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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 Old Spanish Trail to Santa Fe. Primarily 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 together with a group from Missouri that called themselves the "Missouri Wildcats." Around 120 unarmed men, women and older children were killed; 17 of the younger children (none older than six) were spared and all but one (who was raised in a Mormon family) were eventually returned to relatives in Arkansas.

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 was 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.

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. 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 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."

Carlton's report is 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." One child was not recovered and was likely raised in a Mormon family as an adopted child.

Disputed facts

Will Bagley wrote,

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.

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?

At the trial that resulted in his conviction, the witnesses said that Major John D. Lee, the commanding officer at the scene, 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:

“In regard to the emigration trains passing through our settlements, we must not interfere with them until they are first notified to keep away. You must not meddle with them. The Indians we expect will do as they please but you should try and preserve good feelings with them. There are no other trains going south that I know of. If those that are there will leave, let them go in peace.”

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,

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.

Brooks did offer some ideas of what helped to contribute to the tragedy.

The massacre occurred in the context of a larger conflict between the LDS church and the United States. United States troops were marching on the Utah Territory in the summer of 1857. Brigham Young, the federally appointed territorial governor, had not been made aware of the army's purpose. He believed that this army would 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. Certain of an attack, he declared martial law in the territory and ordered "hat 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".

There are accounts of rumors circulating in the region that among the Fancher party were members of a mob that killed Mormon founder Joseph Smith, Jr. This is based on statements reportedly made by the Fancher party members to non-Mormon traders on the Mormon Trail. 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 Missourians were at best strained, a legacy of the Mormon War of 1838, which had culminated in the state order for all Mormons to be exterminated or driven from the state issued by Governor Lillburn Boggs.

It may have been seen as a religious duty to take vengeance on the alleged murderers of Joseph Smith, for the following covenant had been added to the temple endowment following his martyr, where it remained until 1927:

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.

Memorial marker

On September 15, 1990, a memorial marker was dedicated that lists the names of the 82 individuals who were killed and those of the seventeen that survived. Those in attendance of 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.

On September 11, 1999, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints president Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated an improved monument at the location.

Contemporary public perception

When the massacre became public in the decades after the incident, public outcry was widely heard. Mark Twain even gave an account, based on conceptions about the attack widely held at the time, in appendix B of Roughing It:

The leaders of the timely white "deliverers" were President Haight and Bishop John D. Lee, of the Mormon Church. Mr. Cradlebaugh, who served a term as a Federal Judge in Utah and afterward was sent to Congress from Nevada, tells in a speech delivered in Congress how these leaders next proceeded: "They professed to be on good terms with the Indians, and represented them as being very mad. They also proposed to intercede and settle the matter with the Indians. After several hours parley they, having (apparently) visited the Indians, gave the ultimatum of the savages; which was, that the emigrants should march out of their camp, leaving everything behind them, even their guns. It was promised by the Mormon bishops that they would bring a force and guard the emigrants back to the settlements. The terms were agreed to, the emigrants being desirous of saving the lives of their families. The Mormons retired, and subsequently appeared with thirty or forty armed men. The emigrants were marched out, the women and children in front and the men behind, the Mormon guard being in the rear. When they had marched in this way about a mile, at a given signal the slaughter commenced. The men were almost all shot down at the first fire from the guard. Two only escaped, who fled to the desert, and were followed one hundred and fifty miles before they were overtaken and slaughtered. The women and children ran on, two or three hundred yards further, when they were overtaken and with the aid of the Indians they were slaughtered. Seventeen individuals only, of all the emigrant party, were spared, and they were little children, the eldest of them being only seven years old. Thus, on the 10th day of September, 1857, was consummated one of the most cruel, cowardly and bloody murders known in our history.

