakening." I read the 19th Wife by a divorced wife of BY. What was her name.... Eliza or Ann Webb??? Anyways, the narrative in that book on MMM stems primarily from J.D. Lee's Confession. As I understand it, although Lee's confession brought to light important information, the details lack some credibility. Bagley essentially states that because the only information we have from the situation comes from the people who perpetrated the murders, including Lee, we will never really know the full scope of what happened. Anyways, when I read the 19th Wife, the walls came tumbling down for me. The impact of the MMM as a singular event was lost for me in the crumbling of my faith.
I started reading Will Bagley's, The Blood of the Prophets this week. I have been impressed with the balance and objectivity that he brings to the work. As I read the book and went back and forth to the footnotes and bibliography, understanding the sources of who said what and what particular bias may exist in each statement, waves of grief came over me. As a man, I consider myself to be pretty ordinary. I am not particularly stoic, nor am I particularly prone to tears, but reading this book has had me in tears several times. It is heart wrenching to understand the circumstances that would lead a group of people to commit the atrocities and then to hide it so well.
I kept asking myself, how could the Saints allow themselves then and now to give up their right and even obligation for individual moral decisions to a hierarchy of a church that has shown again and again and again that it will use lies of commission, lies of ommission, half truths, inuendo, etc. to avoid tarnishing the image of the organization leaders or the organization? How can the ends justify the means? Why don't we discuss this more openly so that people can take this information and use it to help themselves assess this line of perceived priesthood authority and apostolic succession? What is a prophet? If a prophet lies, does that invalidate his claim to status as prophet?
I know that this post may properly fit in the closed "Angst" section, but I figured it may fit under support because I'm looking for someone to lean on. Understanding the MMM as a singular event has been devastating. I am only about half way through Bagley's book, but at this point, I cannot say enough about his clear writing, his objectivity, the clarity he brings to the potential distortions in the data, and ultimately laying out the conclusion that we will never know what really happened, we can only get closer to understanding what really happened.
| While still fresh in my mind, below are some lingering thoughts and images of my visit on October 3rd, 2005, to the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
The highway signs indicating one's approach to the Mountain Meadows Massacre site are innocuous and give absolutely no hint of the horrible atrocity that occurred there. The roadside signs, at both the one mile and half-mile mark on opposite sides of the highway, simply say, "Mountain Meadows."
No mention of "Massacre."
Once one leaves the highway to follow the "Mountain Meadows" sign, one enters a weathered asphalt parking lot. There are no parking lot lights in this area and a wooden, informational backboard covered with plexiglas at the parking lot site is completely empty of maps, brochures or any other informational material.
From the parking lot, a narrow, asphalted footpath snakes up a small hill, with a sign indicating by arrow the direction to a "Mountain Meadows Monument."
This sign, as well, makes no mention of a "Massacre."
Ascending the small hill, one comes upon two small, black-colored, separate signs, mounted on bases at about waist level, on the left side of the trail. The signage indicates that local Mormon settlers, along with native Indians from the area, laid siege to the Fancher party for several days at the Fancher campsite, killing 15 men in that party during that initial period, then negotiating an arrangement with the Fancher party under which the migrants surrendered to the Mormons.
The informational signage indicates that the Fancher migrants were led out by Mormon escort under a white flag and then, without warning, were shot and killed by their LDS escorts.
The posted account records that a total of 120 members of the Fancher party were killed, that several surviving children of the Massacre were eventually returned to Arkansas and that at least one child from the Fancher group remained behind in Utah.
The walkway information says that the Massacre occurred during the "so-called Utah War" and that the reasons for the Massacre's occurrence are not known to this day.
One of the pathway signs indicates that the Massacre occurred on September 11, 1857. Someone has permanently etched a scratchy line in the metal under the date "September 11."
Upon reaching the summit of the hill, one comes upon a granite plaque, several feet in length, upon which are listed in capital letters the names (in some cases, by first name only) and ages of the Massacre's murder victims. This plaque was erected by descendants of the Mountain Meadows Massacre victims in 1990.
Some of the victims identified on the plaque are children, as young as five years of age.
The plaque looks out on the Mountain Meadows Massacre site, which is located in a flat, wind-swept stretch of land that runs for what appears to be about two miles. The Meadow itself butts up against a backdrop ridge of low-lying, sage- and cedar-covered hills. The Meadow is on private property, with a few farm buildings dotting the area near the Massacre site. The Meadow features tall, bent-over grass and squatty brush, is rooted in rocky soil and shows some signs of farming.
