Mitt, Mountain Meadows … What?
It’s fabulous for news junkies like myself when all the planets align for a fascinating story about politics, culture and human nature.
And if those forces don’t quite mesh completely, well by golly, we’ll give ‘em a nudge. Like, maybe, find a way to link Mitt Romney and a killer sore spot in LDS Church history.
Example: A new film, titled “September Dawn,” is scheduled for national release May 4. Its subject is the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, in which Mormon settlers in southwestern Utah disguised themselves as Indians and launched a surprise attack on a wagon train of non-Mormons making its way westward. One hundred twenty men, women and children were killed. John D. Lee, the supposed mastermind of the attack, was executed as a result. But historians, writers, folklorists and journalists have for more than a century speculated on LDS prophet Brigham Young’s responsibility in the crime. No conspiracy on his part has ever been proven, but authorities of various stripes (except those in official positions with the church) have postulated that Young had a direct hand in the scandal.
Later tonight, KSL-TV reporter John Hollenhorst will report on the new film — which quite honestly, looks pretty cheezy and melodramatic. It stars Jon Voight as a deranged-looking Lee. Voight is in the twilight of his career, I’d go so far as to say in his roccoco period. I digress.
John has decided to link the upcoming movie with Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, and how it might reflect on a general opinion that some big hulking church in Utah calls the shots in his political life.
That seems like a little stretch, but every reporter and blogger I know living outside the D.C. beltway is trying to scratch out a story about Mitt as the adopted son of Utah who saved the 2002 Winter Olympics, so why not the Mountain Meadows connection? In the news biz, if Romney so much as stopped in a Greyhound Bus station for an hour in Salt Lake City, it would be considered fair game for the all-important “local connection.”
Therefore, Mitt is one of ours forever. He’s going to put us on the map. Hey! Has anyone on the campaign beat captured Mitt sipping cold caffeine yet?
John H. came to the house this morning, seeking hubby Ted Wilson’s political expertise on the film’s possible impact on Mormons and church hierarchy (dredging up, as occurs about every 10 years, yet another analysis on the shame the church shares for its connection to Mountain Meadows). And yep, John plumbed the Romney connection — how the film’s anticipated message of Young as the massacre mastermind — might play with potential Mitt supporters or how it could affect his chances among those who question his connection to LDS Church leaders if he ends up running the country.
Wowsers. It’s going to be some year of candidate scrutiny leading up to the early primaries and caucuses next winter. Buckle up and hold on.
It’s always hard to know how people outside our Zion Curtain look at the rougher-hewn side of Mormonism. I grew up here, left for many years and returned 10 years ago when I determined it was time to return to the mountains, my mom, and a political and social culture that simultaneously edifies and enrages me.
So, if you are lucky enough to live here in Utah, tune into KSL-Channel 5 tonight at 10 p.m. John will dissect the Mitt/Mountain Meadows kinda-sorta connection. And Ted — who discusses the massacre as a permanent public relations challenge for the LDS Church — looks FABULOUS in his tan plaid jacket and necktie.
February 6th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
It’s really sad that the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day-Saints will now again have to explain the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Because there is no real explanation without the benefit of historians finding some meaningful evidence of “Who done it?” For the Mormon Church, it is the old beating your wife problem.
But Hollywood will get more than its pound of flesh. We are all so oversentized these days that titilation is about the only way we can get our kicks at the movies. We watch “survivor” shows on TV and we know damn well there is a huge gaggle of cameras and producers enjoying afternoon Dos Equis hanging around. We get so much sports and TV trash, and big meals, and on and on that…………..(fill in the blank.)
As for Mitt Romney, well he will just have to live with the gut wrenching side of it. He does belong to a church that the nation is totally and absolutely confused about. And in the acid world of big time politics, any problem is a cement roadblock. But maybe getting the nation’s view of Mormon weirdness out early will inoculate the candidate for the critical Autumn days of 2008 when such a movie release could be like a lead weight on a mobster’s plant in the river.
