Massacre at Mountain Meadows

“On September 11, 1857, a band of Mormon militia, under a flag of truce, lured unarmed members of an emigrant company from their fortified encampment and, with some Paiute Indians, killed them. More than 120 men, women, and children perished in the slaughter."

On this, the anniversary of that terrible event, I wanted to take a moment to discuss recent developments in the way The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tells the history of this atrocity. Most importantly, a book has recently been published by Oxford University Press entitled Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Ron Walker, Richard Turley, and Glen Leonard. The book is the culmination of 7+ years of research and writing. Hundreds and hundreds of Church employees and volunteers helped with the effort and the authors were given unprecedented access to documents and materials relating to the massacre. The fact that all 3 authors are, or at one time have been in the Church's employ (Ron Walker is a former Professor at BYU, Glen Leonard is the former director of the LDS Museum of Church History and Art, and Rick Turley was just appointed Assistant Church Historian and Recorder) has raised some question as to the credibility of the book and the ability of the authors to approach the sources objectively. While this is a legitimate concern, even a casual perusal of the book would prove to the contrary. The book is a model for good scholarship.

Ron W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, Glen M. Leonard

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I remember the first time I heard of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. It was when I was working at an LDS bookstore in Vegas. A man came in and, let’s just say he was a talker. After chatting for a bit about his love for church history he said with a hint of pride in his voice (which looking back now was kind of odd), “You know, I’m a descendent of John D. Lee.” When I told him I didn’t know who that was he seemed surprised and said, “You know from the Mountain Meadows Massacre?” or something like that. Well, in subsequent years I read and heard more and more about the massacre. But it wasn’t until classes at BYU such as Utah History and LDS History that I really got a feel for what happened. I’m grateful for professors who weren’t afraid to discuss the sometimes controversial and even dark points in our history.

Since my first real introduction to the tragedy I’ve been fascinated with it, not because I’m proud of it, and certainly not because I condone what they did. But I think that I, like the authors of the new book, wonder how otherwise decent men could commit such a calculated, evil, and inexcusable atrocity against other human beings.

My second to last semester at BYU I took a history class entitled Mormonism and the American Experience with one of my favorite professors, Grant Underwood. As we studied the massacre and looked at several documents relating to the event, we also had the privilege of having Ron Walker, one of the 3 authors of the new book, come and speak to us. Since that time almost a year ago I have been anticipating Massacre at Mountain Meadows with excitement. I had read other books by the 3 authors and therefore knew the quality of their work. Also, working for the Church and spending a lot of time at the archives recently has given me the opportunity to talk with many of the people involved in the near 7-year project the book represents. I heard from their own mouths the lengths the authors and others involved in the project went to to ensure a well-researched, quality book that would hopefully prove to be the new standard for church institutional scholarship.

I preordered a copy in June and eagerly awaited its arrival. It came in early August and it took me about 3 weeks to read it. Though it only took that long because there were distractions :). The book is very readable and is told as more of a narrative, sparing those not naturally inclined to history the feel of a "textbook."

Here's the summary from the dust jacket of the new book:

“Massacre at Mountain Meadows offers the most thoroughly researched account of the massacre ever written. Drawn from documents previously not available to scholars and a careful re-reading of traditional sources, this gripping narrative offers fascinating new insight into why Mormon settlers in isolated southern Utah deceived the emigrant party with a promise of safety and then killed the adults and all but seventeen of the youngest children. The book sheds light on factors contributing to the tragic event, including the war hysteria that overcame the Mormons after President James Buchanan dispatched federal troops to Utah Territory to put down a supposed rebellion, the suspicion and conflicts that polarized the perpetrators and victims, and the reminders of attacks on Mormons in earlier settlements in Missouri and Illinois. It also analyzes the influence of Brigham Young’s rhetoric and military strategy during the Utah War and the role of local Mormon militia leaders in enticing Paiutes to join in the attack. Throughout the book, the authors paint finely drawn portraits of the key players in the drama, their backgrounds, personalities, and roles in the unfolding story of misunderstanding, misinformation, indecision, and personal vendettas.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre stands as one of the darkest events in Mormon history. Neither a whitewash nor an expose, Massacre at Mountain Meadows provides the clearest and most accurate account of a key event in American religious history.”

