Mmm Lecture Transcript

[Calm]

Brent Brizzi, transcribed this and it has been posted elsewhere on the Internet as well as being passed around on some lists (which is where it came to my attention). It is a lecture given at Benchmark Books by Ron Walker, Richard Turley, and Glen Leonard, on the subject of their recently released book "Massacre at Mountain Meadows." Thank you to Brent first of all and those who were kind enough to make sure it came to my attention....so I can now share it with the board:

Curt Bench Introduction: This is as many people that weâ??ve had at one

of these, so weâ??re going to have to have some room for standing I think.

Weâ??re going to have to do the best that we can. The air conditioning

has been cranked up as much as it can go. Weâ??re going to have the

authors come down here shortly, if I donâ??t get killed by the unhappy

people in the other room that donâ??t have books. So I guess these guys

are much more popular than they thought they were going to be, weâ??ve

soldout of books already. This is going to be a great evening, and

weâ??ll be back shortly to introduce the speakers, to start this rolling.

What weâ??ll do is, have each of the authors will take about ten

minutes, Iâ??ll introduce them, and then weâ??re going to have as much time

as we can for questions and answers. We have a little speaker that we

may try and see if it works, hopefully youâ??ll be able to hear the

authors ok. They expect the 2nd

printing, and theyâ??re doing 5,000 which is dumb, of course they donâ??t

ask people who actually sell books. Itâ??s a University Press, Oxford

University Press, and University presses usually do very conservative

numbers, itâ??s not unusual for them to publish 1,500 to 3,000 books, so

they probably thought they were really going big with 6,500. Someone at

this point asked Curt how many he thinks they should have published, he

replied: 10,000 anyway that they were originally going to do. So weâ??re

going to, youâ??ve all got to promise not to call the fire marshal, weâ??ll

get as many of you in here as we can, again, apologize for any

discomfort. The idea will be, after we hear the authors, and you ask

your questions, weâ??ll go back into the store for anyone who wants to get

their book signed, and weâ??ll do that as long as the authors hands hold

out. So if youâ??ll bear with me, I will go and get everybody, and weâ??re

just going to deal with

this the best we can. Weâ??re going to have refreshments afterwards, I

think we oughta bring in some of our water now before anybody

dehydrates. So weâ??ll bring in some water, if I have to, Iâ??ll bring in

the fire hose and spray you all down. Does that sound tempting?

Well I welcome the un-washed, itâ??s going to smell like it in a while

probably. I really do apologize for all the success tonight in regards

to this large crowd. I didnâ??t realize we had such rock stars here with

us, and thatâ??s just the employees. (laughter). I do apologize for any

discomfort. Did everyone get a chance to get water, that needed water,

we can make another water run. This room we felt would hold 100, we

usuallymeet in the store, which can possibly hold 75, and we have well

over 100tonight, so for us this is a very big deal, so we do ask for

your indulgence to put up with a little discomfort, I think it will be

worth it, because this book, phenomenal best seller is well worth the

wait, and itâ??swell worth hearing these three authors. Iâ??m just going to

introduce them. I donâ??t know if we can squeeze in anybody else, is

there anywherethat has a square inch of space, weâ??ve got to leave a

little bit of aisle space. If the

fire marshal were here weâ??d all be in trouble, Iâ??d be in trouble. So

weâ??re just going to do the best we can, weâ??ll set some chairs up inthe

hallway. Can you hear me in the hallway BTW? Iâ??m actually reallya loud

mouth. When we get to Ron Walker, and Glen Leonard, you might have a

little more trouble hearing. The procedure will be, Iâ??m going to

briefly introduce our authors, well then Iâ??m going to take about a

halfhour. (laughter). If thereâ??s any time left, I would like to give

themat least a couple of minutes to squeeze in a little bit. No, I will

be brief, and then each of the authors is going to take a turn to say a

little bit about the book, and weâ??re going to open it up for questions,

andIâ??m sure there will be some good ones, lots to ask about this

subject,and then after that we invite all of you who have books to come

back down into the store, they will continue to sign books as long as

thereâ??s books to sign, we

got to as many of you as we could to make books available, the

publishershorted themselves and all of us, and so we got caught by a

short print run, so I apologize, so we will do this we promise. If you

are not able to get a book tonight, as soon as the 2nd printing comes

in, if you will sign up with us tonight, we will have the authors sign

that, or if you have more than one copy signed, and we will get them to

you, we will hold them at our store, or if necessary if you live a long

way away we will ship those to you at no cost because we do feel bad

that this happened. We will also honor the 20% off price which all of

you have been able to get this book for that got a book, and then after

that itâ??s going up to itâ??s regular price of $30 ok. Any questions about

any of that? When we go back down to visit with the authors and have

them sign books, my good wife Pat has putting together some tasty

refreshments, and they will be at each end of the

hall, at each stairway, so youâ??d be welcome to partake. With that outof

the way, itâ??s my privilege to introduce the three distinguished authors

of â??Massacre at Mountain Meadows, An American Tragedyâ?, Ronald Walker,

and Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen Leonard. Iâ??m fortunate to be able