Close to the plaque, atop the hill, are three informational signs, facing outward toward the Meadow and located at approximately knee-high level, which provide details about the settlement of the area by the Mormons, together with maps of where the Fancher Party initially camped and faced siege, where from the campsite its ill-fated members were led away to be massacred and where the actual spot of the Massacre site is situated, together with locations of early memorials and burial plots for the victims.
Also atop the hill are two fixed, simple pipes, attached to metal poles. Through the pipe on the left, one can view the Mormon Church-dedicated memorial site, established in 1999 at the site of initial siege at the Fancher campsite. Through the other pipe, one can see the actual site of the Massacre, which is out in the open Meadow, near the right sloping edge of the ridge.
From the hill, one then descends by foot back to the parking lot and follows a vehicular dirt road down to the Mormon-dedicated site, which is also the burial spot for 29 victims of the Massacre.
This site is flanked by a parking lot, with another wooden plexiglas-covered informational backboard that is completely devoid of any information.
The LDS-erected memorial site is surrounded by a wrought-iron fence and gate with a heavy latch. A sign on the fence near the gate requests that one close the gate when leaving.
An American flag snaps and flutters in the strong wind on a pole located outside the fence.
The memorial site features a large mound of stones, approximately 15 to 20 feet tall, in the center of the fenced-in area. On opposite ends from each other, separated by this rock mound, are two informational stones at the base of the rock pile, on which are etched details, among other memorial-related points, of the eventual dedication of the site by Mormon Church President Gordon B. Hinckley on September 11th, 1999.
In one corner of the enclosed memorial is a small, metal plaque, embedded at ground level, indicating in small print that the remains of 29 victims are actually buried at this site. (The remains of these murder victims are, in fact, entombed--along with some Arkansas soil--in a vault at this location after having been accidentally unearthed by a backhoe in the late 1990s during efforts to shore up a retaining wall that undergirds the memorial. Information on the hill up behind the memorial indicates that these victims were originally buried by Federal troops after the Massacre, before being inadvertently uncovered by the earthmover).
Returning to the highway and heading north, the road skirts the area where the members of the Fancher party were actually massacred. After the Mormon attackers duped the Fancher migrants into surrendering, they were escorted by their Mormon murderers several hundred yards away to an area out of sight of the Fancher encampment and, there, brutally massacred.
Although the highway runs very close to, and within clear line of sight of, the spot of the Massacre, there is no signage or other indicators provided to identify this spot from the roadway.
As a personal afterthought, down from the Mormon Church memorial area, off-site, is a small stream, from which I collected three small stones by which to remember my visit. These stones had been washed clean through the years by the waters of that tiny tributary.
The Mormon Church, in contrast, will never be able to wash the blood off its hands for what occurred on September 11th, 1857, at Mountain Meadows.
| I was just looking at an ad for Will Bagleys book about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. There's an excerpt from the books dust jacket explaining the tragedy of MMM and citing evidence of Brigham Youngs involvement.
http://www.utlm.org/booklist/titles/b...
"Title: Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows
Author: Will Bagley
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press"
"The massacre at Mountain Meadows on September 11, 1857, was the single most violent act to occur on the overland trails, yet it has been all but forgotten. Will Bagleys Blood of the Prophets is the most extensive investigation of the events surrounding the mass killings since Juanita Brooks published her groundbreaking study, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, in 1950.
At Mountain Meadows, local settlers and Southern Paiute warriors waylaid the Fancher party, a wagon train bound from Arkansas to California. Pinned down in a circle of wagons in a remote corner of southwestern Utah, some forty men, thirty women, and seventy children fought for their lives for five days before surrendering under a promise of safe conduct. As the Mormon militia and their Indian allies escorted the emigrants away from their wagons, they killed all of them except seventeen children below the age of seven.
Bagley draws on unpublished journals, letters, and documents from Mormon archives as well as from accounts by Mormons who opposed subsequent efforts to cover up or expunge the record. He explains how the murders occurred, reveals the involvement of territorial governor Brigham Young, and explores the subsequent suppression and distortion of the events surrounding the massacre. Also included here are maps and photographs never before published."
I lost all my bookmarks the other day and when searching for this site found Mormonism.com instead where I saw, to my surprise, that BY was apparently sorry for what happened at MMM.
