A Question About Bagley's Claim.

[charity]

I wonder why the Brigham Young communique was left out of the PBS documentary?

Regards,

Six

I wonder why!

[Nevo]

It's Fancher, not "Francher," by the way.

[emeliza]

I believe what Theophilus07 is stating is that BY didn't send Halsam, but Cedar City sent Halsam to BY. This is true. Halsam went to BY as a volunteer by Cedar City for instructions on what they should do because they had the Fancher party surround. When Halsam got to BY, BY then sent Halsam back to Cedar City with the letter stating they were to leave them alone.

No one on here is contesting this. What is being contested is that more than one rider was sent (there was only one) and that BY originally sent Halsam, he didn't, Cedar City sent him. This actually goes well along in my opinion with BY not knowing ahead of time what was happening. BY heard about it from Halsam.

Therefore Bagley's comment about nothing happening without BY knowing is not correct. Nor in my opinion could it be with the communications back then. It took quite a bit of time to get from one place to another and there were no telephones or alternative ways of communication.

[smac97]

If Brigham Young ordered the Mountain Meadows Massacre as Bagley claimed in the PBS documentary...what is the explaination for the story that Brigham Young desperately sent messangers down south to prevent the Saints from doing any harm to the wagon trains?

Two words: Plausible deniability.

-Smac

[Bsix]

Two words: Plausible deniability.

-Smac

Smac...am I reading your post to understand that you believe that Brigham Young ordered the killings?

Or, am I reading that incorrectly?

Six

[katherine the great]

If Brigham did order it, my question would be for what purpose? What was to be gained by it? I don't understand the motive Brigham Young would have had to feel the need for it.

The MMM issue in my mind is simply a smokescreen. If the LDS Church is true than it was true before the MMM occurred and the event itself does not change it being true. If its false, it was false before the MMM occurred and there is no reason to appeal to the MMM since it was false long before it occurred. I see it used just to raise emotions that Mormons where a bunch of murders and baby killers.

Would you suggest that such an historic event be left out of this documentary? Over 100 innocent people were slaughtered by otherwise simple, decent people. That probably merits some mention.

[Paul Ray]

If Brigham Young ordered the Mountain Meadows Massacre as Bagley claimed in the PBS documentary...what is the explaination for the story that Brigham Young desperately sent messangers down south to prevent the Saints from doing any harm to the wagon trains?

Do you somehow think there is only one explanation?

I think people can come up with their own explanation to explain anything, if they don't already know one that they like.

Itching ears, anyone?

[simply_disappear]

Please don't take this thread off topic. I hope this thread...it may be a short one...is intended to be the most narrow and focused in the history of Mormon discussion boards.

This is not a thread about any other aspect of the Mountain Meadows Massacre...but this:

If Brigham Young ordered the Mountain Meadows Massacre as Bagley claimed in the PBS documentary...what is the explaination for the story that Brigham Young desperately sent messangers down south to prevent the Saints from doing any harm to the wagon trains?

That's it. That is the simple topic of this thread.

Regards,

Six

I once heard an explanation by a member of my ward that people said he sent the messages in an effort to deflect any criticisms of his being involved directly to the order supposedly given.

Strangely enough, I feel it was their day and time, it was their life and it is not mine and it has not much to do with my testimony of my Savior and His atoning sacrifice.

[TAK]

freakin a man

I don't know why this would be a problem. It would just be recognizing a fact that the Mormons did not have direct control over what the Indians would or would not do. So when it says "do as they please", it is just saying that fact. Sort of like saying "The indians will do what they will do. We have no control of them but we can control our actions so leave the group alone."

You seem to be overlooking one major detail â?? it was a large group of Mormon men who escorted the unarmed Fancher survivors to â??safetyâ? on September 11 and within a couple of miles of the wagons the men turned and shot at point blank range all the Fancher men, women and children â?? save 17 of the youngest. A point missed on the program was that the Fancher party was a wealthy group with more than a 1000 head of livestock and tens of thousands of dollars in gold. When it was over the Mormons kept everything of value, giving the Indians that were still around a few cattle.

[wenglund]

Freakin a man: If Brigham did order it, my question would be for what purpose?

Theophilus07: To send a message to the U.S. president and Johnston's army approaching Utah (to depose Brigham Young) that Brigham Young could destroy anyone who came into the territory and thus stop the army. Brigham Young had all kinds of reasons for destroying the Francher party and much to gain.

Perhaps you are right. I can imagine it occuring to Brigham Young in this way:

Brigham in SLC on the phone with Lee in Cedar City:

BY: Hey Lee, Johnson has an army on its way to depose me. Can you think of any way to stop them?