to say that Iâ??m not introducing them cold, no pun intended. Iâ??ve known

each of them for quite a few years, in fact Rick grew up in the ward

where we live now, where my wife grew up, and so weâ??ve known him for a

long time. They also have, each of them has other books as well as this

one. Rick also wrote, â??Victimsâ?, about the Mark Hofmann case, which is

on our sale table, sorry. (laughter). Equal apology to, althoughwe

didnâ??t have anything to do with it, to Glen Leonard who has writtena

number of things including â??Nauvoo, A Place of Peace, A People of

Promiseâ?, thatâ??s also on our sale table. Ronâ??s the only one that

doesnâ??t have books

on the sale table. Heâ??s done a number of books including â??Wayward

Saintsâ? about Godbeites. So we welcome you to also purchase any of

those books tonight which we have in some supply, anyway. Ordinarily, I

would be excited to say that we have this large crowd, and weâ??ve taken

all these orders, except that weâ??ve taken too many orders, and we

havenâ??tbeen able to take care of everybody which I feel bad about, but

that takes nothing away from the book itself, which Iâ??m proud to say I

was ableto read totally, except for I didnâ??t read every end note, and

every word in every appendices, but itâ??s a book that I feel is a

landmark contribution to the literature on the Mountain Meadows

Massacre, the most shameful event thatâ??s taken place in our church

history. Iâ??m proud to say itâ??s being dealt with in an open and candid

manner by these authors. Iâ??ve talked to them before the book came out,

and as I said recently at another meeting

where I introduced a couple of these authors, a number of years ago

whenthey decided to do this book, and Rick thought it would only take a

few months, that was seven years ago. Ron Walker said that he would not

put his name on the book unless it was an open, honest, and candid

history that he could feel good about putting his name on, and as I

pointed out there, not only is his name on the book, but itâ??s the first

one listed, soobviously Ron, and all of them feel good about the effort

theyâ??ve done. Iâ??m sure they would point it out, but just so that you

know, this is just volume 1, of a two volume projected set of books, and

Iâ??ll let them talk more about that. I do want to read a couple of

excerpts that was advance acclaim at the time from other authors, and

historians. One called it: â??A vivid, gripping narrative of one of the

most notorious mass murders in all American history, and a model for how

historians shoulddo their workâ?.

Richard Bushman said: â??The authors of Massacre at Mountain Meadows have

written the best researched, most complete, and most evenhanded

accountof the Mountain Meadows incident we are likely to have for a long

time.â? Just really quickly, youâ??re going in which order? First, youâ??ll

hear from Ronald W. Walker, whose now a private, professional historian,

hewas a professor of history at BYU, and the author of many books and

articles on the history of the Mormons, The West. Iâ??m not going to go

intomuch detail at all. Glen Leonard has been the director of the

Museum ofChurch History and Art for a number of years, he just got home

from a mission, I think they wanted him to get out of town. (laughter).

He has also written a number of articles and books. Richard Turley

was just namedthe Assistant Church Historian for the LDS Church, prior

to that he was the managing director of the Churchâ??s Family, and Church

History Department, and has had

a number of other positions, and has written widely, including the book

that I showed you on the Mark Hofmann case, so without going into any

further detail, Iâ??m going to turn the time over to them, then weâ??ll

entertain your questions. I think weâ??re in for a wonderful evening,

thank you again for coming. (Applause).

Ronald Walker: What an honor it is for us to be here with you, weâ??re

honored by your presence, and by all this attention, historians arenâ??t

used to this kind of, this kind of excitement, so thank you so much. I

think what we want to do tonight is each one of us take maybe five, six,

seven minutes to give you a feel for the book, and some of our thinking

about the book, and then I think the uh, the vast majority of the time,

I think we all agree should be Q&A. Thatâ??ll be the most fun. The first

hint of my involvement with this project came in October of 2001.

Richard E. Turley, then managing director of the LDS Family and Church

History Department telephoned to ask if I might be interested in working

on this volume. The idea was for Rick, Glen Leonard, and me to each

write a section of the manuscript and have it finished in several

months. (light laughter). I never believed that, and that had far more

optimism than in fact any kind of

realism. While the cooperation of the Church was promised, Rick said

that weâ??d be on our own for our writing, and our interpretation.

Neitherthe church, correlation department, nor reading committee of

church leaders, would have a role, Rick stated the mandate. The

massacreâ??s burdenupon the church could only be lifted by total honesty.