Listed under "My Collection" on this site:
http://www.mormonism.com
A letter from Brigham Young giving his sympathies to the family of a victim of the Mountain Meadows Massacre
Either sorry or a murderous hypocrite. Which one I wonder?
| | | Jaunita Brooks Destroyed Historical Documents, When Writing Her Famous Book On The Subject Of Mountain Meadows Mascare Because They Were "Too Incriminating To The Church"
Article Archived: Jan 3, 2006, at 07:55 AM
Stored Under Topic: MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE
Outside Link To Article: RIGHT CLICK - COPY LINK LOCATION
Original Author Of Article: Randy J. |  | |
"Dudley Leavitt also was the grandfather of Juanita Brooks, whose 1950
benchmark book on the atrocity was the first attempt at exposing the covered-up
details. Yet Brooks, who three months ago was selected as one of the 20 most
influential Utahns of the 20th century, also was conflicted by her convictions
to her LDS faith and family in learning the awful truth.
In a letter to her sister while she was compiling research, Brooks related
that Dudley Leavitt apparently rode picket duty as the surrendering emigrants
were being marched away from the valley. That would make him responsible for
preventing anyone from escaping once the executions began. Brooks said her
father "cautioned his children not to marry Higbees or Haights or Dames or
Klingonsmiths because he believed the sins of the fathers would be visited upon
the heads of the children until the third or fourth generations."
Brooks once told a friend in St. George, current Washington County medical
examiner Bart Anderson, that she even burned several important historical
documents regarding Mountain Meadows. The flames in her fireplace, related
Brooks, turned an eerie blue as she placed the old papers in the fire.
"I asked her why she would ever burn such important documents," Anderson
told reporter Smith recently. "And she told me, 'Bart, they were just too
incriminating.' "
In addition to the fact that Brooks admitted burning documents that were "too
incriminating," Will Bagley points out in his "Blood of the Prophets" that
Brooks didn't have access to Dimick Huntington's journal when she published her
book. If she had, she certainly would have had a fuller picture of the
councils Young held with Indians, and his orders therein, which revealed his
direct orders to attack and plunder emigrant trains. In the final edition of
her book, Brooks wrote in the preface:
"Recently I was given access to an electrostatic copy of the daily journal of
Brigham Young. Under date of September 1, 1857, the entry reads: 'Kanosh the
Pavaunt chief with several of his band visited me gave me some council and
presents. A spirit seems to be takeing possession of the Indians to assist
Israel. I can hardly restrain them from exterminating the Americans.'
"This seems very significant. The 'Journal History of the Church' under this
same date tells of the visit of Jacob Hamblin and twelve Indian chiefs from the
south. President Young talked with them all, but it seems that Kanosh was
given private audience. He was the chief who had killed Captain John W.
Gunnison and several of his men as they were camped on the Sevier River on
October 28, 1853. Whether or not Kanosh and his band were at the Mountain
Meadows we do not know, but we can now be certain that the Mormon war strategy
was to use the natives as 'the battle-ax of the Lord,' as some of the early
missionaries had stated." ("Mountain Meadows Massacre," Juanita Brooks,
p.xiii.)
After Huntington's journal had come to light in LDS archives later, Provo
historian David Bigler fleshed out the details of that September 1 council:
"Hamblin and some twelve Indian chiefs on September first met with Brigham
Young and his most trusted interpreter, 49-year-old Dimick Huntington, at Great
Salt Lake. Taking part in this pow-wow were Kanosh, the Mormon chief of the
Pahvants; Ammon, half-brother of Walker; Tutsegabit, head chief of the
Piedes;Youngwuds, another Piede chieftain, and other leaders of desert bands
along the Santa Clara and Virgin Rivers. Little was known of what they talked
about until recently when it came to light that Huntington (apparently speaking
for Young) told the chiefs that he 'gave them all the cattle that had gone to
Cal[ifornia by] the south rout[e].' The gift 'made them open their eyes,' he
said. But 'you have told us not to steal,' the Indians replied. 'So I have,'
Huntington said, but now they have come to fight us & you for when they kill us
they will kill you.' The chiefs knew what cattle he was giving them. They
belonged to the Baker-Fancher train." ("Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon
Theocracy in the American West," David Bigler, 1998, pp. 167-168.)
Huntington's journal can be read at
http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com
Utah historian Hubert Bancroft shed further light on
Dimick Huntington's activities:
"Major Carleton, of the first dragoons. In a despatch to the assistant
adjutant-general at San Francisco, dated Mountain Meadows, May 25, 1859, he
says: 'A Pah Ute chief of the Santa Clara band, named Jackson, who was one of
the attacking party, and had a brother slain by the emigrants from their corral
by the spring, says that orders came down in a letter from Brigham Young that
the emigrants were to be killed; and a chief of the Pah Utes, named Touche, now
living on the Virgin River, told me that a letter from Brigham Young to the
same effect was brought down to the Virgin River band by a man named
Huntingdon.' A copy of the major's despatch will be found in the Hand-book of
Mormonism, 67-9. Cradlebaugh says that after the attack had been made, one of
the Indians declared that a white man came to their camp with written orders
from Brigham to 'go and help to whip the emigrants.' " ("History of Utah," p.