Hans P. Freece's book The Letters of An Apostate Mormon to His Son, published in New York in 1908, records this passage in a letter from Utah dated February, 1907,:

The murdered emigrants were of the Methodist faith and were on their way to California to seek new homes. The chief cause of the massacre was a desire on the part of the Mormons to come into possession of the new wagons, fine horses and all the abundant farming implements which the emigrants had; all valued at about $300,000... This company of emigrants were no sooner camped at Cane Springs than they were attacked by a band of Indians, who subsequently proved to be a band of painted Mormons manoeuvering under command of John D. Lee, Lieutenant at Cedar City, he being under Brigham Young, the then Governor of Utah Territory. Their repulse was quick and decisive. The emigrants threw up embankments, but they were not in a position to protect themselves, because they were camped between two knolls, from whose tops the Mormons poured in a cross-fire. It was the place selected for them by the apostle, and they had fallen into the trap... The attempt to commit this massacre while posing as Indians proved futile. Accordingly, John D. Lee resorted to strategy. The besiegers were called off, and in a short time the emigrants saw a company of soldiers approaching bearing the Stars and Stripes. Men heaved a sigh of relief, women wept for joy, and the old pastor of the flock knelt down and thanked God for deliverance. Mr. Lee is said to have shed tears when he saw the plight and awful suffering of the people. Kind hearted Mr. Lee! He had come to their rescue! First he must talk to the Indians and appease their supposed wrath. Retiring for a pretended consultation, he returned, stating that the Indians had promised to stop the siege, but the emigrants must give up their arms to him, as he was the accredited military authority under Governor Brigham Young, otherwise he could not protect them... When they reached the point of the hill, Bishop Dame cried out, "Israel, do your duty!" And at that command the soldiers murdered the men in cold blood, and then ran forward to join the "Indians", who had previously been concealed in the cedars, to complete the massacre... When night came stealing down the mountain side it hid from vulgar gaze the nude and mangled bodies... The murderers had stripped the bodies and left them to become carrion...

Books and Articles

• Brooks, Jaunita; Mountain Meadows Massacre; University of Oklahoma Press (Tdr); ISBN 0806123184 (softcover, 318 pages, May 1991); first published in 1950

Brooks was a lifelong Latter-day Saint raised in Saint George and a child of the Mountain Meadows Massacre generation.

• Will Bagley; Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows; University of Oklahoma Press; ISBN 0806134267 (hardcover, 544 pages, October 2002); reviewed in The New York Review of Books and Deseret News
• Sally Denton; American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows; Knopf; ISBN 0375412085 (hardcover, 336 pages, June 2003); reviewed in The Washington Post. A response from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is found at Mistakes in the News section of the LDS Newsroom
• Gene Sessions; Shining New Light on the Mountain Meadows Massacre (FAIR Conference presentation)

Notes

1. Some feel Paiute Indians initiated the attack (perhaps with Mormon encouragement). Others believe that Indians were never involved, and that, from the beginning, the attackers were Mormons disguised as Indians. (Oral tradition among Paiute tribe holds that all its members refused the Mormons' request to participate. Other accounts, including Maj. Carleton's 1859 report presented before Congress and Lee's 1877 Confessions, assert Paiute involvement). Brevet Maj. Carleton of the US Cavalry made a report in 1859 that was submitted in the Congressional record in 1902, detailing his investigation; he noted the different accounts of the attack, including those holding the Indians solely responsible. His own conclusions were accounts that blamed only the Indians were extorted lies. While noting uncertainties, his conclusion held the Mormons and Brigham Young primarily responsible and advocated immediate action against them. He also showed a dislike of Mormons in general, stating the following:

   "The expenses of the army in Utah, past and to come (figure that), the massacre at the Mountain Meadows, the unnumbered other crimes, which have been and will yet be committed by this community, are but preliminary gusts of the whirlwind our Government has reaped and is yet to reap for the wind it had sowed in permitting the Mormons ever to gain foothold within our borders."
   – Maj. Carleton's report May 1859.

