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Mountain-Meadows-Massaker

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The Mountain Meadows massacre occurred on Friday, September 11, 1857 in Mountain Meadows, Utah, several miles south of Enterprise in Washington County along the Spanish Trail to Santa Fe. Primarily Mormon militia and some Paiutes killed an entire wagon train of Arkansas farming families known as the Baker/Fancher party, traveling from Arkansas to California together with a group from Missouri that called themselves the "Missouri Wildcats". Around 120 unarmed men, women and older children were killed; 17 of the younger children (none older than six) were spared and all but one (who was raised in a Mormon family) were eventually returned to relatives in Arkansas.

Map showing the area around Mountain Meadows, highlighting the Spanish Trail

Siege on September 7-11 1857

The travelers were besieged for four days, beginning on Monday, September 7, 1857. Exactly who attacked the party first is debated. Some feel Paiute Indians initiated the attack (perhaps with Mormon encouragement). Others believe that Indians were never involved, and that, from the beginning, the attackers were Mormons disguised as Indians. (Oral tradition among Paiute tribe holds that all its members refused the Mormons' request to participate. Other accounts, including Maj. Carleton's 1859 report presented before Congress and Lee's 1877 Confessions, assert Paiute involvement).

Brevet Maj. Carleton of the US Calvary made a report in 1859 that was submitted in the Congressional record in 1902, detailing his investigation; he noted the different accounts of the attack, including those holding the Indians solely responsible. His own conclusions were accounts that blamed only the Indians were extorted lies. While noting uncertainties, his conclusion held the Mormons and Brigham Young primarily responsible and advocated immediate action against them.

"The expenses of the army in Utah, past and to come (figure that), the massacre at the Mountain Meadows, the unnumbered other crimes, which have been and will yet be committed by this community, are but preliminary gusts of the whirlwind our Government has reaped and is yet to reap for the wind it had sowed in permitting the Mormons ever to gain foothold within our borders." Maj. Carleton's report May 1859.

"The Mormons considered themselves at war during this period (see Utah War), and most of the men in the region held military ranks in local militias. On Thursday night at a Mormon camp at Mountain Meadows, Major John M. Higbee handed John D. Lee orders from Colonel Isaac C. Haight in Cedar City to "decoy the emigrants from their position, and kill all of them that could talk. This order was in writing." (Last Confession of John D. Lee, p. 234). According to reports, on Friday morning, Lee went to the immigrants and convinced them to surrender their weapons and accept an armed one-on-one escort by the Mormon militia to safety from the siege, which the Mormon negotiators claimed was solely the doing of out of control Paiutes. Once the escort was underway in single file, a call of "Do your duty!" was given, whereupon all the adult men were shot. The women and older children were then killed by Indians and/or Mormons, depending on what source is to be believed. At least one Mormon man, who was traveling with the party through Utah was killed in the incident.

The party's extensive property was never fully accounted for, but it is widely believed to have been stolen by those who took part in the massacre.

The bodies were placed in both mass and individual graves, and in 1859 a detachment of U. S. Cavalry erected a rock cairn as a monument. On one stone was carved the words: 'Here lie the bones of one hundred and twenty men, women and children, from Arkansas, murdered on the 10th (Sic) day of September, 1857."

John D. Lee was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and later executed for his alleged actions. While Lee admitted his reluctant complicity in a lengthy confession given prior to his execution (Life and Confessions of John D. Lee, pp. 238-242), he claimed he was a scapegoat for the many Mormons, including leaders George A. Smith and Isaac C. Haight, responsible for the massacre. In May 1961, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints posthumously reinstated Lee's membership.

Some say the ordering authorities in Cedar City had sent a messenger to Salt Lake City seeking direction from President Brigham Young, and his belated response would allegedly have averted the massacre. There is some circumstantial evidence that the execution command "Do your Duty!" was a direct quote from a communication from Brigham Young, ordering the massacre. Allegedly the message read, "Brethren do your duty." Many letters and documents were allegedly destroyed by the LDS church at the time, in fear of retaliation by the US Army. John D. Lee spoke bitterly of Young before his execution, but despite his ill-feelings toward the Mormon leader, he maintained Young's innocence with respect to the massacre to his own grave.


Survivors

Seventeen young children were taken away in a wagon, and distributed to local Mormon homes for care. All but one of the children were later rescued by the US Army and returned to their families in the east. Maj. Carleton's report gave the names of the children taken and the manner of their release. Of the families who took in the children he said, "Murders of the parents and despoilers of their property, these Mormons...dared even to come forward and claim payment for having kept these little ones barely alive; these helpless orphans whom they themselves had already robbed of their natural protectors and support. Has there ever been an act which at all equaled this devilish hardihood in more than devilish effrontery? Never, but one; and even then the price was but "30 pieces of silver."

But Carleton goes on to give credit to Mrs. Hamblin for care of the children, despite reports that members of her family, including her son had taken part in the massacre. "Mrs. Hamblin is a simple minded person of about 45, and evidently looks with the eyes of her husband at everything. She may really have been taught by the Mormons to believe it is no great sin to kill gentiles and enjoy their property. Of the shooting of the emigrants, which she had herself heard, and knew at the time what was going on, she seemed to speak without a shudder, or any very great feeling; but when she told of the 17 orphan children who were brought by such a crowd to her house of one small room there in the darkness of night, two of the children cruelly mangled and the most of them with their parents’ blood still wet upon their clothes, and all of them shrieking with terror and grief and anguish, her own mother heart was touched. She at least deserves kind consideration for her care and nourishment of the three sisters, and for all she did for the little girl, "about one year old who had been shot through one of her arms, below the elbow, by a large ball, breaking both bones and cutting the arm half off."

