Mountain Meadows Massacre

[Tacenda]

Thought it interesting that we've had this discussion before.  http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/58968-mountain-meadows-massacre/page-3 .

 

Scott mentions that he will be interviewing the new church historian.  Robert's paper is mentioned.  I even say I'll take a look at it, but did I? 

 

Here is a post that's sounds like some didn't know about the MMM, and might just prove somewhat that for a long while it really wasn't spoken of.  Not really white washed but certainly kept at bay.

 

"I learned about MMM from a supervisor at my job who was less than friendly towards the LDS."
 

[Tacenda]

Please read again.  I did not write atonement I wrote blood atonement.

 

That would be accurate and I think properly expresses your feelings.  It just bothers me to that some think it is alright to speak for others, most of which are long dead.

Oh, I meant blood atonement.  This is fun...using my allotment of posts to clarify. 

 

I guess I'm brain dead or you want me to post even more of my precious posts...what do you mean "speak for others" who am I speaking for?  Oops, nevermind answering this...you meant the church shouldn't say sorry for the massacre of those people in the meadow, wait no, you don't mean this, what do you mean, I'm confused again!

Edited September 5, 2014 by Tacenda

[Scott Lloyd]

I have not commented on the extent of the blunder. Why do you insist on suggesting I've minimized it, or downplayed it, as USU said?

Perhaps I have made you an offender for a word.

 

I apologize.

[ERayR]

Here is a post that's sounds like some didn't know about the MMM, and might just prove somewhat that for a long while it really wasn't spoken of.  Not really white washed but certainly kept at bay.

 

 

 

You make it sound intentional.  Is this just another example of your blame the Church first?

[ERayR]

I guess I'm brain dead or you want me to post even more of my precious posts...what do you mean "speak for others" who am I speaking for?  Oops, nevermind answering this...you meant the church shouldn't say sorry for the massacre of those people in the meadow, wait no, you don't mean this, what do you mean, I'm confused again!

 

When someone issues an apology for what someone else did that is speaking for others.  I mean that any apology issued for(in the name of) someone else, unless you have their permission is wrong.  If an valid apology for MMM is to be issued now it will have to be done by resurrected beings.

[Analytics]

I think USU78 has pointed out that this was more likely Lee's attorney endeavoring, along with other anti-Mormons of the day, to fix blame on the Church itself, much as you are doing now.

I think you've turned the concept on its head. It is up to the individual to personally forgive while leaving it up to God to do what is just and right.

Of course I agree that is the better way to interpret the "doctrine" of praying for vengeance. On the other hand, people are supposed to work to bring to pass what they pray for, right?

In any case, the question is, what were the people thinking? From the facts that the Oath of Vengeance was real, that John D. Lee cited it as a motivation, and that Brigham Young said "and I have taken a little", a clear pattern with explanatory power emerges.

Of course the culture, teachings, and covenants of the Church have all changed since then, so this isn't meant as some sort of expose of what Mormons now believe, much less a criticism of modern Saints.

[Scott Lloyd]

Of course I agree that is the better way to interpret the "doctrine" of praying for vengeance. On the other hand, people are supposed to work to bring to pass what they pray for, right?

In any case, the question is, what were the people thinking? From the facts that the Oath of Vengeance was real, that John D. Lee cited it as a motivation, and that Brigham Young said "and I have taken a little", a clear pattern with explanatory power emerges.

Of course the culture, teachings, and covenants of the Church have all changed since then, so this isn't meant as some sort of expose of what Mormons now believe, much less a criticism of modern Saints.

Again, I don't concede that John D. Lee or anybody there on site at the time cited it as a motivation. I believe his attorney used it as a rationalization and a way to deflect blame.

 

As for the "I [probably meaning God] have taken a little" statement reportedly attributed to Brigham Young, I don't see that this has probative value in the allegation that he ordered the massacre or that it arose from anything doctrinal or official in the Church.

 

From what I've read, I believe that Brigham was not in full possession of the facts at the time, that he only arrived at them incrementally over time, that he at the time the statement was made likely believed the rumors that were rampant about the travelers provoking the Indians and otherwise bringing the disaster on themselves. He was wrong in his assumption, of course, but so were a lot of other people at the time.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

[deleted]

Edited September 5, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[Guest]

 

And Lee was not hanged. He was executed by firing squad while sitting on his coffin at the site of the massacre.

Cold, but he should have had all who helped sitting with him. Murder on that scale is as bad as Oklahoma City.

[Tacenda]

You make it sound intentional.  Is this just another example of your blame the Church first?

 

 

When someone issues an apology for what someone else did that is speaking for others.  I mean that any apology issued for(in the name of) someone else, unless you have their permission is wrong.  If an valid apology for MMM is to be issued now it will have to be done by resurrected beings.