February 7th, 2007 at 12:11 am
I always cringe when someone brings up the Mountain Meadow Massacre - especially the producers of quick and dirty “documentaries” - because they never get it right.
The reason this awful act happened had nothing to do with Blood Atonement, the 1856 Mormon Reformation, or even Religious Fanaticism.
The Mormon Meadow Massacre was an act of War Hysteria.
In July of 1857 word reached Salt Lake City that Brigham Young was being replaced as Territorial Governor. Strangely, no attempt had been made to officially notify him about this. In addition, Mormon spies had discovered that the new Governor was being accompanied by what the U. S. Government called a “posse” – an armed personal guard.
The personal guard consisted of over 2,500 armed men including cavalry, cannons, and infantry. There were another 2,500 support personnel coming as well (undoubtedly supplied by the 19th century equivalent of Halliburton) bringing the total number of surprise guests up to 5,000. Some armed guard!
Considering the fact that the Mormons had been driven out of their three previous settlements by such armed groups, it is not surprising that they reacted with alarm. Many of these Mormons had been burned out of their homes as many as five times. Even more had lost loved ones when nearly a thousand Mormons died of disease in the squalor of Winter Quarters after being expelled from Illinois by armed men.
All agreed they would never let that happen again.
Consequently by August of 1857, Brigham Young had put the Territory of Utah under Martial Law. He forbade the soldiers to cross the border. Mormon operatives were sent to burn Army wagons, drive off cattle, and generally slow the Army down until the coming winter would make it impossible for them to march at all.
One thing Brigham Young insisted on however was that no life was to be taken - amd history shows that no soldiers were ever killed by these Mormon operatives.
That of course raises an obvious question: If Brigham Young was so careful not to kill the soldiers who he felt were coming to accomplish his destruction, why would he order the killing of an immigrant company?
The answer is that he didn’t order the killing of the Fancher Company or anyone else for that matter.
What did happen is totally different from what typically appears in the numerous books and documentaries that so poorly portray this tragedy.
Brigham Young wanted to show the U. S. Government just how much trouble he could be, so as part of the restrictions of Martial Law, he ordered all trade with immigrant trains headed to California to be halted. He felt that when Americans found out that the immigration to the West was being disrupted, that they would put pressure on Congress to recall the Army.
Sadly, his plan backfired.
In September of 1857, the first company to come through Salt Lake City after Martial Law was declared was the ill-fated Fancher Company.
For ten years the Mormons had helped sustain their settlement in Utah by trading with these immigrant companies. The immigrants had come to depend on it. Now for the first time Mormons refused to sell even the most basic food supplies to them. This caused great suffering to the men, women, and children of this unfortunate wagon train.
Brigham Young expected the Fancher Company to simply turn around and go back where they came from and blame the U. S. Government. Sadly they continued on their journey and headed for Southern Utah.
With the food running out and Mormons refusing to sell any at any price, things got out of hand. The immigrants resorted to stealing to feed their families. Angry words were exchanged. Charges of wrong doing were hurled. Threats were made.
One threat that came to the attention of the Territorial Militia was that when the Fancher Company reached California that they would supposedly encourage Californians to send soldiers to attack Utah from the South.
That meant a two front war.
With the bulk of Mormon resources being directed to fighting the United States Army coming from the North, Mormons in Southern Utah were convinced they would be destroyed.
Before long panic among local military leaders sealed the fate of the immigrant train. Military leaders under the command of Isaac Haight decided they couldn’t wait for orders from Brigham Young who was 300 miles away. That would take close to week. They felt they had to act immediately.
A meeting was held. Cooler Heads did not prevail. Fear overtook them. They decided to send Commander John D. Lee to carry out the plan to kill the immigrants and blame it on the Indians.
It was a horrible mistake which everyone involved regretted the rest of their lives.