561.)
Juanita Brooks quoted from Young's letter to Jacob Hamblin of August 4, 1857:
"Continue the conciliatory policy towards the Indians.....for they must learn
that they have got to help us or the United States will kill us both......We
have an abundance of 'news.' The government have appointed an entire set of
officials for the Territory. These Gentry are to have a bodyguard of 2500 of
Uncle's [Sam's] regulars."
Of this excerpt, Brooks comments: "In the version
of this letter.....printed in 'Jacob Hamblin, Personal Narrative,' by James A
Little, the phrase 'for they must learn that they have either got to help us or
the United States will kill us both' is not included. Neither is the entire
paragraph which gives the 'abundance of news.' The reason for this deletion
seems clear." (Brooks, p. 35.)
The reason for the deletion of this passage in a pro-Mormon edition of
Hamblin's narrative is INDEED clear: The passage clearly shows that Young
instructed Hamblin to prepare the southern Indians to help the Mormons act
against the U. S. government forces. The excerpt also makes clear that,
contrary to some Mormon apologists' assertions that Young had no foreknowledge
of why the Army was marching on SLC, and that therefore 'justified' Young in
prosecuting his guerrilla war against Johnston's Army, Young in fact knew very
well that the army was sent to depose Young as governor and escort the
newly-appointed governor and "an entire set of officials" to replace the
territorial judges who had fled Utah fearing for their lives at the hands of Young's "Danites."
Young's foreknowledge of the army's
mission means that his orders to prevent the army from entering the Salt Lake
Valley constituted an act of treason against the United States, as also did his
illegal declaration of martial law; so that is why Mormon apologists
deceitfully omit this part of Young's letter when writing on the subject.
Brooks further offers: "Jacob Hamblin.....decided to take a group of the chiefs
to Great Salt Lake City for an interview with the great Mormon chief, Brigham
Young. His handwritten diary, as yet unpublished, says:
'I started for Great
Salt Lake City in company with Thales Haskell and Tutsegabit...He had felt
anxious for a long time to visit Brigham Young. We fell in company with George
A. Smith. Conosh [Kanosh, the Pauvant chief] joined us. Other Indian chiefs
also
joined our company. When we arrived in the city there were ten of them went up
to see Brigham Young, the great Mormon chief. We encamped on Corn Creek on our
way up; near a company of Emigrants from Arkansas, on the-----'
"Here the
account stops abruptly, for the next leaf is torn out.....What Brigham Young
told the chiefs in that hour was not recorded, but we might hazard an opinion
that it was not out of harmony with his written instructions that 'they must
learn that they have got to help us or the United States will kill us
both.'.....At that time Brigham Young had to be sure of his allies, for he was
conducting a war against tremendous odds. The previous Mormon policy had been
to keep the natives from stealing and plundering and to teach them the peaceful
pursuits of farming and cattle raising, but now Brigham Young seemed determined
that he would no longer "hold them by the wrist," as he told Captain Van Vliet
a few days later. The Indians must have started back home immediately, for in
seven days they were harassing the emigrants at Mountain Meadows, and in ten
days they participated in the massacre of the company." (Brooks, pp. 40-42.)
In light of this information, it doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to deduce what
Young told the Indians in that meeting ten days before the MMM. It also
doesn't take a great brain to understand why someone tore the next page out of
Hamblin's diary: it probably gave more details of Young's "counsel" to
Hamblin, Huntingdon, and the Indians as to what to do with the Baker-Fancher
train. Bagley documents in "Blood of the Prophets" where pages of journals and
other incriminating documents were torn out and destroyed, to eliminate the
"paper trail" of evidence which points to Brigham Young's involvement in the
MMM.
But unfortunately for Young, Mormon apologists, and the church's claims of
institutional innocence, Huntington's journal reveals the whole story that the
church has tried to keep hidden for 145 years.
| My father did a pretty good job of explaining the MMM to the campers. Only a small handful of them actually went to the site. About 7 fathers and about a dozen children. As we climbed the trail at Sutter's Hill, we stopped to read the markers that told the condensed church version of the massacre. I could tell that a couple of the men had never heard of the MMM and were shocked by what they were reading. When we arrived at the 1990 memorial on top of Sutter's Hill, my father started to explain what occured there. Most of the kids were already climbing all over the memorial. I don't know why but I was very offended by this. More so, by the fact that the fathers did not tell them to get down.