We of course realized very soon that speed and quality are seldom

allies in the historiansâ?? craft. Along the way we ended up writing a

very different volume than we first intended. We tried to have a single

narrative voice. Weâ??ve written with the goal of engaging the reader, a

general reader, while at the same time attempting to secure the highest

professional standards, we tried to keep our words tight, and the story

fast moving. We came to realize that the story could best be told as we

mentioned in two volumes,â??Massacre at Mountain Meadows, An American

Tragedyâ? is only the first. We became

convinced that our narrative should make no attempt at careful

packaging, or sanitized knowing. Our narrative demanded full disclosure

of the truth, and nothing but the truth. â??To remain silent and

indifferent is the greatest sin of all,â?â? said Nobel Peace Prize Winner,

Elie Wiesel,who survived Auschwitz, Buna-Werke, and Buchenwald, though

his family did not. On that point the three of us agreed, for whatever

the conduct, or misconduct of the Fancher, and Baker Party as they

traveled through Utah in 1857, that party certainly did nothing to

justify its fate, these men, women, and children were victims, and their

memory will always bear a terrible wrong. The dedication of our book is

offered to their memory. Really there can be no alternative than to

tell the truth. â??The massacre is a ghost that will not be laid,â? said

historian Juanita Brooks before publishing her path breaking study â??The

Mountain Meadows Massacreâ?. Since Brooks

book was published in 1950 the stream of articles and books have

continued, recently expanded by television programs, films, and web

sites. The demons will not be completely exercised until the public is

convinced there has been a full disclosure, and that the hard questions

about the massacre have been asked, and answered, and as historians we

understand, itâ??s always the asking, and answering questions that is the

most difficult thing a historian can do. As weâ??ve written our book

weâ??ve understood the need for scholarly humility, â??the past is a foreign

country, they do things differently there,â? said British novelist L.P.

Hartley. Itâ??s just not that the confusion of the event, or trying to

get the story right, or trying to recreate the peculiar quality of

Southern Utah life. In hierarchal, theocratic Utah there were few

places like Iron County. But the Mountain Meadows historian also

understands the implacable, pounding force of what

took place, and the almost inexorable quality to the events. â??You know

nothing about the spirit of the times,â? one man who was present in

Southern Utah in 1857, but who did not participate in the massacre, â??you

donâ??t understand, you canâ??t understand,â? he told his son. Storytellers

as well as readers might ask themselves the uneasy question of what they

might have done, had they been present in Cedar City in 1857.

Characters and events seemed drawn from a classical tragedy, and not

just because of the force of circumstance, and events. Mountain Meadows

has the exaggerated flaws and shortcomings and protagonists that seem to

be drawn from each one of us, as a result we may participate vicariously

or personally in the story, and when the last page is turned there may

be some of that pity and fear that Aristotle spoke of, when he

prescribed the elements of catharsis. Itâ??s no accident that the

structure of our book adopts the general form

of Greek tragedy, and we hope that our readers, like the ancient

Athenians will learn a few things about human nature, and about

themselves. Charles Upham, the early historian of the Salem Witchcraft

Trials understoodthis idea, there are indeed few passages in history of

a people to be compared with all that constitutes the pitiable, and the

tragical, the mysterious, and the awful he wrote in 1867 of the events

that took place at Salem 200 years earlier, and in so many respects

parallel the times of theMountain Meadows Massacre. He also knew the

shame of descendants, literal descendants as well as members of a later

religious tradition, but Upham was sure that there was value to the

process. Human nature never shines with more luster than when it arises

amidst the imperfections or the ruins of our nature, arrays itself in

the robes of penance, and goes forthwith earnest and humble sincerity to

the work of reformation, and restitution. If these

results could come from our book the last seven years have been worth

the effort. Thank you very much. (applause).

Kathleen Flake says: â??This uniquely well documented account of a highly

contested event may make obsolete previous studies and without doubt

will constitute the necessary starting point for all future ones.â?

Richard Turley: I would like to talk a little bit about our methodology

in writing the book, when we launched this project, our goal was not to

work principally from the secondary sources that had been created in the

past, but rather to find every primary source that we could find, and

thenlet that evidence tell the story, and that task sent us, or those

who were assisting us across the country looking for Mountain Meadows

Massacre information, because this was a celebrated case during itâ??s

time, and because the people who either participated in the massacre or

later investigated it got scattered across the country, the bits and

pieces were scattered like a giant jigsaw puzzle across the continent.

We ended up doingresearch from New England to Southern California, from

the Pacific Northwest, to the Southeast, with a lot of time spent in the

South Central States that were the home of many of the victims, and also

cumulatively months of research at

the national archives. The result of our work became what we describe

in our preface as an embarrassment of riches, despite my initial

optimism in completing the book in short order, we found that merely

reading through all the materials we collected, was by itself a mammoth

task. Then wehad to take all these little pieces of the puzzle and try

to fit them together. Just to give you some idea of the bulk of the

material that we collected, we are in the process right now of

cataloguing it so we can make it available to others to use, and if I

recall correctly it exceeds about 100 linear feet of shelf space, so

just imagine for a moment, reading all that material, and then trying to

fit all the pieces together, and having them make sense. Well, it took

us six or seven years, but by the time we finished, a picture did

emerge. Not a perfect picture, not a picture without some holes in it,

but a picture nevertheless that is more richand textured than

any picture we have had of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I would like

to talk too about our approach to this information, broadly speaking,

since historians and others began to tell the story of the massacre they

followed one of three main approaches, the first two are poles apart.

