the Mormon massacre

[greenman3610]

Bizarre story by Novak today:


Opening in theaters Friday, a motion picture called "September Dawn" depicts a brutal American massacre that has been forgotten. On Sept. 11, 1857, in Utah Territory, Mormons slaughtered more than 120 California-bound settlers from Arkansas. Retelling at this time the 9/11 carnage of 150 years ago does not help Mormon Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

The basic facts about the Mountain Meadows Massacre are not in dispute. Mormons mobilized Paiute Indians, accompanied by Mormons disguised as Indians, to attack a peaceful wagon train. The settlers beat off the attack but were left short of food and ammunition. They disarmed themselves at the request of Mormons who said they would lead them to safety but instead turned on the settlers, murdering every man, woman and child above the age of 8. All that is in doubt historically is whether this was ordered by Brigham Young, president of the Mormon Church and territorial governor of Utah. "September Dawn" says he was responsible, and the church denies it.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=/Commentary/archive/200705/COM20070503a.html

[Kerrytravelers]

1. Frontline and the American Experience had a two-part docu on the Mormons this week on public tv.

It was very interesting. It wasn't pro-Mormon or anti-Mormon. It was informative. In regards to Romney, I wouldn't want someone to not vote for him because he is a Mormon. I would hope they would vote against him because his policies are batshit crazy.

I've known many Mormons growing up. I was always impressed with the closeness their families seem to have and the general kindness they offer to everyone, Mormon or not.

[poverlay]

5. Warren Jeffs is beloved as a great family man... Very kind to all his wives. n/t

:loveya:

[FreeState]

10. Warren Jeffs is not Mormon (LDS)

he is a fundamentalist polygamist that split from the church over 100 years ago.

[poverlay]

21. That's like saying that Baptists aren't Christians. Very excluding of you. I'm certain that

Prophet Jeffs and his followers would disagree with you. In their eyes it's the FLDS, and not the LDS, who are the true Mormons...


Should people be held responsible for every aspect of the doctrine they proudly profess blind faith in? (LDS, FLDS or Cao Dai ~ it matters not.)

Feel free not to answer the random question. I'm just curious.

[bryant69]

27. proudly profess blind faith in?

That's not a slanted question at all, is it?

The best thing about the Romney Candidacy is the calm and measured debate we can expect over the Mormon Faith.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[poverlay]

33. Hmmm, is it? Which part? I could ask the same question of any

religion(and I did). Oh wait, maybe you're saying that no religious faith is blind? If you can prove that I will happily attest to the awful slantiness of my question.

Too bad we can't (apparently) expect logical, as well as calm and measured, in that debate you mentioned.

[benEzra]

34. I'm not Mormon, but that type of slam isn't valid for Mormons, Muslims,

or Buddhists, or anybody else, IMHO.

The LDS isn't the FLDS, the United Methodist Church isn't Fred Phelp's group, Muslims aren't Al Qaida, and atheists aren't Stalin.

[SidDithers]

37. Huh?...

Not sure what slam you're referring to. The fact of the matter is that LDS and FLDS are both Mormons, United Methodists and Phelps' gang are bothChristians, Al Queda is made up of Muslims, and Stalin was an atheist.

What a person does or doesn't believe has almost no bearing on whether they're a good or bad person.

Sid

[poverlay]

41. Thank you for pointing that out. nt

[benEzra]

70. I read that in the context of post #5...apparently I misread the author's point. (n/t)

[poverlay]

46. That wasn't even close to a slam. You can, however, believe whatever you wish. nt

[Javaman]

40. Wow, he's old...nt

[madeline_con]

2. South Park did a good show on Mormons

Their weird beliefs were explained in a fun, entertaining way. :)

[iamthebandfanman]

25. lol

"Joseph Smith was a very good man, dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb'
that was a funny episode.
i know alot of people dont like south park when they pick on dems or libs in general, but over all the show picks on just about everyone and everything so ya gotta chuckle sometimes.

[deadparrot]

3. Honestly, who cares?

You'd be hard-pressed to find a religious group that doesn't have some sordid event(s) in its past.

[sampsonblk]

15. Go visit Utah. Then you'll get it

nt

[deadparrot]

26. Listen, I think Mormons and their belief systems are bizarre.

I don't understand it, and I certainly don't buy into it. However, I don't think it's fair or relevant to pin an atrocity from a century and a half ago onto the descendants of the perpetrators. Romney is abominable on the issues, so let's hit him there, not for the actions of his ancestors (which he had no control over).

