| WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ | |
 http://csua.com/feed/ | |
| ||||||
| 7/8 |
| 2006/9/18-20 [Reference/Religion] UID:44429 Activity:kinda low 66%like:44428 |
9/18 [I'll keep reposting this until you stop censoring it, thanks]
\_ I'll keep deleting it. You have my email address. -emarkp
\_ Is your religion too weak for a link on the motd?
\_ Non-sequitur. Your question is about history. Is your too
\_ *laugh* as opposed to other, more mainstream religions which
stand up great to scrutiny and uncensored historical fact?
The only reason people pick on Mormons is that they're too
The only reason people pick on Mormons is that you're too
dumb, brainwashed, or cowardly to point out the same flaws in
the more mainstream fairy tales.
\_ Non-sequitur. Your question is about history. Is your
question too weak to sign? -emarkp
\_ Can you tell us what's being deleted, so I can go look it up
in the log?
\_ Google "Mountain Meadows Massacre," unless he censors this
reference to it as well.
\_ Why, is there some new evidence, is it just the usual
conspiracy theory level psudeo-history?
\_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre
Wow, that sounds pretty convincing: "Although the various
sources agree on the essential story of the massacre on
September 11, 1857, the sources differ on many of the
facts leading up to or following the massacre."
Is there some part that's not true?
\_ Right above: "Almost every acknowledged 'fact'
about the fate of these murdered people is open to
question." Other places on the page is says that
who attacked is debated. I'm curious which part of
the essential story isn't debated. That a bunch of
people died?
\_ This is the first I've heard of this but really at
150 years later who cares who did what to who? They
executed the one guy 20 years later and everyone that
had any involvement and their grand children are
dead long ago.
\_ Good question. I suspect this thread
actually started with op somehow linking
emarkp with the massacre, but op being too
big a pussy to sign his post. Don't know
though.
\_ He was asking me what I thought of it. I
delete posts addressed to me by anonymous
trolls. -emarkp
\_ While I can understand why you might be
irked by anonymous trolls, this policy of
deletion could prevent you (and the rest
of us) reading something interesting. I
don't always sign my stuff, especially when
I run out of room on the line. --erikred,!op
\_ FWIW, I honestly wasn't trolling, I just
read about the incident (in the book
"Under The Banner Of Heaven") and I was
curious about a modern Mormon's opinion
on it... I could have asked a more
general question about "blood atonement,"
but that seemed a bit more inflammatory.
-op
\_ Ok, I think you got your answer. Can
this thread die now?
\_ "Under the Banner of Heaven" is a
crock of crap from the reviews I've
read. You might want to read real
history. Here's an apologist response
to Krakauer:
http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=530 -emarkp
\_ Part of this response seems to amount to
"He doesn't believe in Jesus, so what does
he know?"
\_ The quote is from author Will Bagley. He also said:
"the same critics say 'Well you know what? There's no
smoking gun there. ...' ... I don't think that the
evidence is ambiguous."
http://csua.org/u/gx4 (salamandersociety.com)
\_ Yeah, that site looks unbiased.
\_ So are you making any opinions about what
Bagley's two statements?
\_ So are you making any opinions about Bagley's
two statements?