One approach portrays the perpetrators as good people, and the victims

as evilones who committed outrages supposedly during their travel

through central and southern Utah. The 2nd approach, a pole apart from

this, looks atthe massacred emigrants, and the evil of their killers who

are at best described as followers of misguided religion. Readers of

our book will find little sympathy for either one of these polar

interpretive positions. Each one of those polar positions overlooks how

complex human beings canbe, good and evil after all are widely shared

human traits, in fact thereâ??s some in all of us. Nor do these two

approaches recognize how diverse the two groups

were, moreover, each of these two polarized explanations breaks down

logically. As Ron mentioned, and as I would like to repeat now,

nothing, absolutely nothing that the emigrants did, or even purportedly

did, comes close to justifying their murder. There was not enough

justification in all of the rumors that were collected to justify the

killing of a single man, woman, or child, and most of the victims were

women and children. This wagon company was made up mostly of young

families traveling through the territory towards California in pursuit

of their dreams. The leading men and women among them had been

substantial citizens in their Arkansas communities, and promised to make

a mark in California as well. Likewisemost of the killers led exemplary

lives before and after the massacre, except for their experiences during

a single nightmarish week in Septemberof 1857. Most of them were

hardworking, ordinary, frontier individuals with otherwise

little to distinguish them from many other pioneers, some in fact would

have been pillars in any community. The 3rd main approach to

understanding the massacre attempts to navigate between the extremes of

the other two. This approach is partly a commonsense recognition that

both victims and perpetrators were decent people whose paths crossed in

a moment of history that resulted in a terrible atrocity. Juanita

Brooksâ??s 1950 book had this insight, and it is one reason we admire her

work, though new information now permits a more complete and accurate

telling of the massacre. In fact for those of you who have followed

Juanita Brooksâ??s efforts over the years as recounted in her works, we

were able to obtain accessto the materials that she sought, but couldnâ??t

obtain. This 3rd approach, the one that weâ??re following, however gives

rise to a very troubling question. How could basically good people

commit such an atrocity? Our feeling is, that

if you understand the Mountain Meadows Massacre only from these two

polar extremes that weâ??ve talked about, polar extremes that allow an

emotional distance in many ways from the events themselves. Polar

extremes that allow us to stand back with righteous indignation and

condemn whicheverside we view as evil in this circumstance. If that is

our only understanding, we donâ??t really understand the massacre, because

the reality is,if we put ourselves into the middle of that circumstance

in September 1857, we should feel emotion, we should feel great emotion,

and we try to lead the reader through the circumstances in such a way

that when you put the book down, you can feel that you not only know the

facts of the massacre, you feel the horror of the atrocity. How then

could basically good people commit such a horrible deed? There are no

pat answers, but the professional literature dealing with 19th century

American violence does offer a starting

point. In the early to mid 1800â??s the United States could be a very

violent place, particularly for racial, ethnic, and yes, religious

minorities. The period between 1830 and 1860 has been called the

turbulent era,and indeed it was turbulent for many Latter-Day Saints.

These men and women experienced violence in Missouri, and Illinois, and

when an army marched towards Utah territory in 1857, the year of the

massacre, they believed, at least some of them, that they were about to

become victims again. One of the bitter ironies of Mormon history is

that some of the people who had long abhorred the injustice of

extralegal violence became its perpetrators. In carrying out the

Mountain Meadows Massacre they followed afamiliar step by step pattern,

used by vigilantes elsewhere. Scholars who investigated violence in

many cultures provide other insights based ongroup psychology, episodes

of violence often begin when one people classify another people

as the other, stripping them of their humanity, and mentally

transforming them into enemies, thatâ??s what happened at Mountain

Meadows. The literature also suggests that other elements are often

present when good people do terrible things, usually thereâ??s an

atmosphere of authority and obedience which allows errant leaders to

trump the moral instincts of their followers. Atrocities also occur

when followers do not have clear messages about what is expected of

them. Poverty likewise increases the likelihood of problems raised by

concerns for survival, and I think many people have a difficult

understanding just how poor southern Utah was at thetime. Many people

in Cedar City, which was the focal point for much of what went on at

Mountain Meadows, many of those people didnâ??t even haveshoes to wear,

and they lived in homes that today by nearly any modern standard would

be considered as sub-standard. So in conclusion the conditions for mass

killing, demonizing others, authority and obedience, peer pressure,

ambiguity, fear, and depravation were all present as the backdrop for

the events that became the massacre at Mountain Meadows. (applause).

Glen Leonard: In his comments in reviewing the book prior to

publication, Richard Bushman mentioned this, â??Though I knew the end from

the beginning, I began to sweat as the narrative approached its fatal

climax. Theauthors wonâ??t let us turn our gaze away from the horrors of

that momentâ?. One of the copy editors said something similarly, â??this

is a page turner, she saidâ?. (pause) Iâ??d like to turn a few pages. Iâ??d

like to take you into the book, and give you a sample of the narrative,

as an illustration of what we were trying to accomplish by taking the

facts,drawing our conclusions, and then casting them into a narrative

voice. We decided the best way to prove our point, to demonstrate what

we felt was happening, and why, was to tell the story, and let the facts

speak forthemselves. One of the interesting disclosures in our research

was thatthere were three separate council meetings held, and in each of

those councils there was a

variety of opinions expressed, in each one the majority said â??leave the

emigrants alone,â? and yet they didnâ??t. Those who made the final

decisions ignored the council, and moved ahead. On Sunday September

6th, Isaac Haight, Stake President in Cedar City, met with his

counselors, the Bishopric, the High Council, and other leading citizens.

