An Examination of the Causes of the Mountain MeadowsMassacre

By

Matt McCune

It was the morning of September 11; a morning that would usher

in one of the greatest tragedies in American history. Men, women, and

children would be brutally murdered, with no respect for the law or

the human rights of the victims, who were not even afforded a decent

burial. And all of this was to promote a cause both religious and

political. No, it was not 2001 in New York City; it was 1857 and the

location was a place in southwest Utah known then and now as the

Mountain Meadows.

On that fateful day, what was possibly the richest wagon train

ever to cross the overland trails to California met its ill-fated

end. To this day, that event, conducted on the authority of the

Mormon church1 priesthood leaders, possibly on the orders of Brigham

Young himself, has brought infamy to Utah and Mormonism alike. More

than 120 men, women, and children were murdered by a band of

approximately fifty Mormon priesthood holders2 and a few Paiute

allies. A mere seventeen children under the age of eight were spared

because of the Mormon belief that no child under eight is accountable

for anything and are thus “innocent blood.”3 Only one man, John D.

Lee, a spiritual son of Brigham Young,4 was ever tried for the crime;

he was executed in 1877.5 However, an act this horrific does not

happen in a vacuum. While several books have been written on the

chronological history of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, to date no

one has examined the underlying causes of this tragic event in and of

themselves. In this paper, I will examine a few of the more important

underlying reasons for why this tragedy occurred.

First, I will examine the persecutions and peregrinations of the

Mormon people as well as the murders of founder Joseph Smith, Jr. and

of Apostle Parley P. Pratt. To this I will contrast the makeup and

origins of the Fancher-Baker wagon train. Second, I will examine the

poverty of the Mormons during this period and the roots thereof. I

will compare this to the wealth of the Fancher-Baker wagon train and

their prospects for future successes. Third, I will discuss the

Mormon Reformation and the blind zeal of the Mormons responsible for

the murders. Finally, I will discuss the political situation in

America and a few of the rumors surrounding Fancher-Baker wagon

train.

Formal incorporation of the Mormon church came on 6 April 1830

at Fayette, New York. Between December, 1830 and January, 1831, the

Mormons gathered in Kirtland, Ohio. By late July, 1831, Joseph Smith

had received a revelation that the site for the New Jerusalem he was

planning was to be Independence, Jackson County, Missouri during a

mission to American Indians in that region.6

By July of 1833 the Mormons were experiencing high friction with

non-Mormon Jackson County citizens for multiple reasons.7 On 7

November 1833 the Mormons were driven out of Jackson County by anti-

Mormon mobs. Citizens of neighboring Clay County, Missouri took the

Mormons in, but this was considered by all parties to be a temporary

solution.8 The Mormons then moved into Far West, Caldwell County,

Missouri and the young Church was headquartered there. The influx of

Mormons from Ohio and other locations soon spread into neighboring

Daviess and Carroll Counties. Similar frictions to those of Jackson

County led to the Mormon War of 1838. A tit-for-tat low-intensity

conflict between old settlers and Mormons9 resulted in events like

the Haun's Mill Massacre. Mormons were finally driven out of Missouri

altogether as a result of Governor Lilburn J. Boggs' Executive Order

number 44 on 27 October 1838.1010

The result of the order was the mass migrations of Mormons to

the east bank of the Mississippi River, to a location that soon came

to be known as Nauvoo, Illinois. It was here that a small hamlet in a

swampy bottom-land of the Mississippi River was turned into a

bustling city whose population was censused at 11,057 in 1845.1111 The

conflicts that the Mormons had experienced in Missouri were soon felt

again in Illinois and anti-Mormon sentiment grew there, as well.

