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Were the Mormon Pioneers illegal immigrants?


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5 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

There were some good relationships but most were mixed. The battles with and mass conversion of the Shoshone come to mind.

This one is pertinant.http://www.blackhawkproductions.com/

Mormon polygamist leader Brigham Young spent over 1.5 million dollars of church funds to "exterminate" the "Indians of Utah" resulting in six bloody massacres, and some one hundred and fifty deadly confrontations that took place between 1849 and 1870. Over two hundred whites and nine hundred American Indians were killed. This does NOT include the untold thousands of Timpanogos who died from starvation and disease wrought by Mormon colonization. Of the some seventy-thousand Timpanogos living along the Wasatch at the time, government agency records reveal that Utah Indian population decreased by a staggering 90% leaving just twenty three hundred Timpanogos alive when they were forced onto the Uintah Valley Reservation, there five hundred more died in the first winter from starvation.

 

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13 hours ago, Calm said:

Do you believe it was pureblood native Mexicans governing Mexico at the time?  It was Spanish explorers who claimed Utah territory originally...European iow.

I know that Utah was part of Mexico at one time. Although, maybe not a lot of "Mexicans" lived in Utah at the time. But it was their land at one time. I get pretty irate when my own relatives have problems with immigration when parts of Utah were once Mexico, so really we are in the wrong, not Mexicans.

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8 minutes ago, webbles said:

I'd probably say that the Mormon pioneers were actually invaders and not illegal immigrants.  They helped with the Mormon Battalion (which was for conquering Mexico) and probably would have not accepted Mexican rule when they were in Utah.

If you look at some US plans to deal with immigration I think some have decided that invasion and illegal immigration are synonymous and should be treated the same way complete with POW camps and psychological warfare.

It was illegal immigration to move in. We did not get permission from the US government to set up shop there either. We did what we had to do to find a place where we would be safe and able to prosper like most immigrants (legal or illegal). Demonizing those today who do the same seems to me to violate the commands in the Torah and the implied lessons of the Book of Mormon.

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9 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

This one is pertinant.http://www.blackhawkproductions.com/

Mormon polygamist leader Brigham Young spent over 1.5 million dollars of church funds to "exterminate" the "Indians of Utah" resulting in six bloody massacres, and some one hundred and fifty deadly confrontations that took place between 1849 and 1870. Over two hundred whites and nine hundred American Indians were killed. This does NOT include the untold thousands of Timpanogos who died from starvation and disease wrought by Mormon colonization. Of the some seventy-thousand Timpanogos living along the Wasatch at the time, government agency records reveal that Utah Indian population decreased by a staggering 90% leaving just twenty three hundred Timpanogos alive when they were forced onto the Uintah Valley Reservation, there five hundred more died in the first winter from starvation.

 

While some of that is true I would not take that site as a reliable source.

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10 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I know that Utah was part of Mexico at one time. Although, maybe not a lot of "Mexicans" lived in Utah at the time. But it was their land at one time. I get pretty irate when my own relatives have problems with immigration when parts of Utah were once Mexico, so really we are in the wrong, not Mexicans.

The war that transferred what is now the US southwest to the United States is a mess. The border was disputed (complicated by Mexico not recognizing the previously independent state of Texas) and US troops went into the disputed zone. The Mexican army attacked. While this means the first attack was on Mexico’s side President Polk was eager to acquire California and was willing to fight for it. After the Mexican’s attacked the rallying cry of “American blood shed on American soil” rung out. The US won the war and bought the territory as part of the peace treaty.

Mexico had little presence in those lands before and had trouble controlling it. The reason Mexico had allowed Austin’s group and other US settlers to come into Texas to settle was to weaken the Plains Indians that were raiding Northern Mexico.

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Natives were decimated by disease long before BY entered the valley. Populations all the way to the Pacific NW had been ravaged by small pox etc. It is estimated that 90% of the natives were gone because of disease brought by the Spanish. Same thing happened in Hawaii. 

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2 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

Natives were decimated by disease long before BY entered the valley. Populations all the way to the Pacific NW had been ravaged by small pox etc. It is estimated that 90% of the natives were gone because of disease brought by the Spanish. Same thing happened in Hawaii. 

Yes, though there was also a measles epidemic among the natives in Utah. There was also, obviously, actual conflict between the Saints and the Natives. Their lifestyles were basically incompatible and resources were thin on the ground in Utah. Conflict was all but inevitable.

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I seem to remember stories of Moroni laying claim to that land long before Mexico existed. More specifically dedicating Temple sites. 

Could just be legend, but it certainly seems to me that  God had a hand in it.