\_ And here's an apologist reply to Bagley:
http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=509 |
| 7/8 |
|
| en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre John D Lee, on Friday morning, he went to the immigrants and convinced them to surrender their weapons and accept an armed one-on-one escort by the Mormon militia to safety from the siege, which the Mormon negotiators claimed was solely the doing of out of control Paiutes. Once the escort was underway in single file, a call of "Do your duty!" The women and older children were then killed by Indians and/or Mormons, depending on what source is to be believed. At least one Mormon man, who was traveling with the party through Utah, was killed in the incident. The party's extensive property was never fully accounted for, but it is widely believed to have been stolen by those who took part in the massacre. On one stone were carved the words: 'Here lie the bones of one hundred and twenty men, women and children, from Arkansas, murdered on the 10th (sic) day of September, 1857." In the same confession, we find the statement, "I have always believed, since that day, that General George A Smith was then visiting Southern Utah to prepare the people for the work of exterminating Captain Fancher's train of emigrants, and I now believe that he was sent for that purpose by the direct command of Brigham Young." edit Survivors Seventeen young children were taken away in a wagon, and distributed to local Mormon homes for care. All but one of the children were later returned to their families in the east by the US Army. This child was possibly raised in a Mormon family as an adopted child. Maj Carleton's report gave the names of the children taken and the manner of their release. Of the families who took in the children he said, "Murders of the parents and despoilers of their property, these Mormons... dared even to come forward and claim payment for having kept these little ones barely alive; these helpless orphans whom they themselves had already robbed of their natural protectors and support. Has there ever been an act which at all equaled this devilish hardihood in more than devilish effrontery? But Carleton goes on to give credit to Mrs Hamblin for care of the children, despite reports that members of her family, including her son, had taken part in the massacre. "Mrs Hamblin is a simple minded person of about 45, and evidently looks with the eyes of her husband at everything. She may really have been taught by the Mormons to believe it is no great sin to kill gentiles (the Latter-day Saint term for non-Saints) and enjoy their property. Of the shooting of the emigrants, which she had herself heard, and knew at the time what was going on, she seemed to speak without a shudder, or any very great feeling; but when she told of the 17 orphan children who were brought by such a crowd to her house of one small room there in the darkness of night, two of the children cruelly mangled and the most of them with their parents' blood still wet upon their clothes, and all of them shrieking with terror and grief and anguish, her own mother heart was touched. She at least deserves kind consideration for her care and nourishment of the three sisters, and for all she did for the little girl, "about one year old who had been shot through one of her arms, below the elbow, by a large ball, breaking both bones and cutting the arm half off." He asserts that the children were well-cared for: "when I obtained the children they were in a better condition than children generally in the settlements in which they lived." Mountain Meadows massacre Reliable history requires accurate data. In the case of Mountain Meadows, we have a record irrevocably colored by dubious folklore and corrupted by perjury, false memory, and the destruction of key documents. Almost every acknowledged fact' about the fate of these murdered people is open to question. Mountain Meadows massacre The only survivors were young children. Although their accounts were useful, they were not able to provide the context that adult witnesses would have provided. Accounts from the participants were given years later and are often contradictory and self-serving. Lee, however, said that he received orders from Lieutenant Colonel Isaac C Haight, delivered by Major John M Higbee, "to decoy the emigrants from their position, and kill all of them that could talk. Bagley suggests that after a first trial of Lee resulted in a hung jury, the prosecutor may have struck an implicit agreement with the leaders of the church to allow Lee to be convicted at the second trial if charges against the other suspects would be dropped. Affidavits taken from several participants after Lee's trial also indicate that the orders to massacre the party came from Colonel William Dame, commander of the Iron County militia, and Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Haight, the militia's second-in-command. Juanita Brooks notes that during the siege messengers made frequent trips between Mountain Meadows and militia headquarters in Cedar City and Parowan, providing ample opportunity for Dame and Haight to issue orders. Researchers have disagreed on whether Young may have ordered the massacre. Brooks concludes that Young "did not order the massacre, and would have prevented it if he could." Mountain Meadows massacre In regard to the emigration trains passing through our settlements, we must not interfere with them until they are first