 

First, no I'm not blaming the church am I, does it sound that way? But going by so many that didn't know much about it there might be evidence that info was lacking or enough of it wasn't there.   

 

Second, what about a statement of regret?  Is that a "sorry" too?  That is what Pres. Eyring expressed.  I was mistaken, I thought it was more a "sorry".   

 

Darn, there was going to be a documentary made about Juanita Brooks but they didn't get it made because of lack of funds. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/78832906/riding-the-edge-the-juanita-brooks-story?ref=live&fb_source=message

 

 It would have been shown this week in St. George!  http://docutah.com/schedule/

[ERayR]

Cold, but he should have had all who helped sitting with him. Murder on that scale is as bad as Oklahoma City.

 

Even today justice is not sure.  In that time it was easier to run and hide but the comforting thing is that eternal justice is more sure.

[USU78]

I have not commented on the extent of the blunder. Why do you insist on suggesting I've minimized it, or downplayed it, as USU said?

 

Let's get at the causative effects of phenomena that led to MMM.

 

1.  Southern Senators' schemings

2.  Southern Senators' approaching Buchanan to order expeditionary force to pay piper for Buchanan's election

3.  Buchanan ordering the expeditionary force

4.  Congress agreeing to pay for the expeditionary force

5.  Johnston's army's Schrecklichkeit campaign, sending message that Mormon Men would get the same treatment as Los Ninos Heroes got.

6.  Johnston's army's Schrecklichkeit campaign, sending message that unmarried Mormon Women would be raped and sold into white slavery.

7.  BY's wartime propaganda campaign.

8.  Local leaders' wartime propaganda campaign.

9.  "Cross My Heart, Hope to Die" language in endowment.

10.  Alleged "Punish the Assassins" language in endowment.

11.  BY's "free the Amerinds to steal cattle and cause other mischief" threat.

12.  Presence of Missouri Wildcats in wagon train.

13.  Threats to send California militia back to punish the Mormons.

14.  Rumors of an armada coming up the Colorado with marines who would punish the Mormons.

 

Add others as you see fit.

 

Now . . . in order logically to determine which caused which "cause" that culminated in MMM, look at each individually and ask the question:  would this have happened in the absence of another "cause."  If you cannot find one, then you have found your Ur-cause.

 

I think you'll find the top 3 together are the cause of everything that ensued.

 

So to say that Buchanan's blunder was merely a contributing cause of MMM is to grossly distort facts and downplay true culpability.

[ERayR]

First, no I'm not blaming the church am I, does it sound that way? But going by so many that didn't know much about it there might be evidence that info was lacking or enough of it wasn't there.   

 

Second, what about a statement of regret?  Is that a "sorry" too?  That is what Pres. Eyring expressed.  I was mistaken, I thought it was more a "sorry".   

 

Darn, there was going to be a documentary made about Juanita Brooks but they didn't get it made because of lack of funds. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/78832906/riding-the-edge-the-juanita-brooks-story?ref=live&fb_source=message

 

 It would have been shown this week in St. George!  http://docutah.com/schedule/

 

Yes it sounded that way.  You have a disturbing tendency to use the critics and antis buzz words.

 

Yes a statement of regret is an "I am sorry it happened" or "I am sorry someone did that to you" 

[Guest]

Even today justice is not sure.  In that time it was easier to run and hide but the comforting thing is that eternal justice is more sure.

Indeed, 2 Nephi 9: 41

[stemelbow]

Let's get at the causative effects of phenomena that led to MMM.

 

1.  Southern Senators' schemings

2.  Southern Senators' approaching Buchanan to order expeditionary force to pay piper for Buchanan's election

3.  Buchanan ordering the expeditionary force

4.  Congress agreeing to pay for the expeditionary force

5.  Johnston's army's Schrecklichkeit campaign, sending message that Mormon Men would get the same treatment as Los Ninos Heroes got.

6.  Johnston's army's Schrecklichkeit campaign, sending message that unmarried Mormon Women would be raped and sold into white slavery.

7.  BY's wartime propaganda campaign.

8.  Local leaders' wartime propaganda campaign.

9.  "Cross My Heart, Hope to Die" language in endowment.

10.  Alleged "Punish the Assassins" language in endowment.

11.  BY's "free the Amerinds to steal cattle and cause other mischief" threat.

12.  Presence of Missouri Wildcats in wagon train.

13.  Threats to send California militia back to punish the Mormons.

14.  Rumors of an armada coming up the Colorado with marines who would punish the Mormons.

 

Add others as you see fit.

 

Now . . . in order logically to determine which caused which "cause" that culminated in MMM, look at each individually and ask the question:  would this have happened in the absence of another "cause."  If you cannot find one, then you have found your Ur-cause.