Lee: Yes Brigham, it is likely that Johnston read in People Magazine about the Fancher party moving to sunny Souther Cal by way of Southern Utah. And I am sure that the Fancher party heard via their satalite hookup the CNN report about Johnston's army heading to the Utah territory. So, they are obviously quite aware of each other. Now if I go out and kill the Fancher party, and while the slaughter is taking place, Francher will likely get on his cell phone and locate Johnson hundreds of miles away, and tell him that the Mormons mean business, and that Johnston and his army should high-tail it back to Washington, D.C. in mortal fear.

BY: I can't see why that wouldn't work. Keeping me from being deposed would be worth at least 100 deaths. Make it happen...but keep my involvement secret.

Sound plausible?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[William Schryver]

The only people who argue that Brigham Young ordered the killing of the Fancher party are those who studiously avoid taking into consideration all of the other history surrounding that time period in Utah territory. The more one learns about the history of the entire territory, the constant intelligence that Brigham Young had of the intentions of the U.S. Army expeditionary force, and the strict instructions he had given concerning the actions of the Saints in every other portion of the far-flung Mormon sphere of influence of 1857, the more one can see that Young would simply have never ordered that the Fancher party be killed. It would have been in clear contradiction to every other move he made in response to â??Buchananâ??s Blunder,â? and would clearly have been seen by him to do violence to his overall strategic purposes.

[Calm]

Just how well publicized was the MMM right after its occurence?

[katherine the great]

Just how well publicized was the MMM right after its occurence?

The first newspaper article came out less than a month after the massacre in Los Angeles. News moved north and east pretty quickly from there.

[William Schryver]

Just how well publicized was the MMM right after its occurence?

It was not "publicized" at all. At least not in any great detail. People knew that there was a massacre, but no one really knew what had happened, aside from the initial claim that "Indians" had done the deed. Indeed, knowledge about it was obviously suppressed for many years afterwards -- and especially during the period of the Army's continued occupation of the territory. After the Civil War, people started looking into it much more. Brigham Young realized immediately what a disaster it was, and how knowledge of it would be received in the environment of the time. His reaction after he learned of the massacre is another telling sign of his non-complicity before the fact. He understood the ramifications completely. He realized that it had the potential of bringing down upon the Mormons the unified wrath of the entire country.

[TAK]

It was not "publicized" at all. At least not in any great detail. People knew that there was a massacre, but no one really knew what had happened, aside from the initial claim that "Indians" had done the deed. Indeed, knowledge about it was obviously suppressed for many years afterwards -- and especially during the period of the Army's continued occupation of the territory. After the Civil War, people started looking into it much more. Brigham Young realized immediately what a disaster it was, and how knowledge of it would be received in the environment of the time. His reaction after he learned of the massacre is another telling sign of his non-complicity before the fact. He understood the ramifications completely. He realized that it had the potential of bringing down upon the Mormons the unified wrath of the entire country.

Nonsense - it was in the papers in California and the East within weeks of the occurrence.

[Sethbag]

If Brigham did order it, my question would be for what purpose? What was to be gained by it? I don't understand the motive Brigham Young would have had to feel the need for it.

The MMM issue in my mind is simply a smokescreen. If the LDS Church is true than it was true before the MMM occurred and the event itself does not change it being true. If its false, it was false before the MMM occurred and there is no reason to appeal to the MMM since it was false long before it occurred. I see it used just to raise emotions that Mormons where a bunch of murders and baby killers.

You're 100% correct that if the Church were true, it was true before the MMM occurred, and if it were false, it was false before the MMM occurred.

The problem is the interpretation of various negative aspects of LDS history and claims as being the reason the LDS church isn't true. Nobody's claiming that, or else, nobody should be claiming that, and if they are, they're wrong and need to rethink some things.

If the LDS Church isn't true, it wasn't true already before most of the "negative" things happened, and the negative things are merely demonstrative of its non-truth. The Book of Abraham problems aren't the reason why the LDS Church isn't true. The BoA problems are merely a consequence of its not being true. The MMM isn't the reason the church isn't true. It's merely another consequence of its not being true. Joseph Smith's polyandry and polygamy aren't the reason the LDS church isn't true. Again, they are just one of the consequences of the fact that the church was man-made and man-lead, by a particular man who thought that these things were a good idea at the time.

I don't know all that happened in the MMM. I do believe, however, that the act itself, and the coverup that followed it, are merely fruits of a man-made tree, and not the reason the tree is manmade.

An apple comes from an apple tree because the tree is an apple tree. The apple tree isn't an apple tree because its fruit is an apple, if that makes any sense.

[Pahoran]

The Mormon Myth is that Brigham Young dispatched several messengers to ride to Cedar City to stop the massacre.

This is not a "Mormon myth." It is a fiction, apparently fabricated by you in order to falsely accuse the Saints of something.

The truth is that Haslam, who lived in Cedar City, volunteered to ride to SLC to ask Brigham Young for instructions. Haslam wasn't sent by Brigham Young, Haslam was sent by the Cedar City High Council to Brigham Young.

