Mountain Meadow Massacre

[why me]

SlackTime:

Then maybe you better make your position VERY clear, what connection are you trying to make between the MMM and temple work, because there is NO correlation. No veiled innuendo, no sidestepping, make your position clear.

Why Me:

Gramps is trying to make a correlation between temple ceremony and the murders. He has quite an imagination. Something I told him he needed to acquire but not about that issue.

[SlackTime]

SlackTime.

You don't know what BY instituted in the work done in those sites you posted, do you? Do your own research. I won't do it for you.

But, I am not lying. That is for sure. In fact, I swear on my mother's grave that I am not lying about this.

In fact, I will e-mail you information you need, if you give me some way to reach you. But, I will not give out my e-mail address. Look already at the near threats from someone on this board.

I didn't ask for research, I asked for a position. And I specifically asked not for veiled innuendo. Which is what I got from you. Case Dismissed for lack of prosecution. I.E. you just lost any credibility with me.

-SlackTime

[gramps]

The only conspiracy is in your head. Just research it or give me your e-mail and I can send you the information.

Calm down. Let's put it this way. Maybe this can help you. When Reed Smoot was testifying in DC, early 1900's, people, even non-Mormons knew what I am talking about.

Because Charity went into the temple in 1961, she obviously wouldn't have heard it then. But, things have changed, after Charity went into the temple, and, more importantly, before she went to the temple.

You can figure it out.

[gramps]

What more can I say without getting kicked off?

There are some rules that prevent me from saying what I personally have no problem saying, but which I can not say on this board.

Please understand that.

Anyway, it already has caused such a stir that I am sure they will kick me off anyway.

But, let it be known, that I didn't break the rules. And I won't break the rules. You ought to know what the rules on temples are here.!

Don't ask me to break them again. Please!

[SlackTime]

The only conspiracy is in your head. Just research it or give me your e-mail and I can send you the information.

Calm down. Let's put it this way. Maybe this can help you. When Reed Smoot was testifying in DC, early 1900's, people, even non-Mormons knew what I am talking about.

Because Charity went into the temple in 1961, she obviously wouldn't have heard it then. But, things have changed, after Charity went into the temple, and, more importantly, before she went to the temple.

You can figure it out.

What we can't figure out is YOUR POSITION, because you won't make one. You make no point, just veiled and slanderous hints, and btw: I already do know what Brigham Young taught in the endowment. And it has NOTHING to do with mountain meadows. So you go do your homework and show your cards or admit that you are blowing smoke.

-SlackTime

[gramps]

SlackTime, I see you are still on here.

By me refusing to break the rules of this board, I think you of all people can cut me a little slack and throw me out before you understand.

[USU78]

SlackTime, I see you are still on here.

By me refusing to break the rules of this board, I think you of all people can cut me a little slack and throw me out before you understand.

A slander is a slander.

A lie is a lie.

These are real people we're talking about here, not some cardboard cutouts that you can toss rotten vegetables at with impunity.

[gramps]

Yeah, do you know? You tell me what he taught. When did he start teaching it and when was it discontinued?

And then you tell me if it could not have had a big influence in what happened there in that meadow. That is the connection to the religious environment at the time my friend.

Give me the years when this was first instituted by BY, if you are so sure. Then, give me the year, when it was discontinued. Do you know?

[SlackTime]

SlackTime, I see you are still on here.

By me refusing to break the rules of this board, I think you of all people can cut me a little slack and throw me out before you understand.

Still waiting for a plain statement of position Gramps. And if you can't say it because of board rules then don't insinuate it either. That can get you suspended too.

-SlackTime

[gramps]

USU78

Prove to me that I am lying or slandering. Do you know what BY instituted in the early 50's and which was discontinued in the early 1900's?

Tell me that it couldn't be connected to the religion of the people who committed this terrible massacre.

You've called me a liar. Back it up!

If you say it, you will be kicked off this board. It is against the rules to say it. I won't do it, but you go right ahead.

Gramps, please do not make veiled insinuations. You will find yourself suspended. Saying a lie is a lie is not calling someone a liar *but* all should avoid immplying that another poster is a liar. Simply point out what you find to be an untruth and why.