 

I think you'll find the top 3 together are the cause of everything that ensued.

 

So to say that Buchanan's blunder was merely a contributing cause of MMM is to grossly distort facts and downplay true culpability.

This listing is awesome. Thanks. I don't know that its useful to quibble about whether it was a cause or contributing cause of MMM. I'll happily drop the contributing if that helps. Thanks for the correction.

[Bob Crockett]

Again, I don't concede that John D. Lee or anybody there on site at the time cited it as a motivation. I believe his attorney used it as a rationalization and a way to deflect blame.

 

As for the "I [probably meaning God] have taken a little" statement reportedly attributed to Brigham Young, I don't see that this has probative value in the allegation that he ordered the massacre or that it arose from anything doctrinal or official in the Church.

 

From what I've read, I believe that Brigham was not in full possession of the facts at the time, that he only arrived at them incrementally over time, that he at the time the statement was made likely believed the rumors that were rampant about the travelers provoking the Indians and otherwise bringing the disaster on themselves. He was wrong in his assumption, of course, but so were a lot of other people at the time.

This account is a lesson in false perspective. Will Bagley cites this after-the-fact event as the single most damning episode against Brigham Young.

There were two accounts of this. One by Wilford Woodruff, which has Brigham Young saying hardly anything and being rather mild, and the other by Dudley Leavitt, who contains all the juicy details which imply Brigham Young's approval.

But Dudley Leavitt was one of the principal conspirators and murderers. He is Juanita Brooks' grandfather, and she was so upset with his role that she left him out entirely in his biography except to say that he was there and that she didn't want to get into it.

Think about it. You're a murderer, a mass murderer but you think you're a faithful Saint. The guilt overwhelms you. You fear for your wives and children. You don't really want Brigham Young to know about your involvement but you pray for some sort of divine approval to come from his lips. And you hear it and make sure it gets into your journal.

I rather trust Woodruff's account instead, although it could be argued that he heard it from the opposite perspective. I'd saythat there is a very high likelihood that the more salacious details are false.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Bob Crockett

[Nevo]

.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Nevo

[Scott Lloyd]

I'm not trying to vilify Brigham Young, but I don't think there's much question that Brigham Young's words and actions contributed to the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The Church officially acknowledges that "defiant sermons given by President Young and other Church leaders, combined with the impending arrival of an army, helped create an environment of fear and suspicion in Utah" and that "ambiguous instructions from Church leaders [including Brigham Young] . . . may have contributed to some episodes of violence." The same source records Walker, Turley, and Leonard's conclusion that "intemperate preaching about outsiders by Brigham Young, George A. Smith, and other leaders contributed to a climate of hostility." This isn't much different from Juanita Brooks's finding that, "while Brigham Young and George A. Smith . . . did not specifically order the massacre, they did preach sermons and set up social conditions which made it possible" (Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962], 219).

 

Commenting on the Ambrose-Betts affair (which I briefly discussed in my previous post), Utah War historian William McKinnon writes that "Young's intent was to alert the bishops to the southbound presence of convicts John Ambrose and Thomas Betts and to authorize, if not order, their summary execution. What followed from this case of gubernatorial leadership gone awry was an example of homicidal vigilantes at work coupled with the law of unintended consequences. Instead of striking Ambrose and Betts, the assassins mistakenly attacked [John] Tobin's party, from whom the ex-convicts had fortuitously separated themselves shortly before their fatal 17 February bivouac on the Santa Clara. . . . A few weeks later, either unaware of Brigham Young's real targets or inclined to interpret the letter as an unrestricted license to kill any California-bound apostates of his choice, Springville bishop Aaron Johnson, a Legion brigadier, unleashed plans that resulted in the Parrish-Potter murders. . . . [H]ere was advice from the top—couched in language ranging from guardedly cryptic to unmistakably raw—that set a violent tone for the territory. It was a tone that soon resonated with the fate of such early Utah War victims as the Fancher party, Richard E. Yates, Pvt. George W. Clark, Henry Forbes, and the Aiken party" (MacKinnon, At Sword's Point, Part One: A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858 [Norman, OK: Arthur H. Clark, 2008], 78-79).

 

Brigham Young's most recent scholarly biographer, John G. Turner, has written: "There is no satisfactory evidence that Young ordered the massacre; the most straightforward reading of Young's letter to Haight is exculpatory. . . . At the same time, Young bears significant responsibility for what took place at Mountain Meadows. Southern Utah leaders had almost certainly received word of Young's decision to no longer discourage Indian attacks on emigrant wagon trains. The new policy may have led local leaders like Haight and Lee to presume that their ecclesiastical superiors would condone the initiation of an ambush. Given the Saints' palpable animosity toward non-Mormons and apostates in Utah, a more prudent and responsible leader would have calmed rather than inflamed anti-Gentile sentiment and restrained rather than encouraged Indian attacks on American civilians. The several acts of violence the previous winter—the Thomas Lewis castration, the shootings at the Santa Clara River, and the Parrish-Potter murders—all suggested how easily violent rhetoric and incautious decisions could have unexpected and deadly consequences. Despite those lessons, during the early stages of the Utah War Young fomented the hatred and anxiety that made it conceivable for Mormons in southern Utah to slaughter men, women, and children" (Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet [Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 2012], 280). 