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4 minutes ago, mnn727 said:

I seem to remember stories of Moroni laying claim to that land long before Mexico existed. More specifically dedicating Temple sites. 

Could just be legend, but it certainly seems to me that  God had a hand in it.

God does not, in general, seem to be impressed with our legalistic territorial claims.

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15 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Why only them? I ask because I've a personal situation with a son in law from Mexico, who came across illegally with his family. I'm so tired of the white man taking lands from everyone, when in reality we immigrated here and took their lands. I know I'll hear back that it was all on the up & up, but me thinks not!

We took one-third of Mexico fair and square:  We stole it.

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52 minutes ago, mnn727 said:

I seem to remember stories of Moroni laying claim to that land long before Mexico existed. More specifically dedicating Temple sites. 

Could just be legend, but it certainly seems to me that  God had a hand in it.

8th Grade US History "Manifest Destiny"

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1 minute ago, provoman said:

You are using 2019 ideologies and applying those ideologies to events that occurred in the mid 1800s.

The Government of Mexico, played by the same rules as the US, France, England, Spain, Portugal, etc....

The main rule was essentially if you lose it in battle or by abandonment, it then belong to the possessor and/or the victor.

Mexico lost/surrender/abandoned/agreed to give up, ALL claim to lands North of what is the present boundary boundary between the US and Mexico. 

There is no claim of right to lands in the USA by the Government of Mexico - the issue was settled in the 1800s.

And Nations have a right to self-rule within the bounds of their own lands; and sometimes that right to self-rule affects immigration.

All true but the principles of this nation and its immigration laws and policies are in stark conflict and one or the other should be abandoned. Furthermore, I think current law and policy are grossly in conflict with the will of God.

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16 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Why only them? 

Maybe because there were like 30 non-Amerind Mexican families within present-day Utah at the time.  And nobody displaced them, of which I'm aware.

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52 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We took one-third of Mexico fair and square:  We stole it.

Just like JFK in the 1960 election:  He stole it, fair and square.

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If the Mormon pioneers settled in Northern Mexico 1847 then why do scouts put America flags all over Utah streets to celebrate the holiday? That's portraying pioneers as anti-Americans to the point you're suggesting they would even go to war against the USA. 

 

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2 hours ago, webbles said:

I'd probably say that the Mormon pioneers were actually invaders and not illegal immigrants.  They helped with the Mormon Battalion (which was for conquering Mexico) and probably would have not accepted Mexican rule when they were in Utah.

As I recall, the deal made in Washington while the Mormons were in Iowa on their way to Winter Quarters was that if the Mormons provided volunteers for the pending Mexican War, the US Gov't/Military would not molest them and would/might aid them in their flight from Nauvoo.  I can't imagine the Mormons' long-term plans to settle in the Great Basin did not come up during that/those meeting/meetings.  Mexico winning the war and the Mormons' initial plans to live subject to Mexican authority in 1846 didn't figure in anybody's algebra of the situation.

Edited by USU78
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2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I know that Utah was part of Mexico at one time. Although, maybe not a lot of "Mexicans" lived in Utah at the time. But it was their land at one time. I get pretty irate when my own relatives have problems with immigration when parts of Utah were once Mexico, so really we are in the wrong, not Mexicans.

At the time in 1847, the area was part of Mexico, although they officially ceded it to the United States the following year in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.

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5 hours ago, webbles said:

probably would have not accepted Mexican rule when they were in Utah.

They moved into Mexico and Canada when the US got less hospitable, so I see them as practical about government rule.

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5 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I know that Utah was part of Mexico at one time. Although, maybe not a lot of "Mexicans" lived in Utah at the time. But it was their land at one time. I get pretty irate when my own relatives have problems with immigration when parts of Utah were once Mexico, so really we are in the wrong, not Mexicans.

T, you are a lovely lady, but sometimes you oversimply things too much.  🙂 

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4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

No, we bought it.

With a gun to their head as they signed the bill of sale. ;)

I wonder what would have happened if they had just gone along with the border claims of Texas/USA?  That's what triggered the Mexican War -- Mexican troops routed an American cavalry patrol in the disputed area in the Thornton Affair starting the war.  Los Angeles might still be Mexican.

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2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I wonder what would have happened if they had just gone along with the border claims of Texas/USA?  That's what triggered the Mexican War -- Mexican troops routed an American cavalry patrol in the disputed area in the Thornton Affair starting the war.  Los Angeles might still be Mexican.

Doubt it, I think Polk would have sought another pretext to get it unless Mexico was willing to sell.

I wonder what would have happened had Lamar’s point of view won out and Texas tried to stay independent.

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