Like I said, my dad did a very good job (for a believer) of explaining the events. There were many details he left out (we were only there 30 minutes tops), but he didn't shy away from calling the MMM a "black mark on our history". He mentioned the context of the time. Things like "blood atonement", the "Reformation", religous zealotry, etc. were all things he breifly mentioned. He repeated a few rumors that arent true like, the emigrants causing trouble, poisoning some indians, having the gun that killed JS, etc., but he commented that most of those were just rumors to justify what happened.
He talked about apostate historians trying to implicate BY, but not really being able to.
There was one guy who kept putting his two cents worth in. He was repeating faith promoting rumors he had read on the internet. I interjected when I thought a well placed detail might cause people to think. I reminded them that John Lee was BY adopted son by sealing, and that he was fully reinstated by the church in 1961.
While at the 1999 memorial this same dufus made a statement commending Hinkley's 1990 statements regarding the MMM, and the legalistic terms in which Hinkley spoke (never accepting blame for the massacre). He said this was good because the church should not be legally liable for reimbursing the descendants. I could't take this guy and longer. I finally spoke directly to him and said, "They ought to be reimbursed. All the victim's property ended up in the Tithing house in Cedar City." He looked like a deer caught in the head lights. Finally, he said, "Yeah but, a lot of these guys remembered what happened to the Saints in Missouri." To which I responded, "What do people from Arkansas, have to do with what happened in Missouri?" I walked off at this point. I am not sure if anyone sense my irritation by I clearly was.
The whole time, the men kept speaking in terms of "us/we" and "them", as if the actions of the mormons and the church were their actions.
One of the greatest things I ever heard was at the 1999 Mogatsu Creek memorial. My 5 yr old asked me "Who is buried on this big pile of rock?"
I said, "A group of pioneers that got killed."
She asked, "How did they die?"
I replied, "They were shot with guns."
She asked, "Who killed them?"
I replied, "A group of Mormons."
She asked, "What is a Mormon."
No lie! That is what she said. She goes to church almost every week with he mom. I smiled at her and gave her a big hug.
I took some pictures but they aren't anything more that what you can already find on the net.
| As some may remember, I'm writing up a proposal for a paper on representations of the MMM in literature for an academic conference this fall (on Religion and Violence). Thanks to everyone who helped me compile a reading list a month or so ago.
In case you are interested, here's what I've amassed/read/may use/ etc and some comments (I'm just compiling a list of ficitional works that treat both/either the MMM or mormon/danite violence in general):
- The Study in Scarlet--Arthur Conan Doyle (read)
- Riders of the Purple Sage--Zane Gray (quite an interesting book--never read it before and was suprised that it read like a ladie's romance novel! I found that rather charming)
- The Desert Crucible--Zane Gray (haven't read yet)
- The Dynamiter--Robert Louis Stevenson (haven't read yet)
- Roughing It--Mark Twain (read)
- The Fate of Madame La Tour--A.G. Paddock (got a great old early edition--found it fascinating and not really that far-fetched)
- The Star Rover--Jack London (I'm smitten with this work---I need to research what London's source on the MMM was)
- The Ferry Woman--Gerald Grimmett (interesting to read alongside Red Water)
- Red Water--Judith Freeman (I'm a bit surprised how much literary treatments of John D. Lee emphasize his sexual prowess/sexuality)
- The Veil--Diane Noble (have not read yet)
- The Fancher Train--Amelia Bean (have not read yet...christ it was an expensive used book!)
- The Wine-Dark Sea of Grass--Marilyn Brown (not read)
- Satans Caravan--Grace W. Conlon (not read---expect it to be quite...uh tabloid? from a vanity press?)
- Brighams Day--John Gates (not read)
The following mention the MMM in some way and may be interesting to look through:
- Grandma Ann--Mary Huff (only read snippet from Google Book Search---its a bio of somebody's grandma and Grandma Ann relates talking to child survivors! A vanity press?)
- For This My Glory--Paul Bailey (haven't read--published in 1940, only literature I've fround from that era that mentions MMM)
- Sarahs Gold: A Woman Pioneer of Vision--Barbara Rockwell (haven't read/ fictionalized account of somebody's pioneer forebear/Vanity press?))
- MooMoos Lottery--John Luke (haven't read, looks like crappy)
- The Mormon and Mr. Sullivan--Hugh F. Wynn (the cover pic on Amazon.com is hilarious!! another vanity press deal?)
The two folksongs that folks here mentioned--Utah Where is Thy Shame (I think this will be the title of my paper!) and the one about Porter Rockwell are going to be useful for my paper.