notified to keep away. The Indians we expect will do as they please but you should try and preserve good feelings with them. If those that are there will leave, let them go in peace. Brooks, however, faults Young and George A Smith for preaching militant sermons that set the conditions for the massacre and also for participating in the cover-up. Bagley also quotes Lee's Confessions, describing a late August conversation with George A Smith, who was touring the settlements in southern Utah, in which Smith suggested that emigrant trains that made "threats against our people" should be attacked. Mountain Meadows massacre The complete--the absolute--truth of the affair can probably never be evaluated by any human being; attempts to understand the forces which culminated in it and those which were set into motion by it are all very inadequate at best. Mountain Meadows massacre Brooks asserted that both historic events and emotional responses between Mormons and emigrants contributed to the tragedy. The massacre occurred in the context of a larger conflict between the LDS church and the United States. US troops were marching on the Utah Territory in the summer of 1857. Brigham Young, the federally appointed territorial governor, had not been informed by the President or government officials of the army's purpose. He believed this army could renew the persecution the Latter-day Saints had experienced in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois prior to their arduous journey west. These statements have been called into question by various historians due to conflicting accounts of the settlers' journey south through Utah. But relations between Mormons and all non-Mormon emigrants were at best strained, in part because of tension caused by the anticipated war between Utah and the US government. Mormon War of 1838 in Missouri, in which Governor Lillburn Boggs had ordered all Mormons to be exterminated or driven from that state, led Mormon settlers to be antagonistic and on alert. Mountain Meadows massacre 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. Those in attendance at this dedication were both members of the community and descendants of those killed and those that survived. It is maintained by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Mountain Meadows Association. The 1990 Monument stands on Dan Sill Hill, overlooking the site of the Massacre in the Mountain Meadows Valley below. Gordon B Hinckley, in conjunction with the Mountain Meadows Association, dedicated a new Monument at the original Mountain Meadows gravesite. In 1859, two years after the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the original monument ... |
| farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=530 Doing Violence to Journalistic Integrity Craig L Foster Review of Jon Krakauer. Both he and his works are complex, introspective, and, without doubt, "in your face" and controversial. Krakauer is fascinated by people who are on the edge physically and emotionally, those who push the limits to the extreme. His writing reflects this fascination as he tries to define for his reading audience what it is like to go to extremes. Krakauer has succeeded where many others have failed because he is, without argument, a gifted writer. His text flows seamlessly, creating a literary picture that touches a reader to the very core. As a means to understanding Jon Krakauer's approach to this topic, an understanding of his background is necessary. A former carpenter and fisherman turned freelance writer, Krakauer's accumulation of literary accomplishments was slow but steady. His workhorse approach to writing initially gained him a respectable reputation among readers and publishers of outdoor magazines. However, he could not make a living writing about mountain climbing and other outdoor-related activities. Krakauer soon branched out and began to write on other subjects. "^5 Krakauer's hard-scrabble career beginnings seem to belie his upper-middle-class childhood and youth. The senior Krakauer had emigrated from Czestochowa, Poland, in 1904. He arrived on the Aurania, which sailed from Liverpool, England, and arrived at Ellis Island in that same year. In 1974 he went to Alaska for the first time and climbed in the Brooks Range. He wrote about his experiences in the American Alpine Journal. During his early career, Krakauer was viewed as a "nature writer." In an attempt to understand himself and find inner peace, McCandless gave up his successful upper-middle-class life and journeyed to Alaska's wilderness, where he ultimately died from hunger and exposure. "^18 His discussion of McCandless's painful relationship included revelations of his own unhappy relationship with his father. Krakauer, who readily admits to relating to the subject of his work, gave a sympathetic portrayal of McCandless. "^19 Jon Krakauer's best-known book is Into Thin Air^20--his cathartic look at the 1996 climbing disaster on Mount Everest. As a part of the climbing team, Krakauer offered personal insight into what was, without doubt, a horrific experience of hunger, fatigue, poor decisions, a terrible snowstorm, and freezing temperatures. Eight climbers, including four of his team members, died, while others suffered debilitating injuries from frostbite and exposure. Krakauer blamed "his own actions, or failure to act" as a factor in the deaths of two of his team members. He had been paid by Outside magazine to climb Mount Everest and then write