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The Mountain Meadows massacre occurred on Friday, September 11, 1857 in Mountain Meadows, Utah, several miles south of Enterprise in Washington County along the portion of the Old Spanish Trail that became the overland wagon road to California. Mormon militia and some Paiutes killed an entire wagon train of Arkansas farming families known as the Baker/Fancher party, traveling from Arkansas to California. Around 120 unarmed men, women and children were killed. Seventeen younger children (none older than six) were kidnapped and cared for by local families. Siege on September 7&11 1857 The settlers were besieged for five days, beginning on Monday, September 7, 1857. Whether Mormons or Paiutes initially attacked the party on Monday is debated. According to 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!" was given, whereupon all the adult men were shot. 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. The bodies were placed in both mass and individual graves, and in 1859 a detachment of U. S. Cavalry erected a rock cairn as a monument. 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." Lee was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints thirteen years after the incident. He was ultimately tried and executed for his crimes. He was the only person to be so punished. Lee admitted his reluctant complicity; in a lengthy confession given prior to his execution he claimed he was a scapegoat for the many Mormons, including leaders George A. Smith and Isaac C. Haight, responsible for the massacre. John D. Lee also spoke bitterly of LDS President Brigham Young before his execution. 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." By other accounts, despite his ill feelings toward the Mormon leader, he maintained Young's innocence with respect to the massacre to his own grave. On April 20 1961, the LDS Church posthumously reinstated Lee's membership.* In 2004 city officials in Washington City, Utah rescinded an earlier decision to erect a statue honoring Lee. Descendants of the Fancher party, among others, strongly objected to any such statue. The sculptor of this statue ended up buying it back from the city. Survivors Seventeen young children were not murdered in the massacre. These children were kidnapped by the attackers and distributed to local Mormon homes for care. All but one of the children were later rescued and returned to their families in the east by the US Army. One child was not recovered. 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? Never, but one; and even then the price was but '30 pieces of silver'." 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." James Lynch testifies in his sworn testimony affidavit that "The children when we first saw them, were in a most wretched and deplorable condition; with little or no clothing, covered with filth and dirt. They presented a sight heart rending and miserable in the extreme." Carlton's and Lynch's reports are contradicted by Dr. Forney's report to Congress. 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." Disputed facts Will Bagley wrote, 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. Due to the cover-up, source documents disappeared. 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. As a result, various historians have reached differing conclusions. This section reviews some of the controversies. Who ordered the massacre? Shortly before his execution, Major John D. Lee, the commanding officer at the scene, wrote the following in his last testament, The Life and Confessions of the Late Mormon Bishop, John D. Lee: At the trial that resulted in his conviction, the witnesses said that Major Lee made the decisions that directly led to the massacre. 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. This order was in writing." 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.” Her conclusion is based largely on a letter from Young to Haight dated September 10 giving instructions to leave the emigrants alone. The key sentences from Young’s letter are the following: On September 7 Haight had sent an express rider, James Haslam, on the 496-mile round-trip journey to Salt Lake City; Young replied promptly and Haslam reached Cedar City with Young’s letter on September 13, two days too late to save the emigrants. 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, on the other hand, concludes that Young was directly responsible for the massacre by encouraging the Paiutes to attack the party and seize their cattle. He cites a recently discovered journal recording a September 1 meeting of Young with the Southern Paiute chiefs, saying that Young “gave them” all the cattle on the southern route. He suggests that the statement in Young’s letter to Haight, “The Indians we expect will do as they please...”, carried a message that “the Mormons could blame whatever happened on the Paiutes.” 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. According to legend, the execution command "Do your Duty!" was a direct quote from a communication from Brigham Young, ordering the massacre. Allegedly the message read, "Brethren do your duty." Many letters and documents were allegedly destroyed by the LDS church at the time, in fear of retaliation by the US Army. Sally Denton, although agreeing with Bagley that Young was directly responsible for the massacre, disagrees regarding the role of the Paiutes in Young’s plans. She notes that the record of Young’s September 1 meeting with the Paiute chiefs indicates that they resisted Young’s efforts to enlist their support in the Utah War conflict. She also notes that it would have been nearly impossible for the chiefs to travel nearly 300 miles in 6 days to begin the attack on September 7. She views the account of Haslam’s ride and Young’s September 10 letter to Haight with considerable skepticism, considering these to be part of a plan to establish an alibi for Young. Reasons for massacre Brooks concluded in her book on the tragedy that, 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. "We are invaded by a hostile force who are evidently assailing us to accomplish our overthrow and destruction," he declared August 5, 1857. In anticipation of an attack, he declared martial law in the territory and ordered "that all the forces in said Territory hold themselves in readiness to March, at a moment's notice, to repel any and all such threatened invasion". Arrington, p. 254. Rumors circulated in the region regarding the Fancher party. They were based on statements reportedly made by Fancher party members to non-Mormon traders along the Mormon Trail claiming the party included members of the "Missouri Wildcats", the mob that killed Mormon founder Joseph Smith, Jr. In addition, some reportedly claimed to have been present at the murder of Mormon Apostle Parley P. Pratt earlier that year. 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 U.S. government. Also, the emotional legacy of the murders of Joseph Smith and others in Illinois in 1844, mob action in LDS settlements, and the 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. John Lee justified his actions in The Life and Confessions..., claiming he was told by Isaac C. Haight, then President of that Stake of Zion: Some may have seen vengeance on the alleged murderers of Joseph Smith as a religious duty, for the following covenant had been added to the temple endowment following his martyrdom, where it remained until 1927: Memorial markers
Public perception in the 19th century When the massacre became public in the decades after the incident, public outcry was widely heard. Mark Twain even gave an account, based on his perceptions about the attack, in appendix B of Roughing It, first published in 1872: Modern depictions in Media Books and Articles Chapter 16,The Mountain Meadows Massacre; http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Mormons/index.htm Notes | |||||||||
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