[sampsonblk]

29. Go visit Utah, then you'll get it

Its not like America at all. The 'state' is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the church. I have no idea how that's legal. But its true. Wanna get a job, profess to be a mormom.

[deadparrot]

31. Fine, but again, I don't think that Utah's hiring policies

are Mitt Romney's fault, seeing as he's from Michigan and Massachusetts. Hit him on civil rights, Iraq, separation of church and state, and any number of other things, but attacking him about his ancestors and their place of residence doesn't get you anywhere, IMHO.

[slampoet]

55. Actually he did operate business in Utah. Or do you forget he was the rescue boy for the Olympics?

Mitt Romney covered for the world wide scandal of the 2002 winter olympics.

He worked hand in hand with corrupt Mormons to save the winter bid for Salt Lake City.

Saying he doesn't have anything to do with it is like saying pope John Paul II didn't have anything to do with Rome because he was Polish.

[Chovexani]

63. LOL

How soon we forget.

Moving to Arizona was a real eye-opener for me WRT to the crazy creepitude of Mormons. They pretty much own Mesa except for the Catholic enclaves here and there. There's a Wiccan shop there that's all undercover because the Mormons would throw her out in a minute if they knew what she was really selling.

Kee-razy. And I've heard stories about Utah. :scared: Only thing that comes close to it is how the "Church" of Clam-entology bought up Clearwater, FL.

[deadparrot]

66. Again, what does that have to do with Utah's hiring policies?

I highly doubt Romney has the brains to conduct a full-scale Mormons-only hiring conspiracy.

[slampoet]

67. Mormons have always done business with Mormons Only from the 1860's onward...

...Fer chrisakes didn't you read "The Great Brain" books when you were a kid?


The business practices of Mormons have been ingrained for 100+ years. Since when does it take any brains to do what you are told by your church?

Actually look into the Olympic scandal before you answer back and you will find the answer to your question. It isn't my job to educate you.

[LisaM]

53. The Mountain Meadows massacre was covered up for a long time

and I believe some people who participated in the cover up are still living (albeit very old).

[deadparrot]

65. Okay, but what does that have to do with Romney? nt

[aquart]

4. If all they have is one, they're ahead of the rest of us.

I wouldn't like to be called on anything that happened in Judges, for instance. And then there's that really icky revenge the 12 tribes took on Shechem for the rape of Dinah.

Beside, the Chicago Tribune already did an expose of this in 1875.

[Hardrada]

12. And I suppose we Lutherans are responsible

for Imperial Germany. And its regrettable over-reactions.

[JVS]

17. Those Fuckers were Unionists! The Hohenzollerns were Calvinists...

and forced us into a united Protestant Church. This required some big compromises, particularly regarding sacramental theology. A result was the most doctrinally anal-retentive Lutherans left Germany and started up the groups that became the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. To this day, both bodies are famous for not wanting to have anything to do with other denominations, largely because of the experience in Prussian controlled Germany.

Here is a link if you are interested in reading up on it
http://www.wlsessays.net/authors/W/WesterhausEmigrations/WesterhausEmigrations.pdf

[Hardrada]

22. Interesting reading! My background was the Norwegian ev.

Lutheran Synod (ELCA now). What is interesting is that the Lutherans splintered in the US BUT didn't quit being Lutheran and when the mergers began big US Lutheran synods were formed. Of course the LCMS has always been sizeable. I am acquainted with the Preuses, two of whom headed Lutheran Synods, some of their kids were in college with me.

[Critters2]

73. My denomination's roots are in that united church in Prussia

(among other places), and my own background personally comes from that. Actually, no compromises in sacramental theology were required, as each congregation was able to continue to practice and believe as it had before the merger. What pissed the Lutherans off was that their churches had been government-supported exclusively in Prussia, and they didn't want to share the riches with their Reformed (we don't call ourselves Calvinists, because we don't worship Calvin) and Pietist neighbors. So they left in a huff.

[rpannier]

6. If this damages his campaign then we live in a really sad country

An incident that occured a century before Romney was born should have ZERO implications on Romney and his qualifications (or lack thereof) to be president.

[Kerrytravelers]

7. Ten bucks there will be morans who think that Romney shouldn't be president because he's a Mormon.

I think he shouldn't because he supports terrible policies that will continue us down the road that * has set for us. I could care less what his religion is or isn't.

