Mormon Mass Murder
Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 5:15 pm
Massacre at Mountain Meadows: We didn't do it but we're sorry anyway.
Having recently finished reading Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Walker, Turley, and Leonard, here are my thoughts.
M at MM was not intended to shed new light on the subject of the biggest single act of act murder in American history. On the contrary, it was written to amuse the faithful.
By amuse the faithful, I mean to say that M at MM is intended to reassure LDS readers that Brigham Young did not order the deaths of 150+ Arkansas pioneers. He tried to save them; he certainly would have saved them if not for the duplicity of John D. Lee. Lee, according to M at MM, bears the ultimate responsibility for the decision to kill the Arkansans. He’s official bad guy…but we’ve heard all of this before because M at MM says little that has not already been said by Juanita Brooks, Will Bagley, or John Krakaur. At only 231 pages, M at MM doesn’t say much at all.
Ironically, M at MM is more interesting for what it doesn’t say than for what it does. For example:
1) Did some Mormons rape their female victims before they killed them? Interestingly, M at MM suggests that some female victims may indeed have been raped before they were murdered. And who were the rapists? Why, none other than the Church’s traditional scapegoats: John D. Lee and at least one Native American participant. No other potential rapist is named, at which point M at MM drops the topic like a hot potato. That other Mormons may have committed similar rapes is intimated by accounts from James Gemmell who wrote that he saw “indignities that were perpetrated upon three persons after which they were shot. But they are too shocking to put on paper.” Likewise, John D. Lee in his various accounts recalls seeing the “corpses of six or seven women stripped completely naked,” also an indication that mass rape may have accompanied mass murder. Unfortunately, M at MM avoids any serious discussion of this topic. Indeed, the word “rape” occurs only twice in the main text, and in both instances it refers to events far removed from the massacre--clearly this is something the Church doesn’t want to talk about!
2) Was the massacre part of a pattern of previous attacks on wagon trains by Mormons disguised as Indians? M at MM also fails to address reports of Mormons disguised as Indians attacking wagon trains in the months preceding the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Did Brigham Young encourage Indian attacks on wagon trains in an attempt to give marauding Mormons a cover story as they did the same? (M at MM seems to try to deflect attention away from this avenue of inquiry when it says, “…most of the killers led exemplary lives before and after the massacre. Except for their experiences during a single, nightmarish week in September 1857, most of them were ordinary humans with little to distinguish them from other nineteenth-century frontiersmen.)
3) How many apostate Mormons died in the massacre? And were the local Mormons ordered to attack the Fancher Company to discourage other Mormons from defecting? M at MM mentions a “rumor” of apostates joining the Arkansans…and again drops the topic like a hot potato. (Will Bagley’s Blood of the Prophets, on the other hand, mentions a goodly number of apostates among the dead who were buried in “temple shirts” after having their throats slashed.)
4) M at MM also fails to address the findings of forensic pathologists at the University of Utah who examined 2,600 bone fragments belonging to some of the victims. These particular victims ranged in age from two to thirty years old, and died from gunshot wounds and blunt force trauma to the head. These findings are important because the Church has always claimed that children under the “age of accountability” were spared.
5) M at MM fails to compare and contrast other examples of Mormon Mass Murder, particularly those wherein victims were killed after they had surrendered, like the Circleville Massacre.
And as might be expected, the Church’s reviews of this Church-financed and Church-authored book are predictably positive. BYU Studies has this to say:
“Massacre at Mountain Meadows is exhaustively researched, beautifully illustrated, and highly readable.”
“For believing Mormons who want a final word on “what really happened,” this book will likely satisfy.”
“Compared to the histories usually on sale in the LDS general book market, Massacre at Mountain Meadows is the real deal—a warts-and-all history based on exacting scholarship and peer review.”
“Observers of the Church have interpreted this hybrid ecclesiastical-academic project as further proof of the rapprochement of the Gordon B. Hinckley era. LDS pundits seem relieved—even self-congratulatory—that the Church seems inclined to fully and candidly acknowledge the massacre and other problematic parts of its history.”
“Boasting the imprimatur of Oxford University Press and the implied endorsement of the First Presidency, Massacre at Mountain Meadows is uniquely and perfectly designed to help Latter-day Saints come to terms with the single most shameful event in their past.”
“Unflinchingly the authors describe the gruesome details of the slaughter. They provide a superb day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of the descent into barbarity. Though the book is dedicated “to the victims” of the massacre, it focuses primarily on the non-Indian perpetrators; the book humanizes the Mormon farmers from southern Utah who became mass murderers.”
In other words, M at MM is the best thing since sliced bread. If it could cook, the reviewer would probably marry it.