Additional religious pressure came as a result of the expansion of

Church doctrines such as those revealed in the King Follet Discourse, that

Mormons believed in a plurality of gods, but worshiped only one, and

that humans could become gods.1212 Here, too, polygamy began as a

secret practice revealed only to a select few members.1313 It was

while here that Mormonism suffered its greatest blow: the martyrdom

of founder Joseph Smith, Jr., and his brother Hyrum, as they awaited

trial for treason against the State of Illinois in Carthage, Illinois

on 27 June 1844. In the succession crisis that followed, Brigham

Young emerged as the new leader of the Mormons. In the winter of

1844-45, Brigham Young led the Mormons out of Illinois to Winter

Quarters near present-day Omaha, Nebraska.1414 There, the Mormons

regrouped and finally in 1846, Brigham Young led the first group of

settlers to the valley of the Great Salt Lake in what was still part

of Mexico.1515

The death of Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Mormon faith,

was a significant blow to an already demoralized Mormon people. It

was a brutal reminder that they were not accepted by the general

population in America and that they themselves could face martyrdom

for their chosen faith at any time. Shortly after the death of Smith,

Brigham Young introduced an oath of vengeance into the Mormon temple

ceremonies.1616 The oath said:

You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease

to pray to 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.

Other prominent Mormons would lose their lives for the practice

of their faith, too. One of those men was Apostle Parley P. Pratt.

Pratt, who became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in

February, 1835 and was sent on many missionary trips ranging from the

Missouri frontier to Upper Canada, Chile, and even the British

Isles.1717 He also suffered imprisonment in Missouri in 1838-39.1818

It was during one of his missionary journeys to San Francisco that he

met Eleanor McLean, who would become a convert. She was in a troubled

marriage to a strongly anti-Mormon husband, Hector McLean.1919 While

Eleanor grew closer to Pratt and his eleventh wife (who was with him

on this journey), Hector grew angrier and finally exploded at the

discovery of Pratt having secretly baptized the McLeans' two sons.2020

Eventually the family returned east to live with Eleanor's parents in

Louisiana. Eleanor tried unsuccessfully to abscond with her children

to Utah. Her parents later gave her the money to leave, provided that

the children stayed. She arrived in Great Salt Lake City in

September, 1855. She was to become the twelfth wife of Pratt in

November, 1855 without having divorced Hector McLean.2121 A vengeful

Hector would track Parley Pratt down and kill him in May, 1857 on the

western border of Arkansas during one of Pratt's missionary

journeys.2222 One of Mormonism's most beloved figures and prolific

missionaries then become its latest martyr.

The Fancher-Baker party, by way of contrast, had often been

successful and had led relatively peaceful lives as frontier

settlers. Alexander Fancher, who was born in the same aftershock of

the New Madrid earthquakes as was his murderer, John D. Lee, on 6

September 1812,2323 had other things in common with his murderer. Both

had traveled widely, one out of devotion to a persecuted sect and the

other out of frontier wanderlust. Fancher, at age 45, had already had

two successful overland journeys to California, one in 1850 and one

in 1854. This was to be the final trip, moving his family permanently

to California.2424 Other members of the ill-fated party, Jesse Dunlap,

Jr. and William C. Mitchell, were merchants at Dubuque Landing,

Arkansas. Dunlap had been an active merchant in Carroll, Johnson, and

Marion Counties. Felix and Wade Miller, relatives of several of the

Fancher-Baker party members, had arrived in Visalia, California in

1853 and had set aside property for their brother, Josiah, who had

married into the Cameron family, another prominent family in the

wagon train. Felix and Wade both had strong commercial ties to

several Arkansas families in the wagon train.2525 The Fancher-Baker

party, although not a coherent unit from the start,2626 was composed

of members who were reasonably wealthy and frequently successful in

agriculture or mercantilism.2727

In contrast to the relatively wealthy and successful Fancher-

Baker party, the Mormons were often impoverished. David Bigler and

Will Bagley, in Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives of the Mountain Meadows