We know this. There is no "Mormon myth" to the contrary.

Regards,

Pahoran

[William Schryver]

Nonsense - it was in the papers in California and the East within weeks of the occurrence.

Settle down!

You missed my qualifying edits. What I meant to say is that the "facts" of Mormon involvement were not publicized for many years. I think my edit makes that a little clearer.

[Pahoran]

Brigham Young sent no messengers anywhere. Not one messenger. That's a Mormon Myth.

No, it's a fact.

Yes, Haslam came to Brigham from Cedar City; and Brigham sent him back. To everyone except a total anti-Mormon fanatic, that constitutes "sending a messenger."

The MMM began on Monday, Sept 7, 1857 when the Iron County Brigade of the Nauvoo Legion in Cedar City, Utah, along with some Piute Indians, attacked the Francher wagon train. But the Francher party fought back successfully and the Indians lost heart and most of them left, leaving the Saints to disguise themselves as Indians to continue the attack.

Call for references, please. Do you select your anti-Mormon propaganda on no other basis than its slander value?

Even many of the Cedar City militia members lost heart and the Cedar City High Council decided to send a courier to Brigham Young for instructions. James Holt Haslam volunteered to ride.

Your chronology is deliberately--and maliciously--off.

1) The Indians didn't "lose heart and leave." They pressed the attack for four days and were still on the scene on the fifth.

2) The Cedar City participants didn't "lose heart." The Cedar City high Council had met on Sunday September 6 and decided to hold off on any attack absent instructions from Brigham Young. Please note that this was before the attack started and the Emigrants started fighting back. You have deliberately butchered the order of events in order to make the Mormon participants look as bad as possible. Well, that's how demagogues create hatred of their targets, isn't it?

It took him until Thursday, Sept 10, to reach Salt Lake City. By that time, the attack had been going on for four days. Brigham Young spoke with Haslam and gave him a message to take back to tell the Nauvoo Legion not to attack the wagon train. However, Brigham Young knew from Haslam that the attack had already started the previous Monday.

Except that he didn't know that anyone other than Indians were involved.

Haslam rode back as hard as he could. Thursday, as Haslam was speaking to Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, the Francher party tried sending out messengers to get help, but the Legion marksmen shot them dead. The rest of the Francher party was killed on Friday, Sept 11, five days after the massacre began, when they were lured into surrender, putting their weapons down, and then shot to death by the Nauvoo Legionaires. Haslam didn't arrive back in Cedar City until after it was over.

That's right. Brigham's message would have saved their lives had it arrived in time.

To anyone other than a total anti-Mormon fanatic--or a completely cynical mercenary--that is sufficient to clear him of any charges of complicity.

Regards,

Pahoran

[TAK]

Settle down!

You missed my qualifying edits. What I meant to say is that the "facts" of Mormon involvement were not publicized for many years. I think my edit makes that a little clearer.

Thats not quite true either .. within the year, the Church sent out leaders to California and the east to spin the churches early version to the newspapers - it was the indians, misdeads by the Fancher party etc.

[TAK]

Pahoran:

That's right. Brigham's message would have saved their lives had it arrived in time.

Apostle George A Smith had just been down to Southern Utah and met Haight and others .. Why was such a message from BY even be necessary ?

[Pahoran]

Pahoran:

Apostle George A Smith had just been down to Southern Utah and met Haight and others .. Why was such a message from BY even be necessary ?

Exactly. Why, if Smith was Brigham's mouthpiece in setting up some plot to murder the Emigrants, would any request for instructions be necessary? The only reason for sending Haslam to get instructions was that the Indian attack upon the train was something that Smith's instructions had not anticipated.

And the conspiracy theory is thus disproved.

Regards,

Pahoran

[TAK]

Pahoran

Why, if Smith was Brigham's mouthpiece in setting up some plot to murder the Emigrants, would any request for instructions be necessary?

With instructions that gruesome, I would imagine they wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth..

The only reason for sending Haslam to get instructions was that the Indian attack upon the train was something that Smith's instructions had not anticipated.

Not anticipated? Like what? The Indians can not do the job?

You still have not answered the question... Why was such a message from BY even be necessary ??

[Calm]

Thats not quite true either .. within the year, the Church sent out leaders to California and the east to spin the churches early version to the newspapers - it was the indians, misdeads by the Fancher party etc.

If the church leadership was pushing this view that it was the indians, how does this work with the idea that BY pushed the massacre as a way to demonstrate his power?

[katherine the great]

If the church leadership was pushing this view that it was the indians, how does this work with the idea that BY pushed the massacre as a way to demonstrate his power?

Good point. The first newspaper reports said that it was perpetrated by the Indians. This was less than a month after the attack but this report came from Southern Utah via San Bernadino, not church headquarters.