In this weekly gathering, Haight brought up the question of the

emigrants, they passed through the city on Thursday, stopped briefly,

and thereâ??d been some planning on a previous council held prior to this

Sunday meeting. One member of this High Council was Laban Morrill, he

lived about six miles north of Cedar City, and when he arrived the

meeting was already underway. He knew nothing about those previous

conversations. Morrill entered the meeting late, and immediately sensed

confusion and some little excitement. When Morrill asked what was up,

he heard the Cedar City concerns. â??I was told there was

an immigrant train that had passed down along to near Mountain Meadows,

and that theyâ??d made their threats in regard to us as a people,

signifying they would stay there and destroy every damn Mormon.â? The

leaders took the threat seriously because they believed â??there was an

army coming on the south, that is through the mountains into Cedar City

area, and one on the northâ?, and were debating â??what method we ought to

take inregard to preserving the lives of the citizensâ?. In other words,

somepeople there felt genuinely threatened by threats, of which one of

the councilors had said. â??Words are but wind, ignore them.â? Morrill was

stunned by what he heard. â??Do not our principles of right teach us to

return good for evil and do good to those who despitefully use us?â? â??To

fall upon them and destroy them was the work of savage monsters

ratherthan that of civilized beings in our own enlightened time.â?

Morrill wanted to know â??by

what authorityâ? Haight and the others were planning such drastic

measures. Had something come from Col. Dame, who was in charge of the

Southern Utah militia? If so, Morrill demanded to see the documents.

In response, Haight and his supporters had to admit that they were

acting on theirown, there were no orders from anywhere. Nothing had

come from Parowan,from Col. Dame. The full truth went further: Dame

had actually told Haight to let the emigrants alone. Still more

damning, Haight did not tellthe council that John D. Lee, and others

were already at the Meadows gathering for action. You do know the end

of the story from the beginning. Letâ??s go to the Meadows, itâ??s September

11th, 120 innocent men, women, and children are lying dead upon the

Meadows, 17 surviving children, those too young to tell the tale, that

the emigrants knew that white men had been involved in killings earlier

in the week, and now the older people had been killed

to cover up the evidence of white involvement. The children had been

taken to the Hamblin Ranch, two miles north of where the killing took

place, itâ??s dark, the scent of human blood in the Meadows brought

Coyotes from their dens, and their howls mingled with the crying of the

children, and the bawling of the emigrants cattle. That night campfires

flickered here and there in the Meadow, although the militia leaders,

including Lee,went to Hamblinâ??s Ranch House in time for supper at

sundown, despite the din, and the fresh memories of the slaughter, Lee

rolled out his saddle blanket and slept soundly, exhausted from the

weeks action, he also hadthe facility to shield his mind from self

inspection, he had done his duty, that was all he allowed himself to

think. Likely some militiamen mayhave rested well, but, the sleep of

others must have been more fitful. However much they sought solace

thereafter, memories of the massacre at Mountain Meadows

would lurk in their minds and haunt them to their deaths. Some sought

refuge in excuses or denial. Others fled the land in the vain hope of

escaping the recurring visions of that day. None was ever the same

again. The tragedy at Mountain Meadows played out on several levels,

the murdered emigrants lost their hopes, their dreams, their property,

and their lives, some lost their very identity, their names forever

effaced from humanmemory, the surviving children were robbed of the

warmth and support of parents, brothers, and sisters. Their first

sobbing night at Hamblins was just the start of their ordeal. The

Paiute participants would bare thebrunt of blame for the massacre,

shamelessly used by the white men who lured them to the Meadows. For

the militiamen who carried out the crime, as well as their families,

descendents, and fellow church members, there was another kind of

tragedy, it was the nigh long anguish that flows frombetrayed ideals.

The burdens of the massacre would linger far beyond what anyone

imaginedon that night of September 11th 1857. We dedicate the book to

all of those victims. (applause).

Curt Bench: Iâ??m sure you will agree that was a tremendous, brief

presentation, a good introduction to the book. Now weâ??d like to

entertain any questions you may have, if youâ??d like to raise your hand

weâ??ll getto you as soon as we can, and if you have a certain author in

mind, justdesignate that OK.

Q: To any and all of you, is it true that they, the perpetrators held

prayer circles just prior to the massacre? And if so what does this say

about their mindset at the time?

Turley: There was an early report that got repeated over and over again

in Massacre literature that a prayer circle had been held in Mountain

Meadows. As best we can determine, including through the words of a

participant that we found in the Andrew Jensen interview collection.

Andrew Jensen went down in 1892 and he interviewed some of the

participants, and heasked specific questions, and that was one of them.

Actually, he didnâ??t ask the question, he had an interviewee read a

report that happened to include that statement, and the interviewer

said, no, no, no, no, there was no prayer circle, the older men just sat

in a circle while they counseled during the night of Thursday into

Friday, so that was no prayer circle. So as far as weâ??ve been able to

tell there was no formal prayer circle as such.

Q: I canâ??t wait to read your actual text. The question I have, is,

there anything from Juanita Brooks book that is significantly different

than what you have discovered in your research? In other words, she

didnâ??t have access to all of the material you did, but even that, is

there anything you found that was not quite right with her book, or that

significantly adds your book to what sheâ??s written? If that makes sense?