Massacre write that most of the Mormon men were “God-fearing husbands

and fathers and some of them had sacrificed everything they owned for

their religion, not once or twice, but three or four times.”2828 Many

otherwise honest and frugal Mormons were forced to sell out at prices

as low as ten cents on the dollar when they left Nauvoo, Illinois, in

1844-45. They had to do this while building or acquiring the

implements of overland emigration.2929 This impoverishment may have

led some Mormons to violate the tenets of their faith and steal from

non-Mormons. Overland traveler, Keturah Belknap wrote,

They say that there are some Mormons here that give us some trouble with our

stock. They might want a good horse so we think it best to put a good guard

out.3030

Many of the early Mormons were converts who emigrated from places

like England and Scotland. The Mormons' greatest success had been

with the urban poor in Great Britain. As a result, in order to bring

these converts to Utah Territory, Brigham Young set up a revolving

fund called The Perpetual Emigration Fund to help poor converts

emigrate and establish themselves. In order to be more frugal with

money, it was determined that hand carts would be used instead of ox

wagons.3131 The two most famous hand cart parties, the Martin and the

Willie parties started so late in 1856, that they were trapped in an

early season blizzard in South Pass, Wyoming. One-fourth of the

Martin party and one-ninth of the Willie party died.3232 Before

leaving Fort Laramie, Wyoming a couple weeks earlier, it was

determined that a mere ten pounds of possessions and provisions per

person would be allowed in order to attempt to get through South Pass

before winter set in. Not only were rank-and-file Mormons frequently

impoverished, they had suffered privation, and even the death of

loved ones in order to get to their “Zion.”

Although starting in Arkansas and traveling up the East face of

the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, from Fort Laramie all the way to

Great Salt Lake City, the Mormon and non-Mormon emigrants followed

the same road through modern-day Wyoming and Utah. While poor Mormon

converts were trekking west by whatever means they had available, the

Fancher and Baker parties were traveling in stark relief with visible

wealth. The most visible form of wealth was the large number of

livestock driven by the parties – by some estimates, as many as 1,000

head of cattle.3333 Another highly visible form of wealth was the mode

of transportation. The wagons of the Fancher-Baker party were of a

high quality. Additionally, there was the amount of money that the

members of the party were known, or believed, to have had in their

possession. Bagley records that there was at least $1,118 in cash

among the party members as well as a tradition of “a chest filled

with thousands of dollars in gold.”3434 The final evidence of the

party's wealth was the presence of single men who may have camped

separately from families indicating that they were hired hands.35

35

The Mormon Reformation was a period of intense sufferings for the

Mormon people. This suffering began with a drought in 1855. Even as

mountain streams that the Mormons depended on for irrigation and

other water needs ran dry, crickets and grasshoppers moved in on the

dying crops, eating much of what the Mormons would have salvaged.

Belts were pulled tighter in the winter of 1855-1856. Heber C.

Kimball, an early Mormon leader, estimated that half of a herd of

2,500 cattle that had been moved to the Cache Valley to prevent their

starvation had died from the extreme winter.3636 As Spring approached,

it was hoped that this catastrophe might be alleviated by rains.

Initial optimism was soon squelched by yet more drought, and crops

began to fail again. Many of the poor were degraded to begging and

digging for roots. Even Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball allowed

only half a pound of bread a day to their large families.3737

In this desperate atmosphere, fiery sermons began to appear,

blaming the Mormons themselves for the calamities because of their

sinfulness. After recounting the droughts, pestilences, and severe

winter, Orson Pratt preached this on 10 February 1856:

Thus one calamity after another, one punishment after another, is enough to

convince us that all proceeded from the hand of the Lord our God.

Has he not a purpose in this? Is it not an affliction to us, to you and to me? Do you

not feel it? Will it not learn us a lesson? Yes, it will.3838

It was plain that Mormons had harsh lessons from God to learn. This

suffering was so that they would amend their ways and obey their

leaders' teachings. The worst part of this harsh new reality was a

doctrine called “Blood Atonement.” This fearful doctrine stated that

if one had made a covenant with God and later reneged on it, that the

“blood of Christ will never wipe that out, but your own blood must

atone for it …”3939 John D. Lee would write in regard to Blood

Atonement that “[i]t was taught by the leaders and believed by the

people that the Priesthood were inspired and could not give a wrong

order.”4040 Rank and file Mormons were now scared to death and still

the harsh conditions persisted. By 2 July 1857, all the flour in the

tithing office had been passed out.4141 Peter McAuslan, a Scottish

convert then living in Utah, would write of the fear that pervaded

the atmosphere at the time. Sympathy was to be avoided as a feeling

that “would destroy a great many in this church,” and that if the

bodies of relatives or close friends were seen lying on the ground,

one was to pass as if nothing had happened.

