The Mountain Meadow Massacre

And now for the rest of the story: In 1856-7 Brigham Young’s concern about defections and a general decline in religious zeal in his church led to a virtual reign of terror, not unlike those imposed by other dictatorships under duress. The principal of “blood atonement” was strongly enforced throughout the communities as Young’s Danite troops followed his promotion of “cleansing” the flock for what he believed to be an inevitable confrontation with the forces of the federal government. Speaking of backsliders and other “sinners,” Young publically proclaimed, “I want their cursed heads cut off that they may atone for their sins.” Danite true-believers saw the doctrine as an obligation of obedience to Young, and ultimately to God. John D. Lee, a Danite from his early days with Joseph Smith wrote some years later that this doctrine encompassed as well the killing of Gentiles, “considered a means of grace and a virtuous deed.”

Even before this wave of terror began, tensions all along the Utah trail had been heightening. For several years federal agents had consistently been intimidated and badly treated while attempting to carry out their duties in Utah.  In 1853 a group of engineers sent to map the Sevier River was attacked and murdered by a Mormon troop, though the event was publicized as one perpetrated by local Utes. Only about three years later was a federal judge working in the area given sworn testimony and evidence that the entire atrocity had been carried out by Mormon enforcers, under orders from Young. The residing American president, James Buchanan, responded to the general outcry that ensued demanding that justice be served. In May, 1857 one sixth of the US army was ordered to march into Utah to replace Young as governor and to put in place a new slate of federal marshals and judges. Forewarned, Young and his deputies told communities along the caravan path that the government was sending troops as well as parties of so-called settlers into their territory to irretrievably harm the church. All were forbidden to trade with or to provision any groups attempting to traverse the area. In effect the order threatened travellers who provisioned themselves under an assumption of trade in Utah with starvation or at least scurvy and other illnesses because of their lack of a diet based on any supplies other than the cattle that accompanied them.

For over a year before Buchanan’s order to the military, two brothers, Alexander and John Francher, ranchers in Arkansas, had been organizing a massive emigration of about 20 families with their herds and chattels into California. Setting out in April, 1857 the massive train of covered wagons and herds reached Utah territory in mid-August. Word had been spread throughout the area that the caravan was populated by irreligious troublemakers, bent upon sewing discord between the Mormons and the Utes. They were accused of having poisoned water sources and of having left behind a poisoned ox carcase, causing the death of some local natives. When actually meeting the travellers, people in communities along the route could see clearly that far from being a collection of troublemakers, these visitors were good, God-fearing families like themselves. Nonetheless, having been ordered not to trade with or to help them in any fashion, the Mormons were forced to comply. Any who secretly attempted to assist the clearly needy emigrants were discovered and put to death by Danite enforcers.

By September the caravan had moved through the central part of the Utah territory and was encamped at a fertile area called Mountain Meadows. Weakened by their lack of fresh produce, they planned to rest in this spot for a few days, allowing their herds to graze before pushing on further south. At breakfast around a campfire on the morning of September 7, several men were shot as a sudden outburst of gunfire raked their position. The camp rallied, pulling wagons into a defensive circle and employing their own weapons against the attackers who hidden in surrounding brush and rocks, could barely be seen. For the next three days the travelers held out against what appeared to be a raid by a party of local Utes. Men in war paint, using guns as well as bows and arrows, maintained constant pressure on the weakening caravan train, now cut off from sources of water as well as their herds.

On the fourth day a white man approached the caravan under a flag of truce. He explained that the Utes were angry with the members of the caravan, thinking that they meant them harm. He and other Mormons with him had assured the natives that the group had come in peace and had offered to escort them out of the territory. The Utes, he said, agreed to this arrangement but only if the travelers surrendered their weapons. Otherwise, he said, they would not trust in their good intentions. Weakened, low on ammunition, food and water, the settlers agreed after some discussion. Other Mormon men came forward, escorting the now unarmed men of the caravan party to one area and the women and children to another. Then at a signal given by their leader, John D. Lee, the Danite mentioned above, all of the men, the women, and children over the age of six or seven were brutally murdered. Sixteen or seventeen of the youngest children were spared as it was believed that they would be too young to retain any memory of the event. The children were later given to other Mormon families to raise. Nearby Mormon women were brought to the scene to strip all of the women and children of their clothing; the same was done with the corpses of the men. The wagons were looted for their considerable wealth: clothing, furniture, and close to $100,000 worth of gold, secreted with wagon floorboards. The caravan’s large herds of cattle and horses were rounded up and re-branded, many joining the herd of John D Lee himself.

Fairly soon after the event word reached California via apostate Mormons, fleeing the sect for their own lives. Relatives of the Fancher caravan members already settled in California as well as those remaining in Arkansas, demanded an inquiry, convinced of the falsehood of the official Mormon explanation of the massacre: an uprising of the usually peaceful Utes. In the meantime the army contingent sent to the Utah territory had become bogged down north of the area of Salt Lake City. The refusal of the Mormons to trade expected provisions, as well as the early on-set of winter at that altitude meant that the troops could go no further. Over the harsh winter hundreds died from starvation and a lack of adequate shelter. In Washington Buchanan came under fire for the inadequate prosecution of what became termed his “Utah war” at a moment when the larger issue of a potential succession of slave states from the Union was becoming a real possibility. Seeking a solution from the impass between his beleaguered troops and the intransigent Mormon government, Buchanan’s envoy brokered a deal: the new governor and the federal agents would be put in place but Brigham Young would retain real authority in the territory. Moreover, any crimes committed by the Mormons during the period of tensions would be pardoned.