Also I just skimmed thru Leonard Arrington's "Perpetuation of a Myth: Mormon Danites in Five Western Novels, 1840-90," Brigham Young University Studies 23 (Spring 1983): 147-65--and found it on first read to be pretty much utter shite. Too bad
I need to look at his "Intolerable Zion: The Image of Mormonism in Nineteenth Century American Literature," Western Humanities Review 22 (Summer 1968): 243-60.
Oh and I made myself read "The function of mormon literary criticism at the present time" or whatever that peice is called, by Michael Austin. Oh brother! It attempts a rational middleground...oh I can't go on...it gave me a headache in my heart.
| Just yesterday afternoon, after I'd posted my update, I ran across two more MMM novels. One, I had run across before in a general search and had dismissed, wrongly, as a mislabled children's book. It's "Redeye," by Clyde Edgerton. I have no idea what its deal is, but the two industry reviews of it on Amazon.com have glaring errors in them. Both get the date of the MMM wrong (one could be a typo); let's hope Edgerton doesn't.
The other is something I haven't actually found yet. I just saw it listed on some MMM resource page that randomly turned up. Apparently Burr Fancher has written a novel called "Westward With The Sun." I'm assuming it's MMM related, but I can't find any info on it yet. Burr Fancher is a descendant and is also the head of the Mountain Meadows Massacre Monument Foundation--some folks I should talk a little bit about.
This group is opposed to the Mountain Meadows Massacre Association, also a group of emigrant descendants, primarily Ron Loving, who cooperated with the mormon church both over the design of the current monument AND the decision to quickly rebury the incriminating bones that turned up in 1999. The MMMM Foundation wants the area to be granted National Monument status, meaning the monument and environs would be the property of the the federal government---a public place----instead of the LDS Church, in other words, private property. Their argument is:
"There will never be closure on Mountain Meadows until the graves are in hands other than an organization involved in the massacre."
a sentiment I agree with completely.
I am writing to Burr Fancher about his book (is it even fiction? I don't really know what it is) as well as about the MMMM Foundation which I am joining and sending my dues to today.
One of the MMMM Foundation projects was the construction of a replica of the original Carleton cairn. Here is a photo of it:
http://1857massacre.com/MMM/Images/cr...
and you can read more about it on Frank Kirkman's MMM website:
http://1857massacre.com/MMM/siteindex...
His website has an enormous amount of information...its worth perusing at length. His rhetoric is heated--is Brigham Young really the most evil criminal in United States history? Well, maybe one of them, but...
However, the fact that he titles his list of mormon participants in the massacre, "List of Shooters and Clubbers," brings a smile to my face.
| From The Life and Confessions of John D. Lee - Written by John D. Lee, May 17, 1877:
I am not a traitor to my people, nor to my former friends and comrades who were with me on that dark day when the work of death was carried on in God's name, by a lot of deluded and religious fanatics. It is my duty to tell facts as they exist, and I will do so.
I have said that all of the small children were put into the wagons; that was wrong, for one little child, about six months old, was carried in its father's arms, and it was killed by the same bullet that entered its father's breast; it was shot through the head.
When we had got out of sight, as I said before, and just as we were coming into the main road, I heard a volley of guns at the place where I knew the troops and emigrants were. Our teams were then going at a fast walk. I first heard one gun, then a volley at once followed.
McMurdy and Knight stopped their teams at once, for they were ordered by Higbee, the same as I was, to help kill all the sick and wounded who were in the wagons, and to do it as soon as they heard the guns of the troops.
McMurdy was in front; his wagon was mostly loaded with the arms and small children. McMurdy and Knight got out of their wagons; each one had a rifle. McMurdy went up to Knight's wagon, where the sick and wounded were, and raising his rifle to his shoulder, said: "0 Lord, my God, receive their spirits, it is for thy Kingdom that I do this." He then shot a man who was lying with his head on another man's breast; the ball killed both men.
Knight then shot a man with his rifle; he shot the man in the head. Knight also brained a boy that was about fourteen years old. The boy came running up to our wagons, and Knight struck him on the head with the butt end of his gun, and crushed his skull. By this time many Indians reached our wagons, and all of the sick and wounded were killed almost instantly.
I saw an Indian from Cedar City, called Joe, run up to the wagon and catch a man by the hair, and raise his head up and look into his face; the man shut his eyes, and Joe shot him in the head.
The Indians then examined all of the wounded in the wagons, and all of the bodies, to see if any were alive, and all that showed signs of life were at once shot through the head.
Just after the wounded were all killed I saw a girl, some ten or eleven years old, running towards us, from the direction where the troops had attacked the main body of emigrants; she was covered with blood. An Indian shot her before she got within sixty yards of us. That was the last person that I saw killed on that occasion.