Carlton's report is contradicted by Dr. Forney's report to Congress. He asserts that the children were well-cared for "when I obtained the children they were in a better condition than children generally in the settlements in which they lived." (Senate record, 36th Congress). One child was not recovered and was likely raised in a Mormon family .

Reasons for massacre

Juanita Brooks, author of an book on the tragedy, concluded, "The complete—the absolute—truth of the affair can probably never be evaluated by any human being; attempts to understand the forces which culminated in it and those which were set into motion by it are all very inadequate at best" (Brooks, p. 223). Brooks did proffer some ideas that helped to contribute to the tragedy.

Among these ideas was the presence of a large contingent of United States troops marching toward Utah Territory in the summer of 1857. Brigham Young, the federally appointed territorial governor, had not been made aware of the army´s purpose. He perceived that this army would renew the consistent persecution the Latter-day Saints experienced in New York, Missouri, and Illinois prior to their arduous journey west. "We are invaded by a hostile force who are evidently assailing us to accomplish our overthrow and destruction," he declared August 5, 1857. Certain of an attack, he declared martial law in the territory and ordered "[t]hat all the forces in said Territory hold themselves in readiness to March, at a moment´s notice, to repel any and all such threatened invasion" (Arrington, p. 254).

There were apparently rumors circulating in the region that among the Fancher party were members of a mob that killed Mormon founder Joseph Smith, Jr. This is based on statements reportedly made by the Fancher party members to non-Mormon traders on the Mormon trail. In addition, some reportedly claimed to be present at the assassination of Mormon Apostle Parley P. Pratt earlier that year. These statements have been called into question by various historians due to conflicting accounts of the settlers' journey south through Utah.

Following the murder of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young introduced an Oath of Vengeance that all male Mormons took before becoming full members with the right to enter LDS temples.

"You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto the third and fourth generation." The oath reportedly remained part of the temple rituals until February 15, 1927.

Some question the seriousness of this oath, arguing for its symbolic nature and the fact that the Mormons did not rise up against any of the other politicians responsible for the murder of Joseph Smith. Others have argued that it is a small step from praying for divine vengeance, to deciding to be an agent of that divine wrath.

This version of the oath came from the senate trial of Reed Smoot who was a Mormon Apostle who had been elected a Senator from Utah. In 1903, a protest was filed in the United States Senate to have Hon. Smoot removed from office, on the grounds that he had taken this treasonous oath in the endowment ritual. The content of the oath was revealed by ex-members of the LDS church. U.S. Senate Document 486 (59th Congress, 1st Session) Proceedings Before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate in the Matter of the Protests Against the Right of Hon. Reed Smoot, a Senator from the State of Utah, to hold his Seat. 4 vols.[+1 vol. index] (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906)


Memorial Marker

On September 15, 1990 a memorial marker was dedicated that lists the names of the 82 inidividuals who were killed and those of the seventeen that survived. Those in attendance of this dedication were both members of the community and descendants of those killed and those that survived. It is maintained by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Public Perception - Mark Twain

Mark Twain wrote about his understanding of the massacre, based on common public perceptions of Americans during the late 1880s, in Appendix B of Roughing It, published in 1891:

A party of Mormons, painted and tricked out as Indians, overtook the train of emigrant wagons some three hundred miles south of Salt Lake City, and made an attack. But the emigrants threw up earthworks, made fortresses of their wagons and defended themselves gallantly and successfully for five days! Your Missouri or Arkansas gentleman is not much afraid of the sort of scurvy apologies for "Indians" which the southern part of Utah affords. He would stand up and fight five hundred of them.

At the end of the five days the Mormons tried military strategy. They retired to the upper end of the "Meadows," resumed civilized apparel, washed off their paint, and then, heavily armed, drove down in wagons to the beleaguered emigrants, bearing a flag of truce! When the emigrants saw white men coming they threw down their guns and welcomed them with cheer after cheer! And, all unconscious of the poetry of it, no doubt, they lifted a little child aloft, dressed in white, in answer to the flag of truce!

The leaders of the timely white "deliverers" were President Haight and Bishop John D. Lee, of the Mormon Church. Mr. Cradlebaugh, who served a term as a Federal Judge in Utah and afterward was sent to Congress from Nevada, tells in a speech delivered in Congress how these leaders next proceeded: "They professed to be on good terms with the Indians, and represented them as being very mad. They also proposed to intercede and settle the matter with the Indians. After several hours parley they, having (apparently) visited the Indians, gave the ultimatum of the savages; which was, that the emigrants should march out of their camp, leaving everything behind them, even their guns. It was promised by the Mormon bishops that they would bring a force and guard the emigrants back to the settlements. The terms were agreed to, the emigrants being desirous of saving the lives of their families. The Mormons retired, and subsequently appeared with thirty or forty armed men. The emigrants were marched out, the women and children in front and the men behind, the Mormon guard being in the rear. When they had marched in this way about a mile, at a given signal the slaughter commenced. The men were almost all shot down at the first fire from the guard. Two only escaped, who fled to the desert, and were followed one hundred and fifty miles before they were overtaken and slaughtered. The women and children ran on, two or three hundred yards further, when they were overtaken and with the aid of the Indians they were slaughtered. Seventeen individuals only, of all the emigrant party, were spared, and they were little children, the eldest of them being only seven years old. Thus, on the 10th day of September, 1857, was consummated one of the most cruel, cowardly and bloody murders known in our history."

Books and book reviews

  • Juanita Brooks; Mountain Meadows Massacre; University of Oklahoma Press (Tdr); ISBN 0806123184 (softcover, 318 pages, May 1991); first published in 1950
Brooks was a lifelong Latter-day Saint raised in Saint George and a child of the Mountain Meadows Massacre generation.
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