[Hera]

I reponed this thread at the request of Pahoran who opened it originally. There were some thoughts he didn't have a chance to share.

Those of you who have previously received warnings, please read the board rules and abide by them or you will lose your ability to post.

Hera

[Gohan]

Wow, I was going to do a report on this for school, but I guess not. Not only because I couldn't cover this in the double-spaced ten page maximum, but because some of the stuff in this thread has gotten me pretty ticked off. I've also pretty much lost all respect for a few of the posters here. Some of you need to get your heads out of your...never mind...just don't expect to see me anywhere but the Teen's Board for a while.

[Pahoran]

I have stayed out of this thread because I don't need to be dinged again. I hope I won't get dinged for saying what I am going to say. But, I can live with a cleaner conscience by saying it. And that is more important to me than getting dinged by the mods. You can be assured of that.

However, I would like to interject one, just one, incontrovertible fact into this discussion. I will try to do it as delicately as possible. And then, you tell me, whether it makes any difference in your analysis. I can excuse those who have never been Mormons for not being aware of this point. But, for those of us who have been Mormons, or are still Mormons, there really is no excuse, in my mere estimation, for leaving it out of the analysis.

First, as a prelude to my point, I quote Dad of 7.

Dad of 7 wrote:

It was not the religious environment that created the massacre. It was political and economic. In fact had Lee and others followed the dictates of their religion the massacre would not have happened.

Their rank in the priesthood should have caused them to pause and think how their actions would reflect upon the church. Their actions were diametrically opposed to the very teachings of their religion.

Your accusations go to the very point of this thread. That critics are very eager to portray what is a tragic, evil and unsaintly act as the product of our religion as opposed to what it really was,

Now, to the point I want to make. There are sacred Church buildings throughout the world, in to which only worthy members of the Church may enter. Don't we all know what went on in those buildings at the time this event occurred?

I'm not sure who "we all" are. Nor am I sure of what you think you know, or if you do indeed know what you are talking about. But I do.

In the course of the administration of the Endowment, a prayer was uttered invoking God's vengeance upon those who murdered Joseph and Hyrum.

This prayer has been misrepresented, by apostates and others, by calling it an "oath of vengeance" as if the company were promising to carry out vengeance themselves. This representation is false and malicious.

Was this your "incontrovertible fact," Gramps?

Please answer yes or no.

If you don't know, I'm sorry. If you do, then you have to change the analysis given above by Dad of 7.

Dad's analysis is and remains sound. If the participants were living their religion, the MMM would never have happened.

There is no principle of the LDS religion that supports or permits mass murder. There has never been any principle of the LDS religion that supports or permits mass murder. There is a real incontrovertible fact.

Am I wrong?

Yes you are.

But thank you for bringing this up. It aligns nicely with the purpose of this thread.

In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, there was a certain amount of hysteria in some of the rantings of anti-Mormon demagogues. But there is nothing hysterical about this polemic; it is careful, clever, considered and utterly cold-blooded.

Remembering, as Hugh Nibley pointed out long ago, that the target of all anti-Mormon propaganda is Mormonism, it was necessary for the exploiters of the MMM to work over their accusations. It was not enough to "prove" that all of the Mormon people were bloodthirsty brigands. It wasn't even satisfactory to "prove" that Brigham was a power-hungry tyrant. Nothing less than locating the causes of the massacre in the very heart of the Mormon religion would do, and what better way to accomplish that than to say that the massacre was in obedience to sacred oaths made in holy places?

Note that the accusation itself is not new; there is, after all, no new thing under the anti-Mormon sun, and this one originates in the so-called "Confessions" of John D. Lee, as ghost-written by his lawyer, William Bishop.

But it is without merit.

The participants did not massacre 120 men, women and children because they'd made oaths which they thought required them to do so; most of the participants were unendowed anyhow. They committed the crime because of war hysteria and their own rash judgement. However, this fact, no matter how badly it reflects upon the participants, and indeed upon the Church that had failed to teach them compassion and moral (as opposed to physical) courage, is not sufficient for the purposes of our loving friends, because it is not sufficient evidence to justify a rejection of Mormonism. The massacre must not be caused by the moral failings of the individuals involved, but by the central ethos of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Hence this polemic.