About this time an Indian rushed to the front wagon, and grabbed a little boy, and was going to kill him. The lad got away from the Indian and ran to me, and caught me by the knees; and begged me to save him, and not let the Indian kill him. The Indian had hurt the little fellow's chin on the wagon bed, when he first caught hold of him. I told the Indian to let the boy alone. I took the child up in my arms, and put him back in the wagon, and saved his life. This little boy said his name was Charley Fancher, and that his father was Captain of the train. He was a bright boy. I afterwards adopted him, and gave him to Caroline. She kept him until Dr. Forney took all the children East. I believe that William Sloan, alias Idaho Bill, is the same boy.
After all the parties were dead, I ordered Knight to drive out on one side, and throw out the dead bodies. He did so, and threw them out of his wagon at a place about one hundred yards from the road, and then came back to where I was standing.
I then ordered Knight and McMurdy to take the children that were saved alive, (sixteen was the number, some say seventeen, I say sixteen,) and drive on to Hamblin's ranch. They did as I ordered them to do.
Every witness that claims that he went to the Meadows without knowing what he was going to do, has lied, for they all knew, as well as Haight or any one else did, and they all voted, every man of them, in the Council, on Friday morning, a little before daylight, to kill all the emigrants.
While going back, to the brethren, I passed the bodies of several women. In one place I saw six or seven bodies near each other; they were stripped perfectly naked, and all of their clothing was torn from their bodies by the Indians.
I walked along the line where the emigrants had been killed, and saw many bodies lying dead and naked on the field, near by where the women lay. I saw ten children; they had been killed close to each other; they were from ten to sixteen years of age. The bodies of the women and children were scattered along the ground for quite a distance before I came to where the men were killed.
I do not know how many were killed, but I thought then that there were some fifteen women, about ten children, and about forty men killed, but the statement of others that I have since talked with about the massacre, makes me think there were fully one hundred and ten killed that day on the Mountain Meadows, and the ten who had died in the corral, and young Aden killed by Stewart at Richards' Springs, would make the total number one hundred and twenty-one.
When I reached the place where the dead men lay, I was told how the orders had been obeyed. Major Higbee said, "The boys have acted admirably, they took good aim, and all of the damned Gentiles but two or three fell at the first fire."
He said that three or four got away some distance, but the men on horses soon overtook them and cut their throats. Higbee said the Indians did their part of the work well, that it did not take over a minute to finish up when they got fairly started. I found that the first orders had been carried out to the letter.
Three of the emigrants did get away, but the Indians were put on their trail and they overtook and killed them before they reached the settlements in California. But it would take more time than I have to spare to give the details of their chase and capture. I may do so in my writings hereafter, but not now.
After the dead were searched, the brethren were called up, and Higbee and Klingensmith, as well as myself, made speeches, and ordered the people to keep the matter ,a secret from the entire world. Not to tell their wives, or their most intimate friends, and we pledged ourselves to keep everything relating to the affair a secret during life. We also took the most binding oaths to stand by each other, and to always insist that the massacre was committed by Indians alone. This was the advice of Brigham Young too, as I will show hereafter.
After breakfast we all went back in a body to the Meadows, to bury the dead and take care of the property that was left there.
When we reached the Meadows we all rode up to that part of the field where the women were lying dead. The bodies of men, women and children had been stripped entirely naked, making the scene one of the most loathsome and ghastly that can be imagined.
Colonel Dame was silent for some time. He looked all over the field, and was quite pale, and looked uneasy and frightened. I thought then that he was just finding out the difference between giving and executing orders for wholesale killing.
We then went along the field, and passed by where the brethren were at work covering up the bodies. They piled the dead bodies up in heaps, in little gullies, and threw dirt over them. The bodies were only lightly covered, for the ground was hard, and the brethren did not have sufficient tools to dig with. I suppose it is true that the first rain washed the bodies all out again, but I never went back to examine whether it did or not.
We then went along the field to where the corral and camp had been, to where the wagons were standing. We found that the Indians had carried off all of the wagon covers, and the clothing, and the provisions, and had emptied the feathers out of the feather-beds, and carried off all the ticks.
After the dead were covered up or buried (but it was not much of a burial,) the brethren were called together, and a council was held at the emigrant camp. All the leading men made speeches; Colonel Dame, President Haight. Klingensmith, John M. Higbee, Hopkins and myself. The speeches were first--Thanks to God for delivering our enemies into our hands; next, thanking the brethren for their zeal in God's cause; and then the necessity of always saying the Indians did it alone, and that the Mormons had nothing to do with it.