Another aspect that peaked my interest was that I found one of my own ancestors, William Mathews, on the pages of the book. Fortunately not as a perpetrator, but as a freighter on his way to California who because of his location in proximity to the site of the first massacre, and the fact that he had a non-Mormon in his company with him, may have inadvertently sped up the local leaders’ decision to perform their final horrific act on September 11th.

In an effort to spare my readers of a super-duper long post (I say super-DUPER because it's already going to be super long) with an extensive summary of the book, I'll simply say that I found it to be a very gripping narrative, very informative, and very well researched (evidenced by the 200+ pages of footnotes). Every Latter-day Saint should read this book in an effort to not only understand the tragedy for themselves, but to be informed enough to face those who would use it to tear down the church.

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To further feed my fascination with the MMM, I attended a panel discussion last Friday night with the new book as its focus. Three Western scholars, including the widely recognized John Mack Faragher (he wrote the textbook for my American West class) offered their critiques of the book, after which Richard Turley responded to those critiques. I took a lot of notes myself that I will post here, but I have to also credit Ardis Parshall, who types so fast she was able to take detailed notes as the panel was happening, for helping me fill in the gaps. Here are the parts that I found most interesting:

John Mack Faragher, Professor of History at Yale University:

JMF began by critiquing the authors' use of certain words, or lack thereof, to describe those who participated in the massacre. He said, "The most important question in the book is this: What led normally decent people to commit mass murder in a method and a manner and on a scale, in the authors’ words, “so calculated … so premeditated, evil and cunning”? The men who committed the atrocity at Mountain Meadows, they write, were neither fanatics nor sociopaths, but normal and, in many respects, decent people." Mack Faragher argues that they were fanatics, and were characterized as such by other Mormons like Samuel Knight who said they were fanatics "guilty of a dastardly deed." JMF noted he would rather they used a simply word such as "ordinary" to describe the perpetrators.

JMF then discusses the authors' study of the preconditions for mass murder. The 4 most important of which are demonizing, authority, obedience, and peer pressure. JMF notes that "the single most significant factor in incidents of collective violence is the process the authors call demonizing, the classification of one people by another as “the other.” Devaluing, stereotyping and dehumanizing the enemy makes mass murder possible." There is numerous historical evidence to show that "mass murder is unlikely, even impossible, without this condition." He also notes that this process was well advanced in Utah in 1857.

JMF also felt that the authors didn't devote enough pages to the role of Utah's "political structure of unassailable authority, absolute obedience, and significant peer pressure" characterized by the Mormon Reformation, which he believes played a very key role in creating the environment where such an atrocity could happen. He wonders to what extent sermons preached by Brigham Young, that often emphasized vengeance and retribution, "could have created the context for vigilante and mob action." JMF believes the Mormon Reformation 1) enforced group discipline, and 2) in a way sanctioned legal violence in pursuit of sanctioned goals. He notes that Mormons initially took a passive approach when faced with anti-Mormonism in Missouri and Illinois, yet before long LDS leaders began "[partaking] in the rhetoric of extermination" (such as Sidney Rigdon in his 4th of July, 1838 speech). "Such moral sanction for lethal violence continued as an important part of Mormon rhetoric. On Pioneer Day 1857, in Cedar City, men unfurled [a] banner inscribed “Terror to Evil Doers” … Isaac Haight … declared, “I am prepared to feed the enemy the bread he fed to me and mine.”

JMF admits that the Saints had reason to fear yet another attempt to destroy them and the society they had worked so hard to build, but "nothing justified focusing their fears on that emigrant train."

He ends by noting that in Southern Utah there was a "mix of self-righteousness and lust for vengeance among Mormons, and it was a lethal combination. The plan of employing the Paiutes to do the dirty work of killing, particularly of killing the women and children, was despicable and shocking. But equally damning is the fact that the final massacre was planned as a coverup of the initial crime."