How sad that while the details of the actual Massacre are well known, the real motivation behind it and the lesson that it teaches us about our own actions in a post 9/11 world have been so sorely neglected.
Perhaps this is at least partly the fault of the Mormon Church itself. They have also been all too willing to defame the character of the members of the Fancher Company suggesting that there was no “innocent blood” among them. They have been all too willing to support the myth that John D. Lee was a religious fanatic who acted on his own. (They know better and in 1960 quietly reversed his excommunication.)
Its a classic cover up that covers up nothing except perhaps the lessons we can learn about dealing dealing with anger and fear in our own troubling times.
This year is the 150th anniversary of these horrible events and a Mormon wants to be President. The subject is going to come up. Maybe dealing with it honestly will not only salve wounds that for too long have gone unhealed, but demonstrate the leadership America hungers for and that has been so sadly lacking in our own fearful times.
And isn’t that what being President is all about?
February 7th, 2007 at 9:12 am
That’s the saddest, weakest, and most long-winded exoneration of Brigham Young that I’ve ever read. Perhaps someone could actually describe the massacre in some detail on this blog. Maybe that’d cure us of The-Mormon-pioneers- and-their-poor-persecuted-descendants-were-the-ultimate- victims whining that I’m picking up here. (Oh, horror! They’re gonna have to explain it again! The humanity! I know a few counselors who specialize in treating PTSD, if any of them would like to talk about it later. Or maybe just a nice, steaming cup of hot chocolate and a big hug would do).
I’m actually a bit chilled by Holly’s whimsical “How-does-this-affect-Mitt?” spin on the whole grisly matter, to be honest. I for one don’t give a damn.
February 7th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Hard to know where to begin with this one. For openers Mitt has a zero chance of being elected. The good folks of Utah are oblivious as to how surpassingly strange the Mormons are regarded by mainstream America. A cult? business? lasting hangover from a Jimmy Swaggert type charlatan? Mark Twain`s description of the Book of Mormon as “the first great work of frontier fiction” is really pretty mild.
To be fair other faiths have their problems. Catholicism has popes like Alexander 6th & Julius 2nd that were notable for homicide,lust and greed (Borgia had 27 children and expired from syphilis).What these religions have is antiquity to blur some of the rough edges. Wanna write a history of the Mormon prophet? Look into the police records
of New York,Ohio,Illinois etc. It`s all there.
Mountain Meadows was mass murder committed by resposible Mormons. My relatives living in Cedar City even today say “they got what they deserved” with an angry glint in their eyes. Blood Atonement is alive and well among the faithful and is a fine expression of xenophobia.
Alas,living here in Babylon I`ll miss the show tonight. Should be interesting to watch the hyper-sensitive LDS try to obscure their past. I highly recommend Fawn Brodie`s ” No Man Knows My History” Got her excommunicated (she went to UCLA as a professor of history & won a Pulitzer Prize for a bio of Jefferson )……Cheers and Such. RB
February 7th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
I have heard similar things from people in Southern Utah that “Chardonnay” reports.
I think it is really a shame that after all these years so much of “official” Mormon history tries to pin the blame for this terrible crime on the immigrants. The idea that “there was no innocent blood among them” was used from the beginning to convince reluctant Mormon Militiamen to do the unthinkable. Suggestions were made that even the children who were spared were rotten to the core. They seem oblivious to the fact that the Mormons were refusing to sell them food at any price and their children were literally starving.
The Church should apologize and take responsibility but I doubt that will ever happen as apparently Church lawyers fear a wrongful death suit.
February 8th, 2007 at 9:50 am
You’re absolutely right, brucew. But real taking real responsibility includes admitting Brigham Young’s rather obvious culpability in the affair. Your first reply on this issue would lead a reasonable person to assume that he had something rather directly to do with it. Wasn’t he ther person who wanted to show Uncle Sam “how much trouble he could be”?