Thank you, Gramps, for bringing it up.

Regards,

Pahoran

[juliann]

Is Gramps trying too allude to the Old Testament blessings/curse formulas? If so Gramps...this isn't something BY made up. It is ancient, biblical and appropriate for anyone trying to institute an ancient ritual based on kingship. I remember an essay by Brent Metcalfe discussing the borrowings from Masonic ritual, which is fine and good...except that he attributed a phrase similar to the Masons as being borrowed when it is found verbatim in the OT.

[USU78]

USU78

Prove to me that I am lying or slandering. Do you know what BY instituted in the early 50's and which was discontinued in the early 1900's?

Tell me that it couldn't be connected to the religion of the people who committed this terrible massacre.

You've called me a liar. Back it up!

If you say it, you will be kicked off this board. It is against the rules to say it. I won't do it, but you go right ahead.

Gramps, please do not make veiled insinuations. You will find yourself suspended. Saying a lie is a lie is not calling someone a liar *but* all should avoid immplying that another poster is a liar. Simply point out what you find to be an untruth and why.

You don't need to get into alleged covenants in the early Endowment Ceremony in order to debunk the proposition that XIXth Century Deseret Mormons were prone to employ deadly force against non-Mormons, whether living within Deseret's confines or merely passing through.

There is precisely one example of semiorganized action by Mormons acting arguably under orders from local Church leaders. One. Upon that one example is based a mountain of fictional and quasihistorical treatment of frontier Danites and vicious Mormon cutthroatism.

And it all vanishes with a disappointing poof when the light is let in. My great-great grandparents were driven from pillar to post and there is no evidence in any quarter that they ever took a dime off the street or even elbowed a non-Mormon out of the way, let alone killed anybody.

gramps, your argument, based upon your disingenuous nonassertions of rumor and not fact, fails utterly in the only test that matters: if there is a systemic problem, there must be systemic evidence; absent systemic evidence, the systemic problem disappears.

[Pahoran]

USU78

Prove to me that I am lying or slandering. Do you know what BY instituted in the early 50's and which was discontinued in the early 1900's?

Tell me that it couldn't be connected to the religion of the people who committed this terrible massacre.

You've called me a liar. Back it up!

If you say it, you will be kicked off this board. It is against the rules to say it. I won't do it, but you go right ahead.

Gramps, please do not make veiled insinuations.  You will find yourself suspended. Saying a lie is a lie is not calling someone a liar *but* all should avoid immplying that another poster is a liar.  Simply point out what you find to be an untruth and why.

You don't need to get into alleged covenants in the early Endowment Ceremony in order to debunk the proposition that XIXth Century Deseret Mormons were prone to employ deadly force against non-Mormons, whether living within Deseret's confines or merely passing through.

There is precisely one example of semiorganized action by Mormons acting arguably under orders from local Church leaders. One. Upon that one example is based a mountain of fictional and quasihistorical treatment of frontier Danites and vicious Mormon cutthroatism.

And it all vanishes with a disappointing poof when the light is let in. My great-great grandparents were driven from pillar to post and there is no evidence in any quarter that they ever took a dime off the street or even elbowed a non-Mormon out of the way, let alone killed anybody.

gramps, your argument, based upon your disingenuous nonassertions of rumor and not fact, fails utterly in the only test that matters: if there is a systemic problem, there must be systemic evidence; absent systemic evidence, the systemic problem disappears.

USU78,

You are absolutely right, of course. But I take it a step further: there is evidence of a systemic problem. The techniques used to exploit the MMM for polemical purposes are evidence of that problem, which is this: there is and always has been a systemic aversion to truth among those who attack the Church. It manifested itself in Abner Cole's slanted newspaper reporting that began even before the Church was organised, and it continues to this very day, in this very forum.

Have you noticed that Gramps has not chosen to defend his sly insinuations? I believe that this may reasonably taken as evidence that he cannot defend them.

Regards,

Pahoran

[gramps]

You can be assured I am right here, Pahoran.

I will be back soon with my response.

Best wishes.

Gramps.

[Scott Lloyd]

You can be assured I am right here, Pahoran.