his experiences; "^21 The book "was a sensation, riding best-seller lists for two years, translated into 24 languages, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle award. "^22 Into Thin Air was, without doubt, a literary tour de force. It was Krakauer at his finest, as he looked at what drives men to go to the edge of life itself and take incredible chances. "^23 However, the book has not been without its critics. The climbing world has been rocked by a heated debate over the accuracy and even veracity of Krakauer's account. Describing this controversy, one writer clarifies: What is surprising is how bitter, how defensive and how wounded Jon Krakauer sounds these days. Much of this bitterness stems from this fact: Since "Into Thin Air" was published nearly two years ago, the book has been under almost constant sniper fire from a small and close-knit group of climbers, a few of whom were on Everest in 1996, who dispute some of his book's facts and interpretations. He responded, "'I take my reputation as a reporter more seriously than I take my reputation as a writer. Perhaps this is why his works contain not only riveting action and thoughtful analyses of human nature, but also reveal what makes Krakauer himself tick. However, Krakauer's doubts run deeper than the simple questioning of the reality of Deity. Indeed, his doubts also exhibit a very real animosity to faith. "^35 When asked in an interview if Dan Lafferty was crazy, Krakauer answered: I don't think Dan's crazy at all. The difference between Dan Lafferty and John Ashcroft is not very great. John Ashcroft isn't a Mormon, but he's a fundamentalist. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane--as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout--there may be no more potent force than religion" (p. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the author's open disdain for religion, he inexplicably chose for his latest work a look at what he considers the violent history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Under the Banner of Heaven is, according to Krakauer's publicists, the result of questions arising during his childhood, at which time he knew a number of Latter-day Saints. "^37 While a study of Mormonism's supposed violent past became the final product of Krakauer's endeavors, his original goals were different. Both Krakauer and his book have gained significant publicity in recent months, and reviews have come down on both sides. During a press conference, he made comments that were reprinted in the Salt Lake Tribune. His remarks make it very clear what he and other representatives of the church thought of Krakauer and his book. "This book is not history, and Krakauer is no historian. He is a storyteller who cuts corners to make the story sound good." He then goes on to explain: The exceptions are the rule by his standards. One could be forgiven for concluding that every Latter-day Saint, including your friendly Mormon neighbor, has a tendency to violence. "^43 Even so, some of the comments made by reviewers make one wonder if the ardent support of Under the Banner of Heaven stems from more than just an admiration of Krakauer's remarkable writing skills and fascinating storytelling style. "^46 Perhaps one of the most favorable and revealing reviews was written by Clay Evans of Scripps Howard News Service and appeared in the KnoxNews. He begins: "That The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, would object to this book is hardly a surprise." He then mentions the "sometimes violent past and selective history of the mainstream church," giving as examples Joseph Smith, plural marriage, and the Mountain Meadows massacre. Evans concludes the review by affirming, "So of course the Mormon church is upset. "^52 According to one Salt Lake Tribune review, "Krakauer never pretends to be historian or master of theology. "^53 Obviously, for this fellow journalist, gifted writing supercedes thorough research and accuracy. "The fact is, Krakauer probably knows more about early, unvarnished church history than most practicing Mormons today. "^54 Notwithstanding the positive reviews, a number of mixed and negative reviews point out fundamental flaws in Krakauer's book. "^60 Even more to the point are the comments found in the Japanese-published English-language newspaper Daily Yomiuri, which notifies its readers that the book is not "an unbiased history." The review concludes with this insightful comment: Ultimately, we are left feeling that Under the Banner of Heaven would have been a better book had Krakauer had a more authoritative grasp of his material. He is not a historian, and his principal strengths are his vigorous writing and a fascination with those on society's fringes. This language is probably used to reinforce negative stereotypes. This practice reflects a proven bias on Krakauer's part against religion in general and conservative religion in particular. Krakauer's book has serious problems that must be addressed. These include historical and factual errors, which are either the result of a knowing deception or an ignorance of Mormon history, doctrine, and church government. Either way, they should send up red flags to any reader with an understanding of the Church of Jesus Christ. Krakauer also cannot hide his lack of familiarity with general American history. This is obvious with the main theme of his... |