In this atmosphere of fear, blind obedience was expected to be

observed. “All is right, it was done by authority,” McAuslan would

write.4242 In order to help sustain the obedience of the rank-and-file

members, Jedediah Grant, the Second Councilor to Brigham Young and

mayor of Great Salt Lake City created a “catechism” that was to be

used in interrogating members in their own homes as to their level of

adherence to the Church and its teachings. Questions about betraying

fellow members, shedding innocent blood, about committing adultery,

and others were asked.4343 Grant would travel the northern part of

Utah giving sermons in September, 1856. In Farmington, Utah, 406

members unanimously responded and were rebaptized the next day as a

result. School teacher Joseph Fish of Parowan, Utah, recalled that

everyone was rebaptized. When the priesthood spoke, Mormons

obeyed.4444

The political situation in 1857 was bleak. The sectional strife

in the United States over questions of slavery and popular

sovereignty left President Buchanan with little with which to unite

the country. Then in March, 1857, a memorial from the Utah

Territorial Legislature arrived in Washington insisting that the

citizens would decide for themselves which laws to obey, and that

they would reject any federal officer who did not meet the Mormons'

moral standards. This was a chance to unite the nation against “the

evils of Mormonism.”4545 In his first days in office, Buchanan felt he

had no choice but to send troops to Utah.4646 Brev. Gen. Albert Sydney

Johnston would ultimately be in command and left to catch up with

advance detachments of the Army on 11 September, 1857.4747 With

Johnston would go Brigham Young's replacement: Alfred Cummings. The

Army would serve as a posse comitatus to ensure Cummings took office.4848

The Republicans were, for their part, supportive of this effort as it

gave them hope that something would be done about one of their “twin

relics of barbarism:” polygamy.4949

The Mormons for their part were preparing the Nauvoo Legion, the

territorial militia, for war. Whatever Buchanan's intentions may have

been, he failed to tell territorial governor Brigham Young that he

had been deposed.5050 By the end of June, 1857, Brigham Young was

aware of the approach of the Army and its intended purpose as rumor

had spread across the frontier.5151 It must have seemed like a sneak

attack. On 23 July 1857, a wagon entered Great Salt Lake City.