I will be back soon with my response.

Best wishes.

Gramps.

I'll be interested to see whether you can do it without omitting explanatory context or applying dubious interpretation. If you do, you will have set yourself apart from garden-variety anti-Mormons.

[Pahoran]

USU78

Prove to me that I am lying or slandering.

To you?

If in fact you were lying, you would know it, and therefore would accept no proof, because you would require none.

OTOH, if you are merely expressing a propagandistic slant that expresses your bigotry against the Church of Jesus Christ, you would be unlikely to seriously entertain the possibility of being wrong.

No-one has to prove anything to you, Gramps.

But some of us know what happened anyway.

Do you know what BY instituted in the early 50's and which was discontinued in the early 1900's?

Yes. See above.

Incidentally, do you know why it was discontinued?

It was discontinued because the brethren felt that the calamities that had befallen the United States, especially the Civil War, constituted God's judgement upon the nation.

Tell me that it couldn't be connected to the religion of the people who committed this terrible massacre.

Of course it was part of their "religion." You need to make a case that it was materially related to their actions in that event.

It was just as much a part of the "religion" of those who conducted guerilla operations against the advancing army; operations that were both (1) highly successful, and (2) carried out without bloodshed.

And we ask ourselves: what was the difference between the two groups?

Answer: there were two.

1) one was operating under Brigham Young's direct orders and close supervision, while the other one wasn't, being three hundred miles away over difficult mountain trails; and

2) one acted according to the teachings of their religion, and the other didn't.

Please note, Gramps: all reputable historians, without exception, acknowledge that the Iron County militia were acting without Brigham's orders. And all Latter-day Saints, unanimously, know that they were not acting according to the teachings of their religion.

And any attempt to claim that they were is a vicious slander against the Church of Jesus Christ, that utterly discredits the one making it.

You've called me a liar. Back it up!

No-one has called you a liar. You have falsely insinuated that the Gospel of Jesus Christ motivated sane men to commit murder, and you have rather slimily weaseled out of backing it up.

You don't get to demand that others do what you lack the vertebrae to do.

If you say it, you will be kicked off this board. It is against the rules to say it. I won't do it, but you go right ahead.

Funny, that. I said it, and I'm still here.

But I'd be delighted if you would like to come and provide further examples of the most cynical and unprincipled attempts to exploit the MMM for polemical purposes. There's nothing like having a real expert to speak for his own belief system.

Regards,

Pahoran

[cinepro]

Regarding John D. Lee...

Let us assume that he was responsible for instigating the massacre. If so, he was guilty of mass murder. And let us assume that all members of the Church find the MMM to be a monstrous crime.

Why then would the First Presidency and Council of the 12 reinstate his membership and Temple blessings in 1961?

Are there cases of other LDS who have committed "monstrous crimes" being excommunicated and posthumously reinstated, including Temple blessings?

I honestly have no idea what they were thinking, and am curious how other LDS see his.

[Scott Lloyd]

Regarding John D. Lee...

Let us assume that he was responsible for instigating the massacre. If so, he was guilty of mass murder. And let us assume that all members of the Church find the MMM to be a monstrous crime.

Why then would the First Presidency and Council of the 12 reinstate his membership and Temple blessings in 1961?

Are there cases of other LDS who have committed "monstrous crimes" being excommunicated and posthumously reinstated, including Temple blessings?

I honestly have no idea what they were thinking, and am curious how other LDS see his.

Richard Turley Jr., a co-author of a forthcoming book on MMM, responded to a question in this vein at the Mormon History Association conference in May. The gist of his response was that some of Lee's descendants petitioned the Church to reinstate his blessings, and the First Presidency complied with the request, concluding that they would leave the matter up to God as to whether to validate the reinstatement.

[gramps]

"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I have taken a little." (Brigham Young at the site of the massacre)

"Blood atonement was a literal and terrible reality. Brigham Young advocated it and preached it without compromise." (Juanita Brooks)

"To pretend there were no holy murders in Utah and along the trails to California, that there was no saving of the souls of sinners by the shedding of their blood during the blood atonement revival of 1856, that there was no mysterious disappearance of apostates and offensive Gentiles, is simply bad history." (Wallace Stegner)

I consider it an honor to be called a liar and slanderer by the likes of Pahoran, USU78, and others. It is no different today than after the massacre, or any other time in Mormon history, for that matter. Nearly anyone trying to do good history involving the Mormons has been considered such a person.