| csua.org/u/gx4 -> www.salamandersociety.com/interviews/willbagley/ Click to order book I'm not quite used to publishing a book and just having it quietly disappear. And I think that the hysteria, or the hysterical tone of some of the criticism reveals that I did do a good job. But I'd also like to address the charges that I'm an anti-Mormon. I'm a heritage Mormon, and I have a great-great-grandfather, grandfathers and grandmothers on all sides, who crossed the plains, most of them before the railroad, and I'm very proud of that heritage, and very proud of the Mormon people. That said, I've never believed the theology since I was old enough to think about it. I have many dear Mormon friends, and I do not believe that this book will take anyone's testimony away from them. Although I do believe that the book the church is putting out might well shake---might well lose the church any number of people. But most of you know the general story---how many of you know the story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre? In the fall, actually the late summer of 1857, a party of 140 emigrants from Arkansas were attacked by Mormons and Indians in southern Utah at an oasis on the California Trail. They were beseiged for five days, and at the end of five days, the Mormon military, the operation was run by the militia officers, went in, negotiated a surrender, persuaded the people to give up their arms, divide into three groups, promised them protection from the Indians, and an escort back to Cedar City. And about a mile and a half from their camp, the order was given, "Do your duty," or more likely "Do your duty to God," and the Mormon soldiers turned on the men next to them and shot them down. And then the Mormons disguised as Indians hiding in the brush came out and slaughtered the women and children. Now, I have been challenged by people who say that I provide my interpretation that this was an ideological act. That this was done not as an act of anger, or as an act of "frontier violence," but as a religious act, as an act of religious anger, as an act that was only motivated by deeply held religious beliefs. And I believe that is probably why my book---and I think my book should be disturbing to anybody, no matter what their religious affiliations, or non-religious afiliations, because it asks a very hard question: How can decent men murder in the name of God? This question I find, as I worked on the book, I thought it was extremely relevant, but as I dealt with these issues of theocracy and fanaticism, I knew they were important human subjects, but I thought, you know, few Americans are really going to relate to this. And last fall, as I was working at the Beinecke Library, it became very very relevant to Americans. transcriber note: Bagley is apparently speaking of the Yale library, where he was researching when the 9/11/2001 attack occurred. And I think there are a number of unfortunate parallels between what happened a year ago on September 11 and what happened 145 years ago at Mountain Meadows. I want to read you something that isn't---there's pieces of it, but not much of it, in the book. This is taken from the Cedar Stake journal which is available in the William Palmer collection at Southern Utah University archives. It's a record of the church meetings that were held in southern Utah from about December 1856 until 1858 when the stake was dissolved. Many of the men---almost all the men I'm quoting here were involved in the massacre in one way or another, although Rufus Allen was replaced as head of the southern Indian mission by Jacob Hamblin, quite obviously because Allen probably wouldn't have taken part in the event, and Hamblin would do what he was told. Hamblin of course wasn't there, but it's very significant that they replaced Rufus Allen. But on the 19th of December 1856, "President John M Higbee spoke of the benefits of the Society, and of us not encouraging those blood-sucking Gentiles that bring us their goods." December 21st, 1856: "Elder Rufus Allen made remarks on the necessity of the Saints being faithful in all circumstances and of doing the will of the Lord in all things. President John M Higbee made remarks on the necessity of us as Saints living in subjugation unto those who are placed over us in the Lord, and of the Lord not giving us any commandments that we cannot keep. President Elias Morris spoke of the Saints not judging those who are above us, and of minding our own business and doing what we are told." January 29th, 1857: "Elder Richard Harrison, having returned from the Legislature, arose to address a large assembly of the Saints: 'The time has come that we cannot fool with the Almighty. The most damnable sins of this people are disregard unto the authorities. Unless we are obedient to the priesthood, we cannot be saved." This goes on and on and on, and obviously not everybody was happy with this, because there's a new subject introduced about May: "President Elias Morris: 'The people of this place of late are indulging in liquor. The women even take the whiskey jug into their tea party, and must treat a friend. September 13, 1857: "At ten o'clock am meeting opened by singing. Patriarch Elisha H Groves spoke upon the principles of the gospel, and of the Lamanites being the battle-axe of the Lord, and of our faithfulness to the gospel. Haight spoke upon the spirit of the times, and of cousin Lemuel being fired up with the spirit of their fathers. That last entry occurred two days after Isaac Haight had viewed the naked remains of 120 men, women, and