[poverlay]

9. Agreed, but that's better than those who think he should be president because he is... nt

[Kerrytravelers]

19. Another scary category!

:scared:

[politicat]

23. Not a moran, or a moron, but....

Yes. Romney's religious views do *factor* in to why I will not be voting for him. Ever. For anything.

I grew up in the large intestine of the beast -- Northern Arizona, which is more Mormon-dominated than Salt Lake City. (I kid not - the towns I grew up in were 0.0253% non-Mormon - 147 non-Mormons in a double-town of about 6,000.) I grew up first hand with the cultural attitudes the religious doctrine imbues in its followers, and they're not liberal, they're not progressive and they're horribly insular. I grew up with people who were more than happy to raise hell to have their 1st amendment rights protected, but who would not bat an eye about oppressing others' rights. (Forced prayer in public school? Check. Teaching Mormon doctrine instead of American history in an Am His. class? Check. Preferential treatment to the faithful? Check. Sexual exploitation of young women, especially non-Mormon girls? Check.)

My father was an engineer for the Department of Transportation, assigned to the region, so I grew up fighting to preserve myself and my sense of self and sense of ability in the face of a culture that says quite explicitly that women are, even in their most pure, celestial form, only fit for giving birth. It's a culture that is so assured of its moral rectitude, righteousness and perfection that they have a cultural blind spot that doesn't allow them to see alternate viewpoints or even accept that others might have something to say. It's a community that doesn't see "others" (aka gentiles) as full humans. In the community it was considered acceptable and not a sin for Mormon boys to sleep with non-Mormon girls, even though pre-marital sex is a sin by Mormon standards. It was even acceptable for Mormon boys to corner and coerce non-Mormon girls because they're not really persons, so it's not really sex. Some girls ended up raped. I ended up suspended for fighting back. He did not.

They're not feminists, and they're not even equalists. Women are subordinate and that's it. There's no way else to be. Example: My high school history teacher lived across the street. His wife and my mom became friends. They had been married 8 years and had seven children. She had had a "dowry" of sorts; her father had given her half-interest in a business when she graduated from university. When she married, her husband (my teacher) forced her to sell it, because he didn't want her to have an independent income. No one in town thought this was stupid or misguided, even though the additional income would have been useful (the cash out was not nearly as useful, and not well invested.). When my mother expressed incredulity about it, the wife, who missed her little business, was only wistful, and didn't understand why my mother thought the sale had been a bad idea.

I am sure, somewhere, there are Mormon Democrats and Mormon progressives. But they are not the leadership. They do not make policy. They do not put pressure on political leaders to adhere to doctrine. I don't trust anyone to be in a position of power who has a background that says that women are baby machines, anyone not of the same faith can be taken advantage of or oppressed, and rules are for manipulation. And I say this about any faith, not just Mormons. (I honestly don't like voting for strongly religious people of any faith because I don't trust the "other directed". I want leadership that is firmly in the here and now listening to the people, not thinking about the after and later and listening to some internalized God. God seems to send messages that are conveniently like what the heavy faithful wants to hear, and I can't trust that.)

Being Mormon is not like being Catholic was in the pre-JFK years. Catholicism is very tough minded and the intellectual branch, mostly Jesuits, do a lot to keep the faith pretty honest. Catholicism's biggest problem in recent years has been their inability to keep up with the culture (which leads to a diminishing level of vocations, which stretches staff thin, which creates opportunities for internal malfeasance like sexual abuse and financial shenanigans.) Mormons have this under control - they create their own culture by discouraging outside influences, and they don't separate the priesthood from the laity. They externalize any malfeasance that comes up - steer a horny boy towards a gentile girl; steer a con artist in the making into some sort of quasi-legal sort of con that preys on outsiders. Steer youthful enthusiasm into organizational promotion -- and make the boy and his family pay for it -- to insure that his sense of investment and guilt will keep him in while effectively brainwashing him. Steer girls into organizations that promote faith, obedience and groupthink; discourage anything that promotes independent thought and self-reliance (like girl scouts.) (True story: Most of the mormon boys in my school were avid campers. I was the only girl I knew who had ever really been camping. Honey Bees and YWMIA don't go camping (they have "camps" but they're cabins, not tents), and families generally don't go as a group.)

I spent 20 years in the community, and I like individual Mormons. Many are very kind, generous people. But as a whole, when they're in group think (or hive mind, to take the bee metaphor too far) they don't really see us non-Mormons as people who matter. We're sheep to be converted. And that's not safe in a polyfaceted, multicultural secular government. Not in the leadership.

