Early Mormon History

I’ve been reading Sally Denton’s book about the Mormons in which she focuses on a deliberate massacre of a group of about 140 people traversing the Utah territory in 1857, emigrating from Arkansas to California. Denton begins her tale by detailing the history of the Mormon Church in the decades leading up to the massacre. It makes a very interesting story, containing elements similar to those of other revivalist religions in the United States and elsewhere. The origins of Mormonism have points in common with Islam: a man is visited with “visions” that come from God/Allah and begins to preach a new dispensation, collecting immediate acolytes and in short order, a multitude of followers. Both of these religions borrow heavily from the Old and New Testaments, weaving their stories into a new cloth and elevating their prophet to a quasi-mystical relationship to God: the leader from whom not only doctrine, but also the practical details of life begin to flow.

In the 1820s Joseph Smith, the original prophet, penned and published his creed in what soon became the best-selling Book of Mormon, in itself converting thousands across the developing USA and in England. As people flocked to his new communion of the “Saints,” Smith enrolled them in the development of a real American communism, in which all strove to work and to succeed and to share the benefits with their coreligionists. The community antagonized nearby settlers, however, perhaps by the intensity of their attempts to proselytize or simply because of their steadily enriched holdings. Several times the new Church was forced to move to newer, less developed regions because of local conflict. Inevitably something of a siege mentality developed among the brethren. Revelation of two of the most difficult to accept aspects of their communal life began to spread a generalized sense of revulsion in the country against the group. 

The first was the practice of polygamy which though officially denied was carried out secretly by elders of the church, not least by Joseph Smith himself. Young girls, married, or engaged women were approached and seduced into joining the “spiritually” select and richly appointed households of these men. Another offensive practice called “blood atonement” was inflicted upon those who had been identified as having sinned, by a select military group called the Danites, named after the book of Daniel. By this doctrine the offender, guilty of adultery or of apostasy would be able to enter the Kingdom of the Saints only by the shedding of their own blood. The Danites were empowered to “assist” the recalcitrant to their eternal reward through a ritual of beheading. This practice was enforced throughout the early and mid-19^th centuries. Individuals attempting to extricate themselves from the sect could do so only by running away and even then could not be certain of safety as fervent Danites would pursue them.

Within the church dissention began to divide Smith’s followers between those who believed he had usurped an unconscionable degree of power and those who continued to see him as the hand and the voice of God on earth. In 1844 two apostates, former members of the inner circle of 50 Elders, started a newspaper dedicated to exposing Smith’s appropriation of communal riches and his polygamy. At this period the church was settled in a relatively small hamlet in Illinois. Smith reacted to the public charges by having the newspaper attacked and set on fire. Local law enforcers were able to arrest him within a few days. Sequestered in the local jail, Smith sent orders to his Danite troops to converge on the area to free him. Before they could assemble, however, a vigilante mob surrounded the jail and promptly murdered the Mormon prophet.

This unexpected death of their leader threw the church into confusion as no clear hierarchy obviated his successor. Some favoured Smith’s son, though still a minor, but within the ranks of elders others nursed ambitions of their own. Of these, Brigham Young over the next two or three years was able to establish his preeminence. Once acknowledged as the new supreme head of the church, Young took on not just administrative roles, but styled himself as well a seer, a prophet, and the source of the commands of God over the faithful. The usual abuses that accompany this kind of power were not long being evidenced. Young’s stable of young and beautiful wives flourished, as did his considerable personal wealth. The locus of the faithful moved once again – from Illinois where “the blood of the prophet” had been shed, to the Utah territory by the Great Salt Lake and along a navigable trail that became a major avenue for settlers moving from eastern states to California.

Here the brethren began again, working in difficult circumstances to transform hostile soil into a productive landscape for their ever-growing community. Groups traversing the area depended upon trade with these new locals: some of the herds that came with them in exchange for vegetables and grains. It was an economy that profited all. Problems were developing within the ranks of the faithful, however: some families that had enthusiastically joined with Joseph Smith in their early flush of religious fervour, grew unhappy with the dictatorial leadership imposed upon them by a clearly benefiting group of elders. Under threat, Young fell back upon that time-honoured method of rekindling communal ardour: identify a common enemy. He manipulated relations with the regional natives, the Utes, a basically quite peaceful tribe, and with the agents of the Federal government, to inspire a sense that “the Saints,” God’s people, chosen to lead humanity into the promised millennium, could be annihilated.

It was this engendered communal paranoia and commands from the top of the hierarchy to maintain it that led directly to the massacre of over 140 men, women, and children at a meadow on the Utah trail as they were travelling from Arkansas to California in September, 1857.

As this post is now becoming rather lengthy, and the blogger is aware of the time restraints as well as possibly the patience of her readers, she will now allocate the remainder of the story to her next post. Those of you uninterested in such a history may skip the next installment. Those of you who want more, please keep your breathe bated!