Glen Leonard: Read the book. Heâ??s asking how far beyond our book

goesbeyond Juanita Brooks book, weâ??ve all enjoyed hers, itâ??s been a

standard for fifty years. Did we find things, and do we move beyond

what shedid? Significant things? There were a lot of details she did

not have, that we were able to flesh it out with, and some of these

sources that she wanted to see and hadnâ??t, helped us. Some she didnâ??t

look for, andwe found helped us. Her foundation is solid, we feel like

weâ??ve movedin the direction she was moving, and because we had more

sources available, and were able to use those sources, there is an

enrichment, and thereis substantial new information and new ways of

seeing things. She was trying to shift the blame away from John D. Lee,

weâ??ve evened broadened that, this is a mass killing, and a lot of people

involved, and William Dame, and Isaac Haight, and John D. Lee share that

in different ways. Therumors that were

coming down from the north, and the talk of things that were happening

in Cedar City, we think weâ??ve made a step forward in sorting those out.

Poisoning, youâ??ll read is very different than what everyone thought

itwas going to be. The broader context of the Utah War, in her 2nd

edition she said Iâ??d wished Iâ??d given more attention to that, we give a

lotof attention to that, plus the culture of violence. So, I think

weâ??vebroadened and built on her base, and we hope youâ??ll find ours worth

reading, because it will give you some new insights.

Ron Walker: I was just going to say, I think weâ??re probably not as

gentle with John D. Lee as Juanita Brooks was.

Comment: She wasnâ??t kind to John D. Lee!

Q: Could you speak to how they involved the Indians? Why did the

Indians go along with this? How were they involved?

RW: You know that is one of the most difficult questions that we as

historians had, and that is, finding the voice of the Native American,

and the reason for that is, the sources just arenâ??t there. Normally,

you have this very rich oral tradition of the Native Americans, but you

have such a high mortality rate of those who participated in the

massacre, and you have a very high mortality rate of the descendants of

those who participated, Native Americans who participated in the

massacre. So here is a limitation imposed upon us by our sources, and

we just do our best with that. But, it would indicate that the Native

Americans probably were a cross-section, a diversity just like the

Mormons were, and just like the emigrants. There were probably a

variety of emotions that drew them there, including booty, including

participating in the mass hysteria of the times. They had heard rumors

of Indian poisoning further north, which may have stirred their

emotions, but to come down and really understand how much of this was,

affected the Indians, very, very difficult for us to say, and especially

because of the slippery nature of the sources after the fact, so many of

our sources are reminiscent accounts, which make it very difficult.

Q: Was the high mortality rate of the Indians, intentional?

RW: No, no, no, no, thatâ??s general across the board with Native

Americans of the 19th century. You end up with maybe one or two percent

of Native American population in the year 1930 from what existed in the

19th century, tremendous mortality based upon disease.

Q: Were the Indians paid?

RW: Only with promises of booty.

Q: About how many do you think participated?

RT: The question was how many do you think participated? Itâ??s very

difficult to get a handle around that question. Some of the

participants in the massacre, the white participants, put the number

around 600, thatâ??s far too high, there was some participation, we donâ??t

know the precisenumber, we give the range in the book, we cite the

various sources that exist, it is fair to say the following, that is the

principle responsibility for the massacre rests on the shoulders of the

white leaders who masterminded the massacre, and then sought to draw in

native peoples. So thatâ??s the key conclusion.

Q: RT: The question is whatâ??s the possibility of members of the

churchlearning about this without including it in the teaching

materials? Thatâ??s a very good question. (laughter). One answer to the

question is that, we are, we live in an age today in which information

is much more egalitarian, and so information about the massacre now

spreads worldwide very quickly through the internet. I wrote an article

in the Ensign for example, that was intended to help introduce many

people to the massacre. That was subsequently, just sort of

spontaneously translated into numerous languages around the world. If

you did a little google search, pretty soon youâ??d find in one language

after another, just spontaneously popping up all over everywhere. So I

think word of the massacre is beginning to permeate the world at large.

Anybody else?

RW: Iâ??d like to just comment on that too. I presented a paper

severalmonths ago at the Mormon History Association, in which I tried to

give my own personal reflections, lessons learned, and what this might

mean forMormon culture, that article is forthcoming in the next issue of

BYU Studies. I think there are three things that our culture has to do

to come to grips with this. First of all you have to have an open

disclosure, you have to know what happened, and then I think there has

to be an acknowledgment of what happened, and we got that with the very

generous and heartfelt remarks that Elder Eyring made several months ago

at the massacre site. Then 3rd, I think is a more difficult question,

and that is: How should we as a society remember this event? And I

think that question is one that weâ??re going to have to wrestle with over

the next few years, and maybe a decade or two. But, my own feeling is,

weâ??ve probably got to say more about

what happened, and be more forthcoming, in our public monuments

especially about what happened down there.

Q: You mentioned the poisoning of the cattle, and Anthrax. How did you

come upon that idea?