 

In other words, nothing in my post should strike anyone who is familiar with the historical evidence as either novel or malicious. For what it's worth, I revere Brigham Young as a prophet of God and feel genuine admiration and appreciation for the man.

Why does Turner conclude that southern Utah leaders "almost certainly" received word of Brigham Young's directive not to discourage Indian attacks? Does he document that supposition? There was the meeting with tribal leaders in Salt Lake City, but I thought it had been established that it occurred too late for the Cedar City people to have heard about it in time to influence their decision to attack the Fancher train.

Did Turner have something else in mind?

[katherine the great]

When someone issues an apology for what someone else did that is speaking for others.  I mean that any apology issued for(in the name of) someone else, unless you have their permission is wrong.  

It isn't wrong.  It is your individualist cultural viewpoint that its wrong.  More group oriented cultures do it all the time.

[why me]

That is complete hogwash. Southern Senators and Buchanan did not cause the Mountain Meadows Massacre. By that twisted logic, you could claim that George H.W. Bush caused 9/11. If he hadn't sent US troops to Saudi Arabia in 1990, nearly 3,000 civilians wouldn't have died on September 11, 2001; ergo, he's to blame for it.

In politics or international relations it would be called blow back. Decisions can have intended and unintended consquences. The decision to place US troops in Saudi Arabia created a lot of blow back in the arab world and one aspect of that blow back was 9/11. This was an unintended consquence. Likewise we can say that the persecution of mormons in nauvoo did lead to MMM. If the mormons did not suffer frostbite, death, hunger, etc on their way to Utah, maybe MMM would not have happened. Or if the antimormon articles coming out of california with the threats of extinction were not written, maybe MMM would not have happened.

 

And if the mormons were just allowed to worship peacefully, much would have been different in lds history.

 

Strangely, it is the unintended consquences that are hardly ever considered when decisions are made. And yet, if more attention were paid to the unintended consquences of decisions that have been made from a social, political, and economic understanding, much would be learned and our critical lens would be improved when making future and present decisions.

Edited September 6, 2014 by why me

[Nevo]

.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Nevo

[mbh26]

From what I've read, I believe that Brigham was not in full possession of the facts at the time, that he only arrived at them incrementally over time, that he at the time the statement was made likely believed the rumors that were rampant about the travelers provoking the Indians and otherwise bringing the disaster on themselves. He was wrong in his assumption, of course, but so were a lot of other people at the time.

 

Doesn't the prophet have a direct line with God that other people do not?  Did God not consider the matter important enough to inspire Brigham Young with the truth of the situation?  

[Analytics]

That is complete hogwash. Southern Senators and Buchanan did not cause the Mountain Meadows Massacre. By that twisted logic, you could claim that George H.W. Bush caused 9/11. If he hadn't sent US troops to Saudi Arabia in 1990, nearly 3,000 civilians wouldn't have died on September 11, 2001; ergo, he's to blame for it.

As far as people who bear responsibility for the Mountain Meadows Massacre goes, James Buchanan falls pretty far down the list, certainly after Brigham Young. The shadowy "Southern senators" I assume are a figment of your imagination.

Exactly. The question isn't "why did this happen?" The correct question is, "Why did this group of people choose to commit this act of mass murder?"

It isn't unreasonable to hold Brigham Young responsible for the coordinated actions of his subordinates.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Analytics

[ERayR]

It isn't wrong.  It is your individualist cultural viewpoint that its wrong.  More group oriented cultures do it all the time.

 

Please explain how I can issue a valid apology for what you did.  An apology expresses regret for what the one apologizing did.  If you do not regret or are beyond (150 years) where you can apologize, how can it be an apology.  I am granting that I may be sorry for what you did and issue a statement of sorrow but not an apology.   By its nature as an implicit admission of guilt an apology must be issued by the perpetrator of the action in question.

[ERayR]

Exactly. The question isn't "why did this happen?" The correct question is, "Why did this group of people choose to commit this act of mass murder?"

It isn't unreasonable to hold Brigham Young responsible for the coordinated actions of his subordinates.

 

Then by all means arrest him, try him and hang him. Military commanders are not even held to that standard.  The perpetratorsare held resposible for their own actions.

Edited September 6, 2014 by ERayR