children, including 80 women and children---the majority of them being children. Now, I'm astonished that I still have people who I would consider friends who argue that this was done because these people basically behaved badly, and made people in southern Utah mad at them, so they just went out and killed them all. Never in the entire fury and blood of the Civil War did members of one side or another kill children of seven years old. Now, it's interesting that I would probably have never decided to tackle this story if I was left to my own devices, because I knew the problems with the evidence. And I knew it was a significant event, because as I dealt with many other areas of Mormonism, I found that it was like Skuyler (sp), the great whirlpool in 'The Odyssey', that draws everything into it. It is such a compelling event, that once it happens, it's like a black hole, and it distorts the rest of Mormon history for the rest of the 19th century. And although Brigham Young's biographers pretend that it was something that he only learned about twenty years later, and you know, it really wasn't that big a deal, it haunted him, and it never let up on him. I believe he went to his grave knowing exactly what he had done, and knowing that he would have to answer to the consequences. Although many times he doesn't appear to be of that mindset, as is typical of Brigham Young, he does everything humanly possible to shift the blame onto someone else, including betraying the man who executed the crime, following Brigham Young's orders. It is an amazing story, and what surprises me is that it's not over. That the same patterns I perceived taking place in Utah Territory in 1859 and 1860 are still happening. The Deseret News has never printed an honest word about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and they still refuse to do it. When they launched an ad hominem attack on this book and me, they chose to lie. There are many ways that you can criticize this book, but they went back to being true to form. Rather than make legitimate criticism, they said, the headline was, "Anti-Mormon Tract Compares Young To Hitler." Tracts are seldom 500 pages long, and the last I checked, the University of Oklahoma wasn't into publishing tracts. Also, quite interestingly, the word "Hitler" does not appear in the book. They quoted an alleged quote in which I was supposed to be "attacking Leonard Arrington." This was literally taken out of context of a comparison between a very anti-Brigham Young biography and Leonard Arrington's cream puff biography, official biography of Brigham Young. And it says in the end, neither of them do justice to Brigham Young. And I believe most hist... |
| farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=509 Blood of the Prophets has received effusive praise from reviewers and award committees, a point prominently noted on the dust jacket. My review examines the way in which the author of Blood of the Prophets handles these new and old theories. In so doing, I challenge some of Juanita Brooks's earlier conclusions. As a trial lawyer, I offer my perspective of the quality of Bagley's and Brooks's evidence and arguments in some key areas. Trial lawyers may not be trained historians, but we are called upon to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of various classes of evidence and to interpret the meaning of official government action. The heinous massacre, its investigation, the trial of John D Lee, and the actions of persons who control or are swept into the legal process (presidents, cabinet members, judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, grand jurors, petit jurors, marshals, and witnesses) are all matters that lend themselves to a legal analysis. I am surprised that so little has been done in this area of the massacre's legal aftermath. Specifically, regarding Blood of the Prophets, it is my view that Bagley's analysis of the evidence is uncritical and unbalanced, usually favoring explanations that would condemn authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Bagley often ignores exculpatory evidence of a much higher quality than the evidence upon which he relies to inculpate Brigham Young. Bagley often favors rumor and speculation over hard evidence, or he relies solely upon rumor and speculation when there is no evidence. Although rich in quantity with primary sources, many of these sources are neither competent nor credible. Bagley sometimes relies upon secondary sources where primary sources are more reliable. At times, he actually reverses the sequence of events to distort what really happened. This disregard for the sequence of events causes him to lose the perspective needed to assess the implications of geographic distances and the passage of time. Bagley's work demonstrates a depth (albeit unbalanced) of knowledge of Mormon history. But he lacks the breadth of understanding of the political and social issues outside the Mormon community that bear upon the nineteenth-century Mormon question. In particular, he has not adequately discussed the correspondence between government officials about the massacre, its investigation, and its prosecution. Bagley is too confident of his evidence, if one can call much of what he relies on evidence. "Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so ill"^5 could be said of Bagley's work. Dark, macabre, and depressing, Bagley's work is not for the fainthearted who may have little knowledge of the actual