The persecution complex, as peculiarly evidenced in the Mormon culture, seems to know no bounds.

First, it is a fact that Brigham Young inserted an Oath of Vengeance, or prayer of vengeance, as Pahoran would have it, into the temple ceremony. It was not withdrawn from the ceremony until 1927.

For those who wish to read it, you will have to google it. I will not quote it here. What in heaven's name such an oath or prayer could have to do with getting into heaven, I leave each one of you to consider.

I'm sure Brothers George A. Smith, Haight, Klingensmith and Lee were well familiar with this oath (prayer). I have never said that all those who participated in the massacre knew of this oath. Perhaps some of those 50 knew nothing about it.

But, all of them knew that it wasn't wise to go against the counsel of the priesthood leaders. Many, in the days, months, and years following the massacre admitted that they feared for their own lives if they had not have participated. Follow orders, or watch out for your safety. That was the rule of the day in southern Utah at the time of the massacre.

I take only one sermon, of many which could be quoted, that Brigham Young delivered to the Saints on March 16, 1856.

"There is not a man or woman who violates the covenants made with their God (in the Mormon temples?) that will not be required to pay the debt. The blood of Christ will never wipe that out, your own blood must atone for it; and the judgments of the Almighty will come, sooner or later, and every man or woman will have to atone for breaking their covenants." (See, Journal of Discourses)

I am familiar, through my own family history research, with the reality of this environment at the time of this massacre. There is murder in my family history, directly relating to this principle. What was the murderer's reward for spilling the blood of an enemy to the Church? Why, he was called to serve as Bishop in the Orderville Ward for many, many years. And everyone knew he had murdered a man on Main Street, in downtown Salt Lake City, in the middle of the day, in cold blood, and rode off with known Danites, never to be brought to justice. Noone would testify.

It was very real. As Stegner says, it is just plain bad history to suggest otherwise.

The massacre was ideological more than it was anything else.

Consider these entries from the Cedar Stake journal. They can be accessed in the William Palmer collection at Southern Utah University archives. This journal is a record of the church meetings held between December 1856 until 1858, when the stake was dissolved.

Theses journal entries coincide with the period of the Utah reformation. And they are very telling of the mindset of the Saints at that time.

19 December 1856--"President John Higbee spoke of the benefits of the Society, and of us not encouraging those blood sucking Gentiles that bring us their goods."

21 December 1856--"President John M. Higbee made remarks on the necessity of us 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."

29 January 1857--"President Isaac Haight having also returned from the sitting of the Legislature, arose to address the Saints: 'The chief sins of this people are disrespect to the Holy Priesthood, and the pruning time has come'"

01 February 1857--"Richard Harrison arose and said 'We have to bring ourselves into subjugation to the proper authorities, and got to reform in everything, and make things right. Then we shall have the spirit of the Lord. Unless we are obedient to the priesthood, we cannot be saved.'"

They must have been drinking a bit too much down in the south. Consider the next two entries.

??? May 1857--"President Elias Morris:'The people of this place of late are indulging in liquor. The women even take the whiskey jugs into their tea party, and must treat a friend. I say let the men, women and children who indulge in it leave it off, unless you will go down and be condemned.'"

12 July 1857--"President I.C. Haight spoke and said 'Myself and Brother Western will not sell any more liquor unless the people bring a recommend from the bishop.'"

And the entry, just two days after the massacre:

13 September 1857--"At ten o'clock a.m. meeting opened by singing. Patriarch Elisha H. Groves spoke upon the principles of the gospel, and of the Lamanites as the battle-axe of the Lord, and of our faithfulness of the gospel. 2p.m. meeting opened by singing, prayer by I.C. Haight. Haight spoke upon the spirit of the times, and cousin Lemuel being fired up with the spirit of their fathers. Singing, benediction by P.K. Smith" [Phillip Klingensmith]

I guess I am on the side of Will Bagley, when he said, while delivering a presentation to the 8th Annual Ex-Mormon Convention in Salt Lake City:

"Now, I am astonished that I still have people who I 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. It never happened. These were not crimes of anger. These were crimes of ideology."