2. John D. Lee (1877). Life and Confessions of John D. Lee, pp. 238-242.
3. John D. Lee (1877). Life and Confessions of John D. Lee, pp. 225.
4. Will Bagley (2002). Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, pp. 311-319.
5. Bagley, p. 361.
6. Senate record, 36th Congress.
7. Bagley, p. xvi.
8. The Mormons considered themselves at war during this period (see Utah War), and most of the men in the region held military ranks in local militias. George A. Smith was Brigadier General over all of Southern Utah as well as a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. William H. Dame was Colonel of the Iron County militia as well as Bishop of the Parowan ward. Isaac C. Haight of Cedar City was Lieutenant Colonel of the Iron County militia as well as Parowan Stake President (over Dame in ecclesiastical matters, but under him in military rank). John M. Higbee of Cedar City was a Major in the Iron County militia, the ranking officer and field commander of the detachment at Mountain Meadows, as well as the first counselor to President Haight in the Parowan stake.
9. *Juanita Brooks (1991). Mountain Meadows Massacre, pp. 194-198; Bagley, pp. 301-306.
10. Lee repeats his report of the orders in the immediately following text. "Higbee handed it to me and I read it, and dropped it on the ground, saying, 'I cannot do this.' The substance of the orders were that the emigrants should be decoyed from their strong-hold, and all exterminated, so that no one would be left to tell the tale, and then the authorities could say it was done by the Indians." See Lee, Last Confession of John D. Lee, 233-234.
11. Bagley, pp. 298-301.
12. Brooks, pp. 84, 93.
13. Brooks, pp. 72-73.
14. Brooks, p. 219.
15. The full letter is shown in Brooks, p. 63.
16. Brooks, p. 219.
17. Bagley, p. 379.
18. Bagley p.114.
19. Bagley, p. 137.
20. Bagley, pp. 86-87.
21. Bagley, p. xvi.
22. Sally Denton (2003). American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows.
23. Denton, pp. 158-159.
24. Denton, pp. 157-158.
25. Brooks, p. 223.
26. Arrington, p. 254.
27. This version of the covenant came from the senate trial of Reed Smoot who was a Mormon Apostle who had been elected a Senator from Utah. In 1903, a protest was filed in the United States Senate to have Hon. Smoot removed from office, on the grounds that he had taken this treasonous oath in the endowment ritual. The content of the oath was revealed by ex-members of the LDS church. U.S. Senate Document 486 (59th Congress, 1st Session) Proceedings Before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate in the Matter of the Protests Against the Right of Hon. Reed Smoot, a Senator from the State of Utah, to hold his Seat. 4 vols. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906)

External links

• CourtTV website detailed history for the massacre and surrounding events.
• Mountain Meadows Association, a group described by a columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune as "an unusual mix of historians and descendants of massacre victims and perpetrators"
• November 1999 and September 2003 articles from Archaeology magazine's website
• An account of the incident by the Government of Utah
• Reopening a Mormon Murder Mystery, October 2002 article from The New York Times
• Mountain Meadows movie being filmed: "September Dawn" – August 26, 2005 article at Deseret News
• May 2002 and May 2004 articles about Walker-Turley-Leonard book at Deseret News
• Turley comments about researching the forthcoming book, in text and MP3 format at the LDS Newsroom
• History Channel producing documentary to air December 15, 2004
  • (The program, Investigating History: Mountain Meadows Massacre, Who’s to Blame, did not actually air on the History Channel until February 8, 2005, and was repeated June 14, 2005.)
• Center for Studies on New Religions: Unearthing Mountain Meadows Secrets
• Background articles from a website copyrighted by The Truth About Anti-Mormonism
• Pictures of the current Mountain Meadows monument
• Letter detailing grave site excavation
• Mountain Meadow's Mysteries or the Evening Redness in the West Lane Twitchell's rendering of the event
• Mountain Meadows Massacre Descendants – An Arkansas organization consisting of the direct descendants of the people murdered at Mountain Meadows.

• 1857
• History of Arkansas
• History of Utah
• History of the Latter Day Saint movement
• War crimes
• Archaeological sites in the United States