RW: The question is, you know there were rumors that the emigrants had

poisoned cattle in Central Utah, and we had to come to grips with that

question. Had they committed this atrocity? What was interesting to

us, wefound that the emigrants were accusing the Mormons of poisoning

cattle, so there was something going on here that reached beyond these

rumors, and you know, we brought in a panel of physicians, and scholars

to help us with this question, and we looked at it very carefully, we

looked at the disease, what was happening in Central Utah, and we saw,

what happened here was consistent with an outbreak of Anthrax, which

19th century citizens wouldnâ??t have had a clue about, they didnâ??t have

any idea what thismeant. So you have as an element of the massacre, not

the reality of poisoning, but you have the reality of these â??rumorsâ? of

poisoning, which certainly played a role in the forming of the

psychology of the time.

RT: Just to give you another word about the methodology that we

followed, we brought in this panel of doctors, and we talked to a large

animal veterinarian as well. When we first brought the panel of doctors

together,this was a very distinguished group of doctors, and we

presented the evidence that we had, and they looked at it and they said,

â??you know 150 years after the fact, nearly 150 years, just the symptoms

that your givingto us here, we cannot make a clear diagnosis, it could

be Anthrax, it could be all these other things, they said we need more

data, so we went back and we combed journals, and we discovered during

this same time periodnumerous instances in which people were skinning

cattle, and ended up with sores, cankers on their hands or other body

parts that turned to a dark black color, and we found these cases from

Bountiful to San Bernardino,California. With that additional data we

went back to our doctors and this time they said

â??that is classic, textbook Anthraxâ?. Interestingly, after we released

the book, we recently got another note from a Dr. Glen you got that

note. Do you want to tell them what it said?

GL: As the Dr. was reading our book, and came upon the presentation of

the story, we unfolded the story and described the symptoms in those who

had this illness, and one who died from it. He said: â??As soon as I

read the symptoms I knew what was going on, I knew it was Anthrax.â?

Something else that helped us in this study, is that we found that

reading about poisoning in the culture of the time, that because there

was no medical knowledge about microbes, bacteria, etc. They did not

understand Anthrax, they didnâ??t understand other infectious diseases,

and so when something mysteriously died it was â??poisoningâ?, or if some

human died of something unknown it was â??poisoningâ?. Crossing the

plains, one of theemigrants suffered an injury, it was â??poisoning,â? a

spider bite. Sopoisoning was an easy answer for things they did not

understand.

Q: Itâ??s my understanding that there were some documents that were

missing some significant portions��.what kind of hole did they leave in

your research?? What hole did they leave?

GL: As you know we did find some new documents which helped strengthen

our study. Yes, occasionally we would find some physical evidence that

a page was torn out of a diary, but we had so much evidence that we felt

comfortable that as we put the pieces together we were reasonably

certain that we got the story right. Weâ??d like to have those missing

pieces, there may be a diary here or there thatâ??s hidden away in a

family closet that could come forward, but uh, itâ??s likely not to change

the story.

Q: Voice of the Indians is virtually not heard, or not available, I

assume that the voices of the victims were similarly, quiet and not

available. My question is the overwhelming amount of information that is

availablein the journals. What extent was that information held by the

church? Was there a flood of information that just finally came out? He

also asked to what extent were some of the documents they used, held by

the church. (hard to make out)

GL: Your right, not only did we find it almost impossible to find the

voice of the Native Americans, but the emigrants were dead, a few of the

older children were able to talk, and to point the finger at the white

settlers, but no I wouldnâ??t say that new sources came rushing towards

us. There were people who drew our attention to some things that we

already had copies of. How much new information? I guess we went out

and found it, didnâ??t we Rick?

RT: As I mentioned we combed the archives and private collections

acrossthe country, and we teased out the information that was hiding

there. Let me just give you an example: A discovery had been made some

time ago in the National Archives, there were a series of affidavits

that were filled out by people who were making claims on, largely on

behalf of the Baker family and their neighbors, but there was no mention

of Alexander Fancher, and his associated family members and neighbors

that went with him. We found in all places, in Indiana, a letter that

had been written by the husband of one of the surviving children, who

had gone around the neighborhood in Arkansas, and asked some of the

neighbors. What did AlexanderFancher have when he left Arkansas? So we

were able to fill that hole in, and we went just from piece of the

puzzle, to piece of the puzzle, andgradually filled in all of these bits

of information. We did talk to Paiute Indians, we

recorded their oral traditions. We found some oral traditions that had

been captured in print by white interviewees or other people from 1857

til more recent times. So theyâ??re not completely absent, theyâ??re just

not there in the richness that we would like them to be.

RW: Just another comment, some of the most important sources we found

were available to Juanita Brooks and others. These are contemporaneous

travelers just behind the Baker-Fancher Party who follow Baker-Fancher

through Utah, and make their way to California, and quickly publish

their experiences in the California newspapers. These documents, again

sort of fill in this pattern, that we were looking for that made the

other statements consistent, and seemed to us, to make them more reliable.

Q: You mention that you donâ??t coddle John D. Lee as much as Juanita.

Could you give me an A, B, C, D, F, grade, on Leeâ??s last confession?