Pure unadulterated bovine scatology!
Having recently finished reading Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Walker, Turley, and Leonard, here are my thoughts.
M at MM was not intended to shed new light on the subject of the biggest single act of act murder in American history. On the contrary, it was written to amuse the faithful.
By amuse the faithful, I mean to say that M at MM is intended to reassure LDS readers that Brigham Young did not order the deaths of 150+ Arkansas pioneers. He tried to save them; he certainly would have saved them if not for the duplicity of John D. Lee. Lee, according to M at MM, bears the ultimate responsibility for the decision to kill the Arkansans. He’s official bad guy…but we’ve heard all of this before because M at MM says little that has not already been said by Juanita Brooks, Will Bagley, or John Krakaur. At only 231 pages, M at MM doesn’t say much at all.
Ironically, M at MM is more interesting for what it doesn’t say than for what it does. For example:
1) Did some Mormons rape their female victims before they killed them? Interestingly, M at MM suggests that some female victims may indeed have been raped before they were murdered. And who were the rapists? Why, none other than the Church’s traditional scapegoats: John D. Lee and at least one Native American participant. No other potential rapist is named, at which point M at MM drops the topic like a hot potato. That other Mormons may have committed similar rapes is intimated by accounts from James Gemmell who wrote that he saw “indignities that were perpetrated upon three persons after which they were shot. But they are too shocking to put on paper.” Likewise, John D. Lee in his various accounts recalls seeing the “corpses of six or seven women stripped completely naked,” also an indication that mass rape may have accompanied mass murder. Unfortunately, M at MM avoids any serious discussion of this topic. Indeed, the word “rape” occurs only twice in the main text, and in both instances it refers to events far removed from the massacre--clearly this is something the Church doesn’t want to talk about!
2) Was the massacre part of a pattern of previous attacks on wagon trains by Mormons disguised as Indians? M at MM also fails to address reports of Mormons disguised as Indians attacking wagon trains in the months preceding the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Did Brigham Young encourage Indian attacks on wagon trains in an attempt to give marauding Mormons a cover story as they did the same? (M at MM seems to try to deflect attention away from this avenue of inquiry when it says, “…most of the killers led exemplary lives before and after the massacre. Except for their experiences during a single, nightmarish week in September 1857, most of them were ordinary humans with little to distinguish them from other nineteenth-century frontiersmen.)
3) How many apostate Mormons died in the massacre? And were the local Mormons ordered to attack the Fancher Company to discourage other Mormons from defecting? M at MM mentions a “rumor” of apostates joining the Arkansans…and again drops the topic like a hot potato. (Will Bagley’s Blood of the Prophets, on the other hand, mentions a goodly number of apostates among the dead who were buried in “temple shirts” after having their throats slashed.)
4) M at MM also fails to address the findings of forensic pathologists at the University of Utah who examined 2,600 bone fragments belonging to some of the victims. These particular victims ranged in age from two to thirty years old, and died from gunshot wounds and blunt force trauma to the head. These findings are important because the Church has always claimed that children under the “age of accountability” were spared.
5) M at MM fails to compare and contrast other examples of Mormon Mass Murder, particularly those wherein victims were killed after they had surrendered, like the Circleville Massacre.
And as might be expected, the Church’s reviews of this Church-financed and Church-authored book are predictably positive. BYU Studies has this to say:
“Massacre at Mountain Meadows is exhaustively researched, beautifully illustrated, and highly readable.”
“For believing Mormons who want a final word on “what really happened,” this book will likely satisfy.”
“Compared to the histories usually on sale in the LDS general book market, Massacre at Mountain Meadows is the real deal—a warts-and-all history based on exacting scholarship and peer review.”
“Observers of the Church have interpreted this hybrid ecclesiastical-academic project as further proof of the rapprochement of the Gordon B. Hinckley era. LDS pundits seem relieved—even self-congratulatory—that the Church seems inclined to fully and candidly acknowledge the massacre and other problematic parts of its history.”
“Boasting the imprimatur of Oxford University Press and the implied endorsement of the First Presidency, Massacre at Mountain Meadows is uniquely and perfectly designed to help Latter-day Saints come to terms with the single most shameful event in their past.”
“Unflinchingly the authors describe the gruesome details of the slaughter. They provide a superb day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of the descent into barbarity. Though the book is dedicated “to the victims” of the massacre, it focuses primarily on the non-Indian perpetrators; the book humanizes the Mormon farmers from southern Utah who became mass murderers.”
In other words, M at MM is the best thing since sliced bread. If it could cook, the reviewer would probably marry it.
Pure unadulterated bovine scatology!