"In the end, self interest and moral cowardice led to the logic of extermination. because they feared the consequences of what they already had done or condoned. Finally, it came down to the most ancient modus operandi known to man, the attempt to destroy the evidence."

He notes that the Frontier was a violent place and attracted reckless and violent men. This point was understated in the book according to JMF. A combination of the "acquisition of vast western territories that were weakly governed and challenges to the legitimacy of the state contributed to massive outbreaks of both political and everyday violence. He said, "We tend to take violence for granted. We tend to see it as a straightforward and uncomplicated phenomenon. People are prone to violence when their primary groups – their families, their mentors … – see violence as acceptable, hold beliefs in support of violence, and themselves are violent. The socialization to violence is a developmental process that usually takes place at home during childhood... It commonly includes the violent subjugation of an authority figure, the witness of the violent abuse of a loved one, usually a mother or sibling, the deliberate coaching in violent techniques. You have to learn to be violent. You 'have to be carefully taught.'" He then notes that John D. Lee was abused by an aunt, and was later accused of domestic violence by his wives. He then ends by saying it may be very useful to do a study to this affect of all the perpetrators in the massacre.

Phil Barlow, Utah State University:

PB began by noting that this book represents a breakthrough in LDS Church History. The Church will likely now begin addressing other controversial aspects of its history. "It will learn that the Church will not crumble by such a candid, thoughtful probing of difficult contours."

"I’m going to suggest that this book will be cathartic – painful, but cathartic – but I’d also like to warn that catharsis can in some situations be too thorough. It can make people neglect important truths that the authors embrace: That is, we humans, including LDS humans … are capable of evil. Puritans in the 17th century were, the German nation in the 1930s was, contemporary American soldiers guarding prisoners at prisons in Cuba and elsewhere, are capable." He said that as a whole Mormonisms dominant gene is good, but their may be a recessive violent gene, just as there can be in anyone.

PB also mentioned the effect of Brigham Young's rhetoric to his devoted followers. Brigham Young did, under the pressure of war, issue orders to this effect concerning smaller circumstances: 'Don’t start the violence, but if aggression comes … don’t leave witnesses to tell tales abroad and further attract the unjust wrath of the nations upon us.' Such rhetoric naturally affected the attitude of his devoted followers. Brigham Young was a human. It was a difficult situation of war, and the pressure of war, so I’m not construing myself as in a position to judge him. But those are difficult words that need careful thought.

This next thought by Barlow was particulary interesting to me. He said another implication of the book is that "there are proper limits to authority and regard for authority and obedience and faith. LDS culture and teaching emphasizes obedience, obviously; it’s emphasized as the first law of heaven … More faith is always good, and more than most cultures they have elevated notions of authority extremely high. But I’d like to suggest that there is nothing virtuous about blind obedience, or blind faith. Our authors specifically point to the danger of theocracy where all power is concentrated in single or few hands. There may be a time to say no. There may be a time to question absolute notions of authority, and Mormon doctrine teaches as much when it alludes in passages in the Doctrine & Covenants to unrighteous dominion leading to “amen to the priesthood” of these people."

PB concluded by noting the implications of the book, especially in light of its sponsorship by the Church, on Mormon History and culture. He said we live in a time where the internet "renders it impossible for any institution to completely fence its history. The publication of the book also means that Mormon culture has reached a place of enhanced maturity and confidence … better able to see, as Juanita Brooks insisted more than half a century ago, that “nothing but the truth is good enough for the church of which I am a member.” The church will not be undercut … for coming to terms with this … for its willingness to point to the culpability of its own people rather than to the convenient … [distortions]."

Donald Fixico, Arizona State University:

DF is an Indian (although he noted not a Paiute :)) and praised the book as a "roadmodel for scholarship." He noted, as did the authors, the dispicable way the Paiutes were used as pawns in the Mormons' act of imperialism. He noted the similarities between the Mormons and Paiutes in that "both were vulnerable to the westward expansion of American society. Indians had felt the effects of this expansion for some time; the Mormons felt it when they saw the expansion coming, the military coming, American culture coming to dissolve what they had built in the west."