Eleanor McLean was in it, accompanied by three male members of the

Mormon Church, and they brought bad news: the mail contract for the

territory had been canceled and the Army was coming to install a new

governor and new judges. No doubt the news of Parley P. Pratt's

murder was also delivered. The news was rushed early the next morning

into Big Cottonwood Canyon where the tenth-anniversary celebration of

the Mormons' arrival in Utah was being celebrated. The Mormon leaders

and priesthood holders were summoned to Brigham Young and he relayed

the news adding the words, “We have borne enough of their oppression

and hellish abuse, and we will not bear any more of it. … In the name

of Israel's God, we ask no odds of them.”5252 In August preparations

for war were made and Young was convinced that the Mormons could

win.5353 Orders were given to save every grain of food and not to sell

to Gentiles in the territory. Those who did were to be noted and

reported.5454 On 8 September 1857, Capt. Stewart van Vliet arrived in

Great Salt Lake City to assure the Mormons that the Army's intentions

were peaceful. Although cordial, Young would have none of it. He

assured van Vliet that the Army was not welcome in Utah. Should they

come, he would “desolate the whole territory” rather than submit.5555

His intended policy was a policy of scorched earth. He threatened to

“make a Moscow of every settlement.”56 56

The Fancher-Baker Party had arrived, and left, Great Salt Lake City

two days ahead of Basil Parker's wagon train. Even then, he had heard

the rumors of the Fancher-Baker Party having poisoned water that

killed cattle.5757 The alleged poisoning of water was to rear its ugly

head when the wagon train camped on Corn Creek. It was claimed that

the party killed an ox and poisoned it and a pool of water nearby,

which led to the death of some Indians, setting survivors of this

attack on the warpath.5858 This story would be falsely linked to the

death of Proctor Robinson, who died, possibly of anthrax, almost a

month after the Fancher-Baker party camped at Corn Creek.5959 Bagley

surmises that this was deliberate propaganda and notes that it

arrived south ahead of the wagon train.60 60

Embittered Mormon apostate, Charles Wandell, would report in later

years that Eleanor McLean Pratt had seen the arrival of the Fancher-

Baker party and identified one or more members “as having been

present at the death of Pratt.”6161 In 1882 Charles Willden gave the

accusation that wagon train members bragged about being in the party

that killed Joseph Smith and others in both Nauvoo, Illinois, and in

Missouri. According to him, they were prepared to kill yet more

Mormons.6262 Ed Parry took this claim even a step further by having a

wagon train member claiming to have the very gun that killed Joseph

Smith, Jr.6363

To this can be added a rumor that Mormon “Back Outs” had joined

the wagon train at Springerville, in an attempt to escape Utah.

Bagley sees John D. Lee as the likely source of this rumor.6464 If

apostate Mormons were in the wagon train, and Blood Atonement was

called for, it gave yet another layer of justification to the crime.

In the years since this horrific event, Mormons and non-Mormons

have taken a largely polemical view according to their loyalties.

Mormons have worked to defend Brigham Young and early Mormons from

what they perceive as a smear campaign.6565 Non-Mormons have largely

targeted those same leaders for blame. Since 2002 with the appearance

of Will Bagley's opus magnum, Blood of the Prophets, a more honest

examination of this event and its causes has come forth. Bagley and

David Bigler, both Mormons, have made repeated careful examinations

of the historical record. One of the fruits of this is that we can

more clearly see that events like the Mountain Meadows Massacre do

not happen in a vacuum, and they do not happen for simplistic

reasons. This wasn't a dispute between two cowboys in a saloon over a

dancing girl. This was a complex event with many actors, each with

their own world views and motivations.

The persecutions of the Mormons over the course of nearly thirty

years after their organization left Mormons highly distrustful of

non-Mormons. Many, if not most, Mormons had lost everything more than

once, or else had given up families and homes to emigrate to Utah

for their faith. As a result, Utah was full of impoverished, hungry

people. Then, the droughts of 1855-56 and the Mormon Reformation

created an environment of strict and unquestioning obedience to those

priesthood leaders who were over any given person. Add to this the

approach of the US Army to compel Brigham Young out of office, and

there results an explosive mixture. The fate of the Fancher-Baker

wagon train was simply une fait accompli. The apparent wealth of the

party, the large herd of cattle and other livestock, the fact that

they were non-Mormons, the rumors beforehand, and the fact that these

emigrants were from the same part of Arkansas where Parley Pratt had

been murdered set the flash off in the pan.

One suspects that had it not been the Fancher-Baker wagon train,

the Dukes wagon train that followed, or any of a number after them

might have been the victims.

1 The Mormon Church is formally known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2 John D. Lee. Mormonism Unveiled, or the Life and Confessions of the Late Mormon Bishop John D. Lee. St. Louis, Missouri: Bryan, Brand, and Company: 1877, pp. 379-80.

3 Will Bagley. Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002, p. 51.

4 Mormonism Unveiled, p. 170.5 Ibid., pp. 378, 380.6 Max H. Parkin. “Mormon Conflict.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham Young

University. Accessed on 3 January 2015. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Missouri_Conflict. See also, Doctrine and Covenants57:1-5.

7 Ibid.8 Ibid.9 Leonard J. Arrington. “Young, Brigham.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham Young

University. Accessed on 16 February 2015. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Young,_Brigham.

