The Cover-Up: The after story of the Meadows Incident
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 3:58 pm
Reprinted from the MAD board
QUOTE(Severian @ Aug 25 2007, 11:06 PM)
Considering the massive scope of the crime there must have been an even larger cover-up. Is it the official Church position that Brigham Young was out of the loop on that cover-up as well? Didn't this cover-up pose an ethical dilemma for the Saints?
QUOTE(Severian @ Aug 25 2007, 11:06 PM)
Considering the massive scope of the crime there must have been an even larger cover-up. Is it the official Church position that Brigham Young was out of the loop on that cover-up as well? Didn't this cover-up pose an ethical dilemma for the Saints?
Alter Idem: Brigham Young always maintained that he knew nothing about the massacre. He did not order it or condone it. He also says that he was not told the truth of events when John D. Lee reported the massacre about three weeks after it happened. Wilford Woodruff's journal entry confirms what he said because it blames the massacre on Indians alone and says that the Emigrants riled up the Indians with ill treatment and the Indians retaliated. Lee told them that the settlers were unable to help. (Keep in mind that Lee was sent by his superiors, Dame and Haight, to report to Pres. Young. If he lied to the Pres, we have no reason to believe he did so to protect only himself, but on the orders of his superiors who told him what to tell the Pres.)
My opinion is that Young knew a little more than he admitted to the govt. (His version of events was admitted into the second trial through a deposition). For one thing, we know that he was told soon after the events by Jacob Hamblin that whites were involved in the massacre. We also know that he took action against some of the church leaders--releasing them from their callings a couple years after the event. He had to have had some reason for that--and it seems clear that it was because he learned more about their involvement.
Why wouldn't he fully admit to all his knowledge? Why didn't he do more to help bring the perpetrators to justice? Because of the effort of a number of his enemies to try and pin the responsibility for the massacre on him.
As early as 1859 when Jacob Forney wrote his report to Wash. DC on the event, he said "I fear, and I regret to say it, that with certain parties here there is a greater anxiety to connect Brigham Young and other Church dignitaries with every criminal offense than diligent endeavor to punish the actual perpetrators of crime".
He had fierce political opposition in Washington as well as in the Territory. The first trial of John D. Lee ended in a hung jury because of the prosecutions' attempts to try and implicate Brigham Young in the crime and the Mormon jurors would not convict Lee if it meant also giving credence to the prosecutions' version of the crime.
The second trial was a success because the prosecutors enlisted Pres. Young's help in trying to get witnesses to testify etc. by telling him they would only try the defendant and not try to go after the church.
The truth is, Pres. Young was the biggest target and when he died, the interest in Washington and in Utah of trying to bring in fugitives and spend all that money on a 20 year old crime fizzled.