RW: I think Rick may want to comment on that. One of the interesting

things in our research is, you know Lee in one of the most exceptional

cases in American jurisprudence, is taken to the Meadows for his

execution in1877. When he goes to the Meadows, he speaks with reporters

from throughout the United States who were there for the event, and as

he speaks with reporters, for the first time he really starts to come

clean with what he had done, and the account that he gives the reporters

moments before his death, substantially contradicts his earlier

statements, long standingstatements of 20 years. For example: He

clearly puts himself at the initial attack. Is that right? (turns to

the other authors). But he does concede that he was involved in the

killing on the 11th of September.

RT: Ron, earlier mentioned my optimism in getting the book finished

morequickly than we did. That optimism was based in part on our initial

assumption that certain of the major sources on the history of the

massacrewere good, solid bedrock sources, among those John D. Leeâ??s

Mormonism Unveiled, his last confessions. Among them, the trial

transcripts of theJohn D. Lee, two trials in 1875, and 1876. What we

discovered is that as we walked out on what we thought was bedrock, it

crumbled under our feet, much like the ground does at Yellowstone, and

what we discovered is those sources were not entirely reliable, and Iâ??ve

got an article coming out in the next issue of BYU Studies that will

talk about some of those sources very, very briefly. But, just to let

you know we have been working for example on the trial transcripts of

John D. Lee, weâ??ve gathered legal sources from many locations, we

brought them together, we found out that the trial

transcripts were not created at the time. They were created later on

for other purposes, and as we began to compare them they differed from

one another, so then we recognized that we had the original shorthand

notebooks taken by the court reporters in the church archives, and also

at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. So we got those

shorthand transcripts, found a woman who could transcribe them, and she

spent the last several years helping us transcribe these. We now have,

I think 3400 pdf files of these legal records, weâ??ve taken all of them,

and weâ??ve lined them up in columns. The shorthand for the two

reporters, the various transcripts that were created, the newspaper

accounts, and so on, so that we can get a good, final picture of what

really happened at the John D. Lee trial. Youâ??ll be interested to know

that even though John D. Leeâ??s gotten the most attention, in 1874 there

were actually nine people indicted for the

massacre, we found the original indictment, of those nine people why

only John D. Lee tried and executed, thatâ??s the story of the next book.

(laughter). Let me just give it in a nutshell. In a nutshell, they

wanted to go after William Dame, he was the highest official that had

been indicted, they arrested him very quickly, shortly after they

arrested John D. Lee, in fact they took about half of those nine

indicted people into custody. They went after Dame, they tried to use

Lee as the person who was going to cop on Dame, very typical type of

approach for a prosecutor. So they went to Lee and said: â??Youâ??ve got two

indictments against you, we will automatically drop the first indictment

if youâ??ll just agreeto give us a confession, if your confession is quote

â??satisfactoryâ?,close quote, we drop the 2nd count and you walk. So John

D. Lee checkedwith his lawyers, they said, â??best deal youâ??re going to

get, go for it.â? So he agreed

to write a confession, they dropped the first indictment, he wrote the

confession, presented it to them, they said, â??nope, not satisfactory,

and since we donâ??t have enough evidence to go after William Dame,

weâ??regoing to go after John D. Lee.â?

Curt Bench: We could go on all night, but unfortunately we canâ??t. I

hope itâ??s very clear to everyone how much knowledge is here tonight,

anduh, this is just a fraction. (applause). I want to also point out

something that some of you have already figured out, weâ??ve never seen

anything like this before. The church did not officially, they did not

publishthis book, itâ??s not a church publication, itâ??s not endorsed by

the church, but church resources were made available to these authors,

and we have seen something here that I have never seen in my lifetime,

the doorsthat were opened, the possibilities that were explored, largely

because Rick Turley thought that this was something that should be done,

and he deserves a lot of the credit for that. (applause). I think itâ??s

a verypositive step, I welcome it, I think along with something like

Richard Bushmanâ??s â??Joseph Smith, Rough Stone Rollingâ?, we are seeing a

new era in church

history, and I welcome it. I think with Rick as Assistant Church

Historian, Marlon Jensen as the Church Historian, I think this is just

the beginning, thatâ??s my hope and prayer anyway, and I think that these

gentlemen deserve a lot of credit, and have opened some important doors

here, and have dealt with a subject that has been ignored or whitewashed

for a long time, and this will go a long way to promote the kind of

healing that theyâ??re hoping will take place, and our thanks to you for

doing that. (applause).

[Calm]

Found a link that has both the lecture and the panel discussion in one place (though the second is based on notes apparently, not a transcription as is the first):

http://www.juvenileinstructor.org/author/jared/

[jwhitlock]

Thanks, cal. Hopefully the book will soon be more widely available.

The book appears to be a very frank, open, and honest discussion of the MMM. I'm especially impressed by the desire to be as honest as possible in how the book portrays the event. Though the Church supported the effort, they did not exercise any editorial control over it.

I think that this kind of thing happens rather rarely, whether we're considering the Church or any other organization, in that an organization has the desire to deal fully, openly, and honestly with a terrible event in its history in order to lift the burden. What other parallels could we draw with other organizations who have done this kind of thing in the past?