[Ron Green]

44. This post deserves its own thread.

Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughtful observations.

[Jed Dilligan]

59. Good post, good scary portrait

I must correct your math: 147 out of 6000 is more like 2.5%, not .025%. Still a very small minority.

[Error]

72. It makes a striking statement about other religions

Here is one of the canards in its infancy.

It should he pointed out that Smith practiced his fable spinning decades earlier when he purchased two mummies and claimed to have "translated" the scrolls that came with them. This is where his the first books in the series came from. Years later he perfected his brainwashing fables wi th the rest of the material based on the "gold plates" tale.

So we see how quickly one of these groupthinks can take off and become ingrianed to where people are born into it and can't really ever experience normal reality. Even Christians can look at that stuff from the outside and think "these people are crazy as (*^(*&" and you have to wonder how they can't see themselves in that way...

[Cha]

74. Thanks..a very close and personal perspective.

I don't care for any of those religious doctrines especially the hypocrital ones whose hiarchy lives in the lap of luxury while millions go starving.

[knight_of_the_star]

8. Doesn't matter to me why the GOP won't vote for him

As long as he's out of the running. Let the bigots throw him to the wolves for bullshit reasoning for all I care, they can go right ahead. Good thing they're taking care of a big threat to us in the process, he could be VERY dangerous in the general election.

[JCMach1]

11. Ummmm Harry Reid is a Mormon

It really shouldn't matter. If your family has lived anywhere long enough, they were probably involved in some historic travesty or other.


Usually the Mormons were on the other side of the genocide equation.

[Cha]

76. And Rocky Anderson is a

"lapsed Mormon". Not that it means anything..it is what it is.

http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2007/03/20070326_a_main.asp

[Cleita]

13. It happened but how strange they should bring it up when

a Mormon is running? This was over a hundred years ago and a lot of injustices happened back then. I suppose they could always bring up the Civil War when a Southerner runs. I mean. REALLY! I would rather attack Romney on today's issues.

[JCMach1]

14. Yeah, there is more than enough there...

Some of the Mormon families I have known have been some of the most loving parents and open to learning and education in general. It is crazy to paint any religion with such a broad brush.

[FreeState]

16. It happened 150 years ago September

thats why they made the movie - its been 150 years (I seriously doubt the producers knew Romney was going to run when they started the film)

[JVS]

18. IIRC the Mormons left the East after being well persecuted by the locals.

It would not surprise me if they viewed the arrival of those who have caused them to flee in a dim light

[FreeState]

20. Your right - 5 times they were fourced to flee

The church was chased out of New York were it was founded to Ohio. Then they were chased from there to Missouri where the Hans Mill Massacre happened and that in turn forced them to Illinois where the founder was killed and the church was once again forced out and to Utah.

[politicat]

24. Please read Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven, Fawn Brodie's

No Man Knows My History and Juanita Brooks' Mountain Meadows Massacre (the latter two were both Mormon.). While yes, the Mormons were persecuted in Missouri and Illinois, and I won't blame the victim by saying they brought it on themselves, the Mormons did some persecuting of their own. Read about the Mormon War in 1838. The whole situation was definitely one of mutual escalation, non-communication and tit-for-tat.... and was really a first shot of the Civil War.

It really came down to 1) an internal Mormon conflict laced with death threats that turned into a land war, and 2) a cultural conflict, with Northern non-slave holding Mormons on one side and Southerners on the other. (Mormons were, until the death of J. Smith, not terribly racist, and while not necessarily abolitionist, were not in favor of slavery. Brigham Young was the racist and his views would color the church into the 1970s.) There were deaths on both sides, because Mormons drove most of the residents of a couple of counties out (to claim the territory and the abandoned chattels) and felt they had the right to turn themselves into an army. That's not religious freedom - that tyrannical bullying. By official estimates (from the LDS church) about 60 Mormons were killed in conflicts with gentiles between 1838 and 1844.

In 1857, 13 years after Joseph Smith's death and not quite 20 since the Missouri war, the Mormons had done well for themselves in Utah (other than continuing problems with the US government over polygyny). When the Fancher train that would eventually die in the Mountain Meadows Massacre came through Salt Lake City, they were a rich target -- more than 900 head of cattle, some prize horses, and hard currency. They were a tempting target and one that could be blamed on others. More than 140 people were killed, children too young to speak were kidnapped and the party was looted.