The Mormons who were refusing to sell the immigrants food and who were letting their children starve to death were doing so on whose orders I wonder?
February 9th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Just read Juanita Brooks great history of the event. She actually interviewed some of the Mormon participants for her book, who were still having nightmares close to the time of their deaths. Writing the book would have gotten her excommunicated had not President McKay intervened and prevented other members of the Council of the Twelve from getting even with the “little woman.” She told it all, and I keep her great quotation posted in my room: “Truth suppressed is its own kind of lie.” She may be the bravest woman in Utah history, and would be disgusted with some of the modern truth suppression going on.
February 13th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
I’ve had a special interest in Mountain Meadows all my life because some of my ancestors were among the first settlers of the “Iron County Mission.” brucew’s account is basically the classic Mormon account, but it does leave out some very important points. I believe you do have to put the massacre in the context as the first battle of the “Utah War.”
It was a preemptive strike against a perceived enemy and yes, “Brigham Young wanted to show the U. S. Government just how much trouble he could be…(brucew)” (Did you ever read some of his sermons on Blood atonement?)
I think it is very possible that “Lion of the Lord” softened his positions against the U.S. Government and the U.S. people, after hearing about the horrors of the massacre. Perhaps that is why he actually backed down when Johnston’s Army finally arrived in Utah. Perhaps the horrors of the massacre avoided a larger conflict (massacre?) of the Mormons and the U.S. Government.
That being said, another part of the story is the “Oath of Vengeance” that had been taken by many Mormons in the Temple and Endowment House. Following Joseph Smith’s martyrdom, Brigham Young introduced an oath in the endowment which required members to swear vengeance “upon this nation.” It became the subject of a United States Senate Investigation in the confirmation hearings of Sen. Reed Smoot.
“You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children’s children unto the third and fourth generation.” (The Reed Smoot Case, vol. 4, pp. 495-496)
Under the date of Dec. 6, 1889, Apostle Abraham Cannon recorded the following in his diary:
“…Father said that he understood when he had his endowments in Nauvoo that he took an oath against the murderers of the Prophet Joseph as well as other prophets, and if he had ever met any of those who had taken a hand in the massacre he would undoubtedly have attempted to avenge the blood of the martyrs.” (Daily Journal of Abraham H. Cannon, Dec. 6, 1889, page 205) (Also realize the Mormons had just recently received the news that Parley P. Pratt had been killed in Arkansas and of course the wagon train was from Arkansas.)
(In 1927, after years of criticism, the First Presidency of the Mormon Church finally ordered the complete removal of the “Oath of Vengeance” from the temple ceremony.)
While Brigham Young and George A. Smith, the church authorities chiefly responsible, may not have specifically ordered the massacre, they did preach sermons and set up social conditions which made it possible…. Brigham Young was accessory after the fact, in that he knew what had happened, and how and why it happened. Evidence of this is abundant and unmistakable, and from the most impeccable Mormon sources. Brigham Young understood well that the massacre had grown out of loyalty to him and his cause. He would not and did not betray his followers into the hands of their common “enemy.” John D. Lee became the Mormon’s scapegoat.
(There was a huge cover-up long before Watergate and the Church is still covering it up today.)
The Salt Lake Tribune, March 14, 2000 reported about the continuing cover-up by Governor Leavitt and the Church when bones were accidentally uncovered at Mountain Meadows. After detailing the suppression of evidence the article concludes:
“Noted Mormon writer Levi Peterson has tried to explain the difficulty that Mormons and their church face in confronting the atrocity of Mountain Meadows.”
“If good Mormons committed the massacre, if prayerful leaders ordered it, if apostles and a prophet knew about it and later sacrificed John D. Lee, then the sainthood of even the modern church seems tainted,” he has written. “Where is the moral superiority of Mormonism, where is the assurance that God has made Mormons his new chosen people?” …
“But acknowledging any complicity in Mountain Meadows’ macabre past is fundamentally problematic for the modern church.”