He noted the interesting relationship between Mormons and Indians. "Brigham Young understood them, [he told his people] go to them, learn their language, teach them to farm…he put himself in a precarious position, that by putting them [the people] adjacent with natives and mediators, he put the Mormon community between the Indians and the US, it was the US that had attacked native peoples. Brigham Young was smart. He understood this alliance with natives, used it to his advantage, by putting them as allies he saw the power in them. They had power because they were an ally in the eyes of Brigham Young."

He ended by praising the book as one that raises new questions and brings a new perspective.

Richard Turley, one of the 3 authors and Assistant Church Historian:

It was our intention that [this] book create discomfort. If we look at the Mountain Meadows Massacre from a distance, or a pedestal of righteous indignation, we miss much of the meaning of the massacre. These people who carried out the massacre, if we think of them somehow as being categorically different from ourselves, become strangers … And yet the history of violence suggests that the difference between ordinary people and those who commit atrocities is not that far. We like our criminals to be so different from us that we can rest easy and say we are not like them...They are so different from ourselves that we don’t need to worry about our own proclivity towards violence. We hope that readers of this book will shorten that distance … and recognize that all human beings, unless they check a natural tendency… may give way to violence under certain circumstances.

He reminded the audience of Phil Barlow's comment that the book can create pain that leads to catharsis, however we must not let that catharsis go too far. If we forget that point, Turley said, "we will have missed one of the main points of the book."

One of the most striking things for me was when Turley started talking about Dr. Fixico's remarks and the role of the Paiutes. He said, "I want to make it a particular point, that the Paiutes, who from the very beginning were intended as scapegoats for what happened at Mountain Meadows, have suffered under a burden that needs to be relieved. I don’t mean to get too personal here, and for those who may be listening or recognize the circumstances I’m describing I don’t intend to be offensive. I have sat with groups in southern Utah who continue to insist that the burden for this should be on the Paiute people. I tell them to give that up; it was your ancestors who were the principal aggressors in this event. [At this point the audience applauded] You need to relieve them of a burden under which they have suffered now for a century and a half."

"These people in southern Utah had been sent to befriend the Paiutes and to live among them. A relationship of trust was established, and that trust was violated in the Mountain Meadows massacre."

Turley ended by noting that "this is the most difficult subject in Mormon history. And our feeling was that if we could confront this topic face to face and in a straightforward manner, with all of its horror and all its gore, then people who write about Mormon history would feel able to confront virtually any topic …but will also help to generate good scholarship on other difficult points of Mormon history."

After a question from the audience about frontier violence Turley noted that, "In the literature about violence, there is considerable discussion about the failure of people to stand up at important events in the cycle of mass killing and try to stop it. With the Mountain Meadows massacre, there were several junctures at which someone could have stopped what happened, clear up to the final massacre itself. But no one did. That’s one of the most frightening elements of group violence that many human beings are susceptible to.

"It’s easy to step back, to say “I wouldn’t have done it.” It’s important for all of us to examine ourselves and say, is that capability in us?"

John Mack Faragher then entered into the discussion and said, "I would certainly agree with both, although I also disagree. Every event is unique. We see how contingency plays a dramatic role, and the presence and absence of certain individuals and events determines the outcomes. On the other hand, there is the commonality of pattern. And so I would go back to these points: the ease with which Americans of the mid-19th century talked about exterminating each other. This is really quite dramatic and revealing. Coming from a culture in which the extermination of native people was assumed to be a national policy goal, this constant discussion of extermination, I think, is extremely revealing and very disturbing that it was available to people who found themselves victimized [and in turn victimized others]." He then used homicide statistics (as high as 700 per 100,00 in the 19th century to today's 6 per 100,000) to conclude that "[The 19th Century] was a murderous time. It’s not only at Mountain Meadows where the massacres are taking place. The Mountain Meadows massacre is one such event of many dozens of such events."

To conclude, I believe this book represents a turning point in Mormon scholarship. It will show that an open, honest approach to our history is beneficial.

*For Ardis' entire transcript click here.

*For another discussion of the panel with notes click here.

*For the new website go to http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.org/