[lolly]

28. Why Bring it Up? Why Hide it?

One of the big issues here is the continuing cover-up.

There is apparently a small stone pile erected near the site of the massacre that just says that settlers were massacred here, leaving the implication that, of course, they were massacred by a bunch of "Savage Indians."

In legal terms, doesn't a crime continue if the conspiracy to keep it hidden continues? Well, the Morman Church is doing everything it can to keep this massacre hidden or at least blamed on the Native Americans.

The crime isn't over until the entity responsible has faced up to it and recognized its error (yes, that goes for other groups besides Mormons, so don't attack me with a list of other groups that have done similar things). What's going on here is akin, on a very small-scale, to Holocaust denial. Or maybe like Mel Gibson refusing to repudiate his father's radical anti-Semite beliefs.

(Info from "Lies Across America"--I think that was the title of the book. My daughter was actually near this site, and couldn't find the marker or any other commemmoration of the event. They certainly don't go out of their way to make it accessible to anyone).

[EFerrari]

30. They mobilized Paiute Indians? Paiutes lived in very small bands

and spent a lot of their time looking for food and avoiding white people. Something stinks here.

[rockymountaindem]

35. That really isn't in dispute

The militia dispatched from Cedar City got the Paiutes to kill the women and children because the militiamen thought it was beneath them to do so. Every source I've ever read or seen on film says the same thing about the Paiutes. This all goes back to the fact that the Mormons always had good relations with the natives because the Moromons believed they natives were the lost tribes of Israel and therefore treated them with respect that the ordinary settler did not.

[EFerrari]

36. Well, then let me register my doubt that this happened without

some form of coercion.

Had the Mormons been so kindly to the Paiute people, there would be more of them around to verify the account.

[rockymountaindem]

38. The Mormons didn't coerce the Paiutes

The Mormons couldn't do anything about the effects of European diseases on the Paiute population, no matter how much they "cared" for the "lost tribes". Secondly, the fortunes of all the natives in that area begane to wane once Mormon rule began to yield to that of the US federal government after the Civil War. The Paiutes fared especially badly during the latter half of the 19th century as they were the originators of the Ghost Dance, which scared the crap out of the BIA and resulted in a harsh crackdown.

[EFerrari]

39. We disagree. Living near the Mormons alone was coersive

to these people, who were hunter/gatherers and who never started a war on anyone.

[rockymountaindem]

42. Okay, fine

Read any book on the subject and it'll tell you otherwise. The Mormons got the Paiutes to participate by offering them part of the plunder.

[EFerrari]

43. I studied with the Paiute people for a number of years.

:)

But, you know, people on DU disagree sometimes. It's okay.

[rockymountaindem]

45. Okay

I guess this isn't the kind of thing anybody really wants to talk about anymore anyway.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

49. Where does the primary evidence come from?

Does it come from the Mormon Church and Mormon eyewitnesses themselves? Sorry, but I don't find Mormons to be very credible on anything, especially when it comes to positions of the Church.

[lolly]

50. I second that

I used to work in a library. One of the librarians had worked in a library in--Georgia, I believe it was--for some reason they had an extensive collection of original documents and papers from the early Mormon church. (Does anyone know why a university library in Georgia would have this?)

Anyway, one of the things they were all taught was that they should NEVER allow unsupervised access to any of these materials. Anyone checking them out had to be watched extremely closely, because there had been several cases of documents containing unflattering information getting stolen, mutilated at crucial points, and altered.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

51. I apologize if I offended anyone of the Mormon Faith

I promised myself that I wouldn't argue over religion anymore, as it never seems to solve anything. However, I won't be changing my mind about religious organizations in general and Mormonism and its followers in particular.

[rockymountaindem]

52. It comes from the recollection of survivors and from archaeological accounts

Some of the children who the Mormons thought were too young to remember the massacre did recall the events surrounding their parents' demise. There is also this quote from Archaeology Magazine:

"I honestly think the initial attack was carried out by Indians goaded on by Mormons," said Shane Baker, an archaeologist on the project. "Then the Mormons did become involved. One militiaman said the Indians threatened the Mormons. But it's hard to tease out what may have been revisionist thinking after this massacre."

http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/mormons.html

There is also additional primary evidence in the Congressional report on the attack collected by US Army personell, however accurate you may believe that to be. You can read it for yourself here: http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com/Carelton/maj.htm

Edit: There is also a good review of a book on the subject published by the University of Oklahoma press. The review by an amature historian contains the following remark which in my experience reflects well the consensus view on the massacre's perpitrators:

"Recently, some have contended that
Paiutes were not involved at all in the final
massacre on 11 September. This is an infer-
ence drawn from osteological studies of
skeletal remains which found wounds from
gunshots but none from arrows or spears.
But these studies are inconclusive and will
probably remain so forever since scientists
reviewed only a fraction of the human re-
mains before they were reburied. Further,
they do not take into account the evidence,
which is considerable, that Paiutes had
firearms. Bagley reviews this evidence and
concludes, correctly I believe, that Paiutes
were present at the initial attack and the
main massacre, but they played a supporting,
rather than leading, role."