10 Dale A. Whitman. “Extermination Order.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham YoungUniversity. Accessed 3 January 2015. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Extermination_Order. This order has become infamously known as the “Extermination Order” due to it having stated that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace-their outrages are beyond all description." The Haun's Mill massacre was three days later. This executive order remained on the books in Missouri until repealed by then-Governor Kit Bondon 25 June 1976.

11 Glen M. Leonard. “Nauvoo.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham Young University. Accessed 3 January 2015. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Nauvoo.

12 Donald Q. Cannon. “King Follet Discourse.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham Young University. Accessed 16 February 2015. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/King_Follett_Discourse. This henotheistic belief has remained a cornerstone of LDS belief, but is not widely discussed with outsiders.

13 Daniel Bachman and Ronald K. Esplin. “Plural Marriage.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham Young University. Accessed 3 January 2015. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Plural_Marriage. This practice was not publicly revealed until 1852, but was committed to writing, and eventually becoming Doctrine and Covenants, section 132 on 12 July 1843. The Mormon Manifesto of 1890 wouldeventually proclaim a formal end to this practice and be added as an appendix tothe Doctrine and Covenants.

14 Leonard J. Arrington. “Young, Brigham.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham YoungUniversity. Accessed on 16 February 2015. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Young,_Brigham.

15 Dates to this point were taken from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Chronology of Church History.” LDS.org. N.d. Accessed 3 January 2015. https://history.lds.org/timeline/tabular/chronology-of-church-history?lang=eng.

16 “Oath of Vengeance.” lds-mormon.org. N.d. Accessed on 3 January 2015. http://www.lds-mormon.com/veilworker/oathvenge.shtml. This oath would subject Senator Reed Smoot of Utah to an investigation and an attempt to remove him from

office in 1903 on the grounds that he had taken a treasonous oath against the United States.

17 Larry C. Porter. “Pratt, Parley Parker.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham Young University. Accessed on 16 February 2015. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Pratt,_Parley_Parker.

18 Larry C. Porter. “Pratt, Parley Parker.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham Young University. Accessed on 3 January 2015. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Pratt,_Parley_Parker. Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and he Massacre at Mountain Meadows. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002p. 8.

19 Will Bagley. Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and he Massacre at Mountain Meadows. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002, p. 6.

20 Ibid.21 Ibid., p. 9.22 Ibid., p. 70.23 Mormonism Unveiled, p. 36. Burr Fancher. Captain Alexander Fancher: Adventurer, Drover, Wagon

Master, and Victim of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Portland, Oregon: Inkwater Press, n.d.

24 Novak, Shannon A. House of Mourning: A Biocultural History of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2008, p. 47.

25 Ibid., pp. 46-47.26 Ibid., p. 36. Will Bagley suggests that there were four initial groups, but that

all were closely related. See Blood of the Prophets, p. 62.27 House of Mourning, p. 58.28 David Bigler and Will Bagley, eds. Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American

Frontier, vol. 12: Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Norman, Oklahoma: The Aurthur H. Clark Company, 2008, p. 16.

29 Michael E. LaSalle. Emigrants on the Overland Trail: the Wagon Trains of 1848. Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press, 2011, p. 138.

30 Ibid., p. 26.31 Blood of the Prophets, p. 52.32 Polly Aird. Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector: A Scottish Immigrant in the American West, 1848-1861.

Norman, Oklahoma: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 2009, p. 166.33 House of Mourning, p. 58.34 Blood of the Prophets, pp. 63-65. Bagley elaborates on the probable values of the

overland kits that may have been worth more than $10,000.35 House of Mourning, pp. 53-54.36 Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector, p. 156.37 Ibid., p. 157.38 Orson Pratt, 10 February 1856. Young, Brigham, et al. Journal of Discourses, Volume 3.