Violence was sanctioned over the pulpit. People who took out their endowments took an oath to pray to God for the vengeance of Joseph Smith and to covenant to teach this to their children and their childrens's children and their children's children's children.

This was the mindset of the 1850's in Utah. And it came right from the top, Brigham Young, and down through the local leaders to the rank and file members. There was far more going on here than just random frontier justice.

So, Pahoran, and others, I am not going to sit here day in and day out and argue back and forth with you about who said what and who didn't. You will never agree with me.

But, I am not wrong, that this was more an ideological crime than anything else. And that is all I ever suggested to Dad of 7 and others.

The evidence is clear. The temple endowment, coupled with the sermons over the pulpit culminated in an environment leading to the deaths of innocent men, women and children. (Oh, did I forget George A. Smith, just two days ahead of the Fancher party in every village and town, rallying the Saints in to a frenzy to "do their duty.")

Does this mean that the Church is not true because this massacre was caused by the Church's own ideology? Not in any logical sense, I suppose. Maybe God does call such prophets to lead his people in these latter-days. Maybe God approves of his followers partaking of the sacrament just two days after a massacre, acting as though it never happened. Maybe. Who knows? Have stranger things than this happened over humans' history? I would suppose so.

I, for one, left the Church long before I had even heard about this massacre, so it didn't even factor into my decision for leaving the church. I came upon this history much later. So, I don't know. I think for many people it is a deal breaker. For others, it is not. We all live with our decisions. And with our interpretations of history.

[KevinG]

If it was an ideological crime it wasn't the ideology of the LDS that did it. Those who did it were in full opposition to what was taught them in the Gospel and they sought to cover their own crimes by murdering anyone old enough to be a witness. Lee was tried and executed. The involvement of others will certainly be a matter for God to judge.

In all of the polemics and angry statements that came over the pulpit in those days the heat was great on both sides. That does not justify what happened or explain it. If the Saints were inclined to violent retribution do you suppose that the MMM would be the only event with which to accuse us in the last 200 years of our history, or even one of just a few?

No Latter-day Saint, not even Brigham would be recorded as saying the murders were justified. They were in opposition to our beliefs and teachings. As has been pointed out clearly, they were not done at Brigham's request, and they did not even enjoy his approval.

That is the rub, and the criticism of your approach. You and other critics want to stretch this terrible event so far as to cover the entire religion and its prophets. It wears thin and breaks long before credibility allows it to do so.

It was truly in our past. It includes some mitigating circumstances which no one is claiming justifies the horrible act. It was shameful. It was and is condemned.

The rest of your comments about persecution complexes, and especially the ones about the Saints being no different today than they were when the murders took place are just too fantastic to respond too. All they need is the spooky music that the History channel put in the soundtrack every time they mentioned Brigham and the Priesthood during their show on the event.

I wonder gramps. Is there a shameful or regretful incident in your life? Were there circumstances that drove you to make bad judgements? If so may we remind you of it every few minutes and tell others about how it reflects your true nature and the actual sinister beliefs that you espouse?

[gramps]

I believe, the reason that it spilled over here into such a catastrophic event is because Parley Pratt had just recently been murdered and Brigham had finally had enough. I believe he ordered it and sent George A. Smith down to make sure it was going to happen. I go with Will Bagley's take on it generally.

It will be interesting to see how the church accounts for it in their history of the events.

[KevinG]

I believe, the reason that it spilled over here into such a catastrophic event is because Parley Pratt had just recently been murdered and Brigham had finally had enough. I believe he ordered it and sent George A. Smith down to make sure it was going to happen. I go with Will Bagley's take on it generally.

It will be interesting to see how the church accounts for it in their history of the events.

The Church is not likely to publish something... but if you are referring to the gentlemen writing the new book on the subject, if they are decent at their craft, they will find as much evidence as they can, present it all and let the reader come to their own conclusions. A courtesy shamefully lacking in those who would use the incident to portray the LDS as having secret murderous tendencies.