events. Bagley's Version of the Mountain Meadows Massacre Let us, then, briefly review Bagley's dark version of the massacre. After Mexican territory was annexed to the United States, including the valley of the Great Salt Lake, Brigham Young sent representatives to Congress to petition for statehood in the early 1850s. The church openly announced its practice of plural marriage in 1852. Conflicts with federal judges and other federal appointees, exacerbated by the rhetoric of the Mormon reformation, led US President James Buchanan and Congress to conclude that the territory was in a state of rebellion. To suppress the rebellion, Buchanan sent to Utah the largest domestic army in the history of the antebellum United States. Its advance and the assassination in Arkansas of Latter-day Saint Apostle Parley P Pratt inflamed the Mormon residents of the territory against the United States. Bagley maintains that the church encouraged the Saints to commit acts of violence against apostates and non-Mormons. A wagon train of approximately 140 emigrants led by Alexander Fancher and Captain Jack Baker entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1857 and then proceeded south on their way to California. Bagley's account has Brigham Young ordering the destruction of the train, sending Apostle George A Smith to communicate instructions to local leaders. Bagley informs us that instructions to Paiute Indians to attack the train are evident from Dimick Huntington's diary. An advance party of soldiers led by Captain Stewart Van Vliet met with Young to provision the army. After speaking with Van Vliet, Young realized that he had overreacted in ordering the destruction. Indians attacked the party in predawn darkness on Monday, 6 September 1857, after assembling the night before. Armed Mormon militiamen in southern Utah joined the fray on Thursday, 10 September. The slaughter ended Friday, 11 September, when the emigrants were lured by a white flag of truce to surrender their weapons. Mormons and Indians killed them all, except for seventeen or eighteen children. Express rider Haslam arrived in Cedar City on Sunday, 13 September, with his message from Brigham Young. For the next twenty years church authorities obstructed justice to shield the perpetrators. Church authorities also conspired to shield other Mormons who had perpetrated other crimes against non-Mormons in the Utah Territory. The Utah Territory was a community dripping in gentile blood which, we are told, was a natural result of peculiar Mormon doctrines and rituals of violence. The church struck a deal with US District Attorney Sumner Howard to offer John D Lee as a scapegoat. The deal required witnesses to fabricate testimony to convict Lee and required the US Department of Justice to cease all further prosecutions. John D Lee was the only man brought to justice after trials in 1875 and 1876, whereupon he was executed in a sensational fashion. Let us examine some of the more important of Bagley's conclusions. Accessory Status versus Acts of War Even had Bagley correctly defined and understood the meaning of "accessory before the fact" and "accessory after the fact," which he and Brooks and others did not, it is not proper to apply these civil standards of conduct in wartime conditions. Interference during war with feedstock, supply trains, and army cattle is another thing. These are much more benign acts--all immunized by Buchanan--than murder. It would be improper to use these immunized acts as a basis to establish accessory status. The Dimick Huntington 1857-59 Diary If one were to accept the faulty proposition that Brigham Young's conduct should be judged against civil standards of conduct, and if Brigham Young desired the destruction of the Fancher train and gave specific direction to George A Smith and Indians to have the deed done, this would make Young and Smith accessories before the fact. contained, the only debate among the jurors would have been when, where, and how high to hang Brigham Young" (p. This scrap of evidence cannot support Bagley's conclusions, particularly in light of contemporaneous evidence. Brigham Young, if it was truly he who spoke,^10 did not refer to a specific emigrant train. Instead, on that day and on many others, as I will demonstrate, he asked Indian tribal leaders to help scatter the cattle of the army and of all emigrants on the trail in front of the army in order to completely close the trail. Why then did Dimick Huntington use the same language elsewhere with Indian tribal leaders who could have had no geographic proximity to the Fancher train? He asked the northern Indians for help to run cattle off the northern California route upon which the Fancher train would never tread. He offered the Indians all the cattle they could scatter that were owned by the army. Let us look at who was present at that 1 September 1857 meeting because this bears on Bagley's theory about instructions to destroy the Fancher train. Tutsegabit and Youngwuds were the two Southern Paiute chiefs present in Brigham Young's office whose tribes resided in Iron County (p. Not only were the wrong people in the 1 September 1857 meeting, the participants were probably talking about a geographic area far from the location of the Fancher train. "^17 Further, Bagley's chronology is problematic to the point of impossibility. Moreover, neither Tutsegabit nor Youngwuds were reported to be at the massacre. Thus, I disagree with Bagley's effort to render what i... |