The review is available in its entirety here: http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?p=robert+h.+briggs&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-501&u=www.leigh.org/familytrees/revedmundleigh/danielleighfamilytree/samuelleigh/reviewofbagleybook.pdf&w=robert+h+briggs&d=CzUybxIeORdT&icp=1&.intl=us

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

54. You fail to mention where the archeologists come from

Brigham Young University, according to the article you posted. And they are quoting the recollection of a Mormon militiaman about the event. And the Mormons apparently admitted to wearing Paiute Indian clothes at first and tricked the wagon train into believing it was real Indians. If you add that to the fact that the surviving children were apparently so young that no one thought they could possibly remember and probably were even less capable of telling a real Indian from a dress-up Indian (having maybe never even seen a real Indian in the wild), and also add the fact that no traces of arrows or knives were found on the bones, you've got very flimsy evidence in my opinion. The Paiutes were considered one of the poorest and least hostile Indian tribes, less likely to be fully armed with rifles than, for example, the Sioux or Cheyenne. But even if all the Paiutes were fully armed with rifles, do you not think they would have killed unarmed women and children with more cost effective means such as knives and arrows, considering the high cost of bullets to Indians?

I can't say I know any of the facts. I can't say you are wrong. But the particular facts you present are far, far from conclusive, at least in my opinion.

[rockymountaindem]

56. Read the book review

Apparently the expedition which found no evidence of knife or arrow wounds on the victims examined only a few bodies exhumed from the mass grave, to say nothing of the corpses which were never recovered. Secondly, some of the survivors were as old as eight years of age at the time of the attack.

I would agree with you that the BYU archaeologists are perhaps not the best source, but OTOH, the book review is a good look into a book on the matter published by a university which has less to gain or lose from an examination of the incident. It is also possible that the Paiutes had been armed with rifles by the Mormons in an attempt to bolster their defenses against a predicted invasion by the US Army.

There is another extended and sourced account of the massacre here which lays blame both on the Paiutes and the Mormons. From what I know about the massacre and what I have learned reading about it for this thread, I would suspect that the Paiutes were at least used in an auxiliary role by the Mormon militia, but that it was certainly the Mormons who instigated the attack and who concieved of the thing in the first place.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/mtn_meadows/index.html

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

58. Whether all the bodies were exhumed or not - there was no evidence

of native weapons used. To use the lack of evidence as positive evidence of something having occurred is just not a very strong argument. It's empty speculation. And since some of the Mormons had already dressed up as Indians in the earlier attack, the fact that children who survived thought they saw Indians when their own adult parents had also thought they saw Indians is not a very solid bit of evidence either. An eight year old might not even be allowed to testify in a court of law, due to a lack of life's experience, an inability to understand the oath and an obligation to tell the truth, and the fact that they are very easily influenced. It might be that none of the children ever saw a real Indian, either before the attack or after the attack while being questioned. How do we know they even knew what a real Indian looked like? Unfortunately, no one on the Indian's side was around to cross examine them. And to say it was "possible" that the Mormons gave the Indians some weapons, that's true ... it was possible. Possibilities aren't evidence, however.

In my opinion, I would resolve all doubts in favor of the Indians, as it would be doubly evil to not only have wiped them out, but to also blame the depradations and massacres committed by others on them. It would take strong positive evidence and not speculation based on the recorded statements of young children and Mormon militiamen, the lack of evidence of native weapons used, and archeologists from Brigham Young who say they "think" that Indians were involved (almost appearing to be relying on faith instead of physical evidence).

No, knowing what the Indians went through in the settlement of the West, I would require very strong evidence before I would condemn them for something others have already admitted to partially doing.

[rockymountaindem]

60. That doesn't make any sense

Just because someone is a victim doesn't mean they can't have been a perpetrator in some other sense.