“The massacre has left the Mormon Church on the horns of a dilemma,” says Utah historian Will Bagley, author of a forthcoming book on Mountain Meadows. “It can’t acknowledge its historic involvement in a mass murder, and if it can’t accept its accountability, it can’t repent.” (Salt Lake Tribune, March 14, 2000, p. A-4)
(Sorry this is so long, but you touched a hot button. I welcome the movie and look forward to seeing it. It may not be the Mormon viewpoint, but then the Mormon viewpoint is biased.)
Cooper
February 14th, 2007 at 7:30 am
For Cooper..good stuff ! BTW,the Fancher party was worth about $70,000. Big money back then. My relatives view the event as if it happened yesterday…no regrets.
February 14th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Reading brucew and cooper’s perceptions of this event is quite interesting, actually. I think that it is important that we are educated and aware of the incident, especially now that Mitt Romney is running for president.
The massacre was a terrible situation. All religions have had terrible things happen under the guise of religious freedom. I lived in New England (Rhode Island) for many years. The Kennedy’s and their Catholic philosophy and how it related to the presidency and the government was always being questioned. When the campaign really gets going, the same thing will happen. Being informed is key to understanding where an individual stands before all the assumptions and generalities surface.
I am not a devout Mormon, but I do think that Mitt Romney is a good man and I do think that he has the right to show his stuff to let us make an informed decision for the presidency.
February 15th, 2007 at 1:12 am
Hi Cooper:
I agree with your statement that while Brigham Young may not have specifically ordered the massacre, he and other Church leaders helped create the conditions that led to it. This is also the conclusion of Juanita Brooks. I don’t think Brigham Young had to work very hard to stir up emotions though. People were already stirred up. Had Brigham Young allowed trading with the Fancher company, I believe this would not have happened though. It was a terrible miscalculation. He effectively provoked both sides into this conflict.
Did this sad incident make Brigham Young more amenable to Thomas Kane’s peace deal? It could have. Clearly Brigham Young’s rhetoric was very different after this incident than before.
On another note, I’m glad to meet someone else who is interested in the Reed Smoot hearings. I actually read all four volumes of transcripts. Thrilling stuff. Much of it is quite sad. The judges who testified to the Senate said that Mormons caught violating the Edmunds/Tucker Act were offered the opportunity of signing a “loyalty pledge” instead of going to jail. As it turned out, most refused to sign and would go to jail rather than sign a pledge they had no intention of keeping. One of those was one of my ancestors (and one of the early settlers of Iron County by the way). He died in prison.
You may also find the testimony of Joseph F. Smith quite interesting. He kind of does a “modified limited hangout” (to use Watergate terminology) about post-manifesto polygamy.
Its interesting that you bring up Abraham H. Cannon since Joseph F. Smith spent most of his testimony trying to do a “non-denial denial” over whether he had married a plural wife to Cannon on a steam ship off the coast of California.
Well anyway, I enjoyed your comments. I probably have some different ideas on the significance of Blood Atonement and the Vengence Oath, but I agree with most of what you said and greatly respect how much thought you put into your reply!
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March 1st, 2007 at 9:32 am
Very nice site! Good work.
March 1st, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Regardless of Mountain Meadows and Young’s obvious involvement, can any tell me when the Mormon’s stopped promoting armed insurrection against the United States of America. Don’t the Dividians also hail from this intellectual heritage? To sum it up, its not the murdering that bothers me, its the habitual acts of insurrection.
March 1st, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Oh sorry for a second post, but the other thing that I find troubling is when a settler would come back from the fields and find Young or Smith trying to have sex with their 11, 12, 13 year old daughters. I mean I understand how they would just steal your wife from time to time (Sorry Jebidiah, God’s will is funny like that sometimes) but your daughters as well.
Kind of creepy.
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