The most of the speeches, however, were in the shape of exhortations and commands to keep the whole matter secret from every one but Brigham Young. It was voted unanimously that any man who should divulge the secret, or tell who was present, or do anything that would lead to a discovery of the truth, should suffer death.
The brethren then all took a most solemn oath, binding themselves under the most dreadful and awful penalties, to keep the whole matter secret from every human being, as long as they should live. No man was to know the facts. The brethren were sworn not to talk of it among themselves, and each one swore to help kill all who proved to be traitors to the Church or people in this matter.
It was then agreed that Brigham Young should be informed of the whole matter, by some one to be selected by the Church Council, after the brethren had returned home.
It was also voted to turn all the property over to Klingensmith, as Bishop of the Church at Cedar City, and he was to take care of the property for the benefit of the Church, until Brigham Young was notified, and should give further orders what to do with it.
- Lee, John Doyle. The Life and Confessions of John D. Lee, the Mormon. Philadelphia, Barclay, and Co., 1877, 46 pages; (187?), 64 pages.
| | | Perverse Mormon Pr: Covering (up) The Corpses Of Mountain Meadows Massacre Victims With The American Flag
Article Archived: Oct 26, 2006, at 07:25 AM
Stored Under Topic: MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE
Outside Link To Article: RIGHT CLICK - COPY LINK LOCATION
Original Author Of Article: Sourcerer | | |
At the site of the Mountains Meadow Massacre where, on September 11th, 1857, 120 men, women and children in an immigrant wagon train were slaughtered by murderous Mormon marauders, is an American flag--part of an LDS-erected memorial site/public relations ploy to downplay the Mormon role in, and cover-up of, the atrocity.
The flagpole boasting the Stars and Stripes is positioned near the fenced-in memorial area, where the skeletal remains of 29 victims of the Massacre are buried--bodies that were accidentally unearthed in the 1990s by a backhoe making badly-needed repairs to the neglected site.
The remains were quickly reburied, under intense pressure from then-Utah governor Mike Leavitt, who is a descendant of one of the Massacre participants.
Leavitt "encouraged state officials to quickly rebury the remains, even though the basic scientific analysis required by state law was unfinished. . . . The end result may be another sad chapter in the Massacre's legacy of bitterness, denial and suspicion. (Salt Lake Tribune, March 12, 2000, p. A-1)"
Leavitt's Mormon-protecting haste to literally cover up the crime is further detailed as follows:
"Utah state law required that the bones be studied, a job that went to forensic anthropologist Shannon Novak from the University of Utah. Novak and her colleagues found entrance and exit holes in the skulls of men that could only have come from gunshots fired at close range, while most women and children found died of blunt force.
"In her analysis of more than 2,600 bone fragments, Novak found no evidence of knives used to scalp, behead, or cut the throats, as well as no evidence of trauma from arrows. Although the study cannot determine what weapons Paiutes might have used in the Massacre (if they were involved), it brings up the possibility that white men murdered all of the victims, contradicting John D. Lee's testimony accusing Native Americans of slaughtering the women and children.
"To Shannon Novak, the bones could provide information that incomplete or biased histories could not. 'Prior to this analysis, what was known about the massacre was often based on second-hand information, polemical newspaper accounts, and the testimony of known killers,' said Novak. 'Furthermore, what had come to be merely an abstract historical event, the "tragedy at Mountain Meadows," now became a mass murder of specific men, women, and children with proper names and histories.'
"The analysis of the remains questioned the accuracy of the historical accounts and stirred up many emotions. After five weeks, Novak's analysis was cut short by an order from the governor of Utah, Mike Leavitt, that the bones be re-interred in time for the September [1999] anniversary. . . .
"Leavitt, whose grandfather participated in the Massacre, circumvented the law and ordered that the bones be re-interred before the minimum required study was finished because he 'did not feel that it was appropriate for the bones to be dissected and studied in a manner that would prolong the discomfort' (Salt Lake Tribune, March 2000)."
http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/m...
http://www.archaeology.org/online/fea...
_____
God bless Mormon America.
As one looks at the American flag fluttering in the wind, casting its shadow over the scene of a bloodbath perpetrated by conspiring Mormon religious fanatics, it would do well to remember the words of American historian Howard Zinn:
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."
| | | We're Still Waiting For The Mopologists To Publish Their "Most Extensive Research Ever Conducted" On The Mountain Meadows Massacre
Article Archived: Nov 16, 2006, at 06:54 AM
Stored Under Topic: MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE
Outside Link To Article: RIGHT CLICK - COPY LINK LOCATION
Original Author Of Article: Randy J. | | |
|