There is strong evidence that the Paiutes participated in the attack either as a holding force (to keep the Fancher party away from water sources) or a screen that the Mormon Militia used either in a premeditated attempt to diffray the blame later or as a means of intimidating the Fancher party into surrender so that their eventual murder/robbery would not risk any Mormon lives. The original US Army commission of inquiry determined that the Paiutes assisted the Mormons in carrying out the attack, and this was during a period in which the government would have actually preferred to *absolve* the natives and lay the whole blame on the Mormons due the the latent tension between Washington and "Deseret".


The evidence I provided is just the best I could come up with on the internet right now. Having taken a very strong interest in western history a few years ago, I can tell you that no account of the massacre which I have ever read indicated that Mountain Meadows was wholly a Mormon affair. I would provide more precise information than that but I'm at school in Toronto right now and all my books on the west are at home in Colorado. I guess I'll just have to ask you to take my word for it.

As for your assertion that the natives could not have had anything to do with this simply because when one examines the entirety of western history they were victims is absurd. It isn't right to turn a blind eye to individual incidents based on an over-arching view of an entire epoch spanning from 1792 until 1900. I'm not trying to impugn the natives. I would consider myself sympathetic to them for several reasons which I won't go into now, but I will say that I get quite upset reading about our government's treatement of them (as I'm sure most everybody else would as well). I don't have a dog in this fight other than what I believe to be historical accuracy. On the one hand, I certainly wouldn't try to absolve the Mormons by blaming it all on the Paiutes. That's not what I'm here for. The Paiutes, in my opinion, were used as patsies by the Cedar City militia, but that doesn't mean they weren't involved. OTOH, I don't want to paint Mormons with a broad brush as happened earlier in this thread because I know many Mormons personally (coming from Colorado) and I don't want to take this opportunity to castigate an entire faith and community over one incident that happened 150 years ago. I'm not trying to drag down Mitt Rommney either. I'm just trying to demonstrate that there is, to whatever extent one can identify such a thing, an historical consensus that blame for the Mountain Meadows Massacre falls both on the Mormons and the natives, and that neither side is entirely to blame.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

61. I don't think I said that

I used the conditional tense of the verb, saying that it WOULD be doubly evil to not only wipe out the Indians but to start blaming other massacres on them without evidence. That is of course dependent on whether they did commit a massacre or not. The conditional verb tense implies a condition. And it all comes down to evidence.

I never said that just because people had been massacred that they were incapable of committing a massacre. Nothing in my post suggested that.

What I said is that, given the fact that Indians had been massacred, it would be doubly harsh indeed to falsely blame them. For that reason, all doubts should be resolved in their favor in the lack of strong evidence. EVIDENCE. I saw no strong evidence. If it's there, I could change my mind. However, considering the U.S. military's single-minded intent to destroy all resistance to western U.S. expansion, any military inquiry would have to have very extensive independent corroboration before I would put much faith in it, especially in those times. An example is the great difference between the U.S. military's version of the Little Bighorn as a brave and noble stand and the testimony of Crow Indian scouts (that was never relied upon in the official inquiry) and the completely ignored version of the events according to the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians who fought Custer. I'm not saying everything the U.S. military might have concluded was automatically a lie, but to be honest, the U.S. military was just fucking brutal and barbaric in their treatment of the Indians as animals and untermenschen in that time and were charged with carrying out the political aims of Manifest Destiny. The Indians after all were seen as foreign military powers. As my post also mentioned, the Indians didn't have anyone on their side to question witnesses or gather evidence. And the Mormons had ever reason to lie in trying to pass on the blame for the deaths of women and children. By the way, from the accounts I just consulted on the Internet, the oldest surviving child was only 6 years old (according to the Deseret News, no less).

[countryjake]

69. If you're into reading things on Mormonism, you should watch this...

Frontline + American Experience: The Mormons
http://www.pbs.org/mormons/

Both parts are available online here, the first part has the history and explains the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Some Paiutes were supposedly promised a share of the emigrants' livestock if they would participate in the initial assault on the wagon train, which was unsuccessful. It was the Mormons who conducted the massacre, days later, killing every man, woman, and cognizant child.