Orson Pratt, ed. London: Latter-day Saints' Depot, 1856, p. 297.39 Brigham Young, 16 March 1856. Journal of Discourses, 3:247.40 Mormonism Unveiled, p. 279.41 Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector, pp. 160-61.42 Ibid., pp. 168-69.43 Blood of the Prophets, pp. 49-50.44 Ibid., pp. 50, 52.45 Blood of the Prophets, p. 62.46 Ibid., p. 72.

47 Ibid., p. 179-180.48 Ibid., p. 79.49 John Wooley and Gerhard Peters. “Republican Party Platform of 1856.” The

American Presidency Project. Accessed on 15 February 2015. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29619

50 Blood of the Prophets, p. 79.51 Ibid., pp. 79-80.52 Ibid., p. 80.53 Ibid., pp. 80-81.54 Ibid., p. 84.55 Brigham Young, 6 September 1857, Journal of Discourses, 5:211.56 Blood of the Prophets, p. 89.57 Ibid., p. 98.58 Ibid., p. 106.59 Ibid., p. 108.60 Ibid., pp. 109-10.61 Blood of the Prophets, p. 98. End note 18 for this pages cites: “An Open Letter to

Brigham Young,” Daily Corinne Reporter, 15 July 1871, 2/3. Bagley notes that this would have been a false accusation, had it been true.

62 Ibid., p. 116.63 Ibid., p.117.64 Ibid., p. 104.65 In my own experience having been born and raised in the Mormon Church, Mormons

are taught to regard any honest criticism of early Mormon leaders as equivalent to the unjustified attacks and persecutions. Mormons today appear to be beginning a course of self-critical examination of their faith that may change this.

Bibliography

Aird, Polly. Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector: A Scottish Immigrant in the American West, 1848-1861. Norman, Oklahoma: The Arthur H. Clark Company,2009

Arrington, Leonard J. “Young, Brigham.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism.Brigham Young University.

http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Young,_Brigham.

Bachman, Daniel, and Ronald K. Esplin. “Plural Marriage.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham Young University. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Plural_Marriage.

Bagley, Will. Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002, p. 51.

Bigler, David, and Will Bagley, eds. Kingdom in the West: The Mormons andthe American Frontier, vol. 12: Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Norman, Oklahoma: The Aurthur H. Clark Company, 2008.

Cannon, Donald Q. “King Follet Discourse.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham Young University. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/King_Follett_Discourse.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Chronology of Church History.” LDS.org. https://history.lds.org/timeline/tabular/chronology-of-church-history?lang=eng.

Fancher, Burr. Captain Alexander Fancher: Adventurer, Drover, Wagon Master, and Victim of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Portland, Oregon: Inkwater Press,n.d.

LaSalle,Michael E. Emigrants on the Overland Trail: the Wagon Trains of 1848. Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press, 2011.

Lee, John D. Mormonism Unveiled, or the Life and Confessions of the Late Mormon Bishop John D. Lee. St. Louis, Missouri: Bryan, Brand, and Company: 1877, pp. 379-80.

Leonard, Glen M. “Nauvoo.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham Young University. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Nauvoo.

Novak, Shannon A. House of Mourning: A Biocultural History of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2008.

“Oath of Vengeance.” lds-mormon.org. http://www.lds-mormon.com/veilworker/oathvenge.shtml.

Parkin, Max H. “Mormon Conflict.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham Young University. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Missouri_Conflict.

Porter, Larry C. “Pratt, Parley Parker.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Brigham Young University. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Pratt,_Parley_Parker.

Young, Brigham, et al. Journal of Discourses, Volume 3. Orson Pratt, ed. London: Latter-day Saints' Depot, 1856.

Whitman, Dale A. “Extermination Order.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism.Brigham Young University. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Extermination_Order.

Wooley, John, and Gerhard Peters. “Republican Party Platform of 1856.” The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29619

Young, Brigham, et al. Journal of Discourses, Volume 3. Orson Pratt, ed. London: Latter-day Saints' Depot, 1856.

_____. Journal of Discourses, Volume 5. Asa Caulkin, ed. London: Latter-day Saints' Book Depot, 1858.