"To the surprise of militia leader John Lee and the men he commanded, the Fancher party proved itself a formidable foe, circling wagons and fending off assaults for the next few days. Even more worrisome, the emigrants had seen that Mormons were involved in the assault, and this would undercut any later claims that the attack had been solely the work of Indians. Lee and his followers decided to kill anyone old enough to testify, and then they set a trap. Lee's men offered the surrounded settlers safe passage out, then when the Arkansans agreed, the Mormons slaughtered every man, woman, and child over the age of seven, some 120 in all. The militiamen then took a vow of silence, and the cover-up began. The assault would be blamed entirely on the Paiutes, and the truth would be concealed throughout the church hierarchy. Brigham Young himself would play a part."

The church is still reluctant to drop claims of Indian involvement, and the stone monuments erected at that spot to commemorate the murders have been routinely torn down, right up to 1999. They have done everything in their power to revise the history of this bloody deed, to blame the Paiute people. Doesn't fly.

http://www.pbs.org/mormons/peopleevents/e_massacre.html

[spanone]

32. Is that the Christian thing to do? I would think not.

But you can bet they had 'God on their Side'


"With God On Our Side"
Bob Dylan

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

The Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns on their hands
And God on their side.

The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.


< www.azlyrics.com >

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ilsa]

48. The women were butchered, slain with axes, etc.

Most of the men were shot, they said it happened on some signal.

[Iris]

57. way off topic - Jon Voight is a conservative?

Don't mean to hijack this thread or anything, but I found this line interesting:

"Academy Award-winner Jon Voight (who plays a fictional Mormon bishop). A conservative , he said this was no hit against Romney. "I didn't even know he was running when we began this," Voight told viewers after the screening. But he said this terrible story is important considering America's war against terrorists."

Maybe this explains his strained relationship with Jolie? And, how can someone who starred in "Deliverance" (besides Burt Reynolds, but he's another story) call himself a "conservative"?

[Cha]

75. I'm not sure but to me.."conservative" doesn't

have a bad connotation. The bushits may call themselves conservatives but they're not..they're fucking fascists. So I don't know where Jon Voight's loyalties lie but it's a cinch Angelina is as Liberal as they come.

They're NEO-CONS(as in Conjobs).

[Iris]

77. Conservative has horrible, horrible connotations for me.

Maybe because I live in the South and see first-hand all the awful things an unwillingness to change can bring.


And the way people wear that label so proudly like it's some kind of virtue. Blecch. No way.

[Cha]

78. I know what you mean..it's the old

way of refering to themselves but then along came the neo-fascists under the guise of "compassionate conservative"(fuck all) and viola! What are they conserving..the environment? Values? The Treasury? And worst of all..our Soldiers? They're throwin' 'em away. :grr:

It's Big Brother Fascism..the bushits don't have a compassionate conservative bone in their collective body.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

62. Religions + Massacres are like Water + Wet.

"Defending the Faith" requires a lot killing.

I never have understood why "All-Powerful" deities need so much protection.

[newspeak]

64. okay, those who want to know about Mormonism

might wish to read "The Power and The Promise Mormon America" by Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling. The book was written by two Times correspondents. Regarding the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the US Army buried the dead and placed cairns as markers, when Brigham Young and some of his followers traveled to see the site, the burial site was desecrated--the markers were replaced again and again, were desecrated. I have lived and worked in Utah--the closer to the church, the more controlling the church becomes. My boss told me his bishop told him that his wife should not work outside of the home and that he should tell his wife to quit working. My boss told his bishop that he should tell his wife, cause he wasn't about to. Then a fellow worker who had since a teen questioned the church told me that he had a job with a Mormon owned garment factory--he was let go because they felt he wasn't "worthy" enough. My father-in-law, working at a factory in Nevada, ran into one of the workers who was attempting to influence his brother-in-law (we've got mormons in our family) to cut the ties with our family because we were GENTILES. The worker had read "The Pearl of Great Price" and apparently believed that fraternization is verboten. There is no way that I would consider someone who is controlled and takes their orders from the church. To me, the church is one big corporation and it is run like a corporation as well as a Masonic secret society, with secret handshakes and the whole mystical mumbo jumbo. My hubby's aunt and uncle are great people, they have gone on missions for their church, however, they do not attempt to proselytize to us.

After reading the history of the church and reading about Joseph Smith, I question why anyone would want to be part of it. Of course, there are followers of Sung Yun Moon, so I guess it's true the only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of their followers.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

68. I read the article too. Bizarre. The massacre is a compelling story, but I'm

really not sure what the relevance is, aside from it looks like Novak doesn't much like Romney and just kind of wanted to tar him with it or something. His writing in the article did not really justify his relating this particular story in relation to Romney.

[Name removed]

71. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.