Despite this protection of Young, his deputies, and the church, however, evidence gathered by investigators brought from the south into the Mountain Meadows campsite, demonstrated the actual course of events. The bodies of the victims had been buried in shallow mass graves, later raided by wolves who left their remains scattered over a wide area. Rather than having died in a battle with Indians who would have fought openly and subsequently scalped the dead, the majority of the corpses of males had clearly been executed by a single bullet shot at close range. Most of the women and the older children had been dispatched by knives and axes but also not scalped. Apostate Mormon witnesses of some of the events gave sworn testimony about the atrocities. The rich clothing and fine furniture of the travelers had visibly become the property of formerly less well-endowed Mormon families. Many had seen the gold and jewelry taken from the caravan displayed boastfully by John D Lee and others. When Brigham Young offered some of the spoils to the chiefs of local Ute tribes, they declined saying that they had had no quarrel with the people of the caravan. Investigators talked with the chiefs seeing clearly that they told the truth about their lack of involvement. Moreover, a year or two after the event a delegation empowered by the families of the surviving children was sent from Arkansas into Utah to find and return them. Though young at the time, several had clear memories of what had happened: the “Indians” in war paint who later washed and became white men; the clothing or jewelry of a parent now used by one of their keepers; the faces of men who murdered their mothers and siblings as they stood by screaming in terror. However, the official explanation of the church continued, and continues even to this day, to blame the Utes working in concert with a “renegade Mormon.”  

The latter component of the story was inserted years later, after the cataclysm of the American Civil War had been enacted and the life of the country began to re-enter a general state of peace. As questions again were raised nationally about the Mountain Meadow massacre, Brigham Young began to distance himself from John D Lee, until then one of his closest and most trusted deputies. In 1870 Young ordered Lee to remove himself from Mormon territory and soon after Lee was formally excommunicated from the church. All along he believed that he had acted on Young’s explicit orders and that he had done a righteous act for the good of the church. He obeyed, however, moving south of Utah, continuing to believe that Young would protect him from harm. In 1874 Lee was brought to trial as changes by Congress took the administration of justice from the territory, placing it in federal hands. The predominantly Mormon jury was unable to reach a decision. Lee saw this as a clear sign that Young was looking out for him.

For a time Lee was held in prison but later was released on bail until a second trial could be held. The prosecutor, Sumner Howard, was aware that without co-operation from the church officials he would likely preside over another inconclusive trial. Young was equally aware that the on-going publicity about the massacre would never cease until someone was found responsible. He and Howard came to an unwritten agreement: Young would produce witnesses and evidence sufficient to conclusively name Lee as the leader of the atrocity; in return Howard would limit the exposure of evidence damning to Young and to other members of the church hierarchy. Found guilty and sentenced to death, Lee finally realized that he had been abandoned by his spiritual father and cast as a scapegoat to protect the others. He spent his remaining months writing a manuscript of over a thousands page, laying out in great detail not only the events of the massacre itself, but the intricate involvement at every step of its preparation, enactment, and cover-up by other members of the church hierarchy, including Young himself. Before his execution by firing squad, Lee sent the manuscript to his defense lawyer, WW Bishop, asking him to publish it after his death, splitting any profits between his own family and that of Bishop. The book became a best seller.

Condemning Young’s betrayal before his death, Lee predicted that his former leader would not live six months longer than himself, a fate that would prove his complicity in all that had happened at Mountain Meadows. Three months later Young collapsed following a meal, dying after a few days likely from a ruptured appendix. In 1890 the church officially repudiated polygamy. With this doctrinal change and Lee’s conviction, the federal government was ready in 1896 to proclaim Utah the 46^th American state. To the present day the church has steadfastly refused any acknowledgement that its hierarchy was complicit in what until the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 was the largest civilian atrocity in the history of the United States.

Having told this sorry tale, I am happy to finish with the note that my own Mormon ancestors were, according to the 1851 Darling Township, Lanark County census, still living on the land that as kids, we knew as Grandma and Grandpa Craig’s farm. A few years later most of the Stretch family, except for my great-great-grandmother Mary and her sister Janet, moved to the area of Minneapolis, settling there. Though nominally Mormons, the family’s experience of it as a culture was in fact non-existent. A religion lived in isolation for decades without the support of others of like mind cannot take deeply lasting roots. When Mary Stretch married David Camelon, she undoubtedly accompanied him to his Presbyterian services, the predominant sectarian group in that area of Lanark County. Happily these people did not experience the dictatorship or the reign of terror to which those who moved west with Joseph Smith and especially, with Brigham Young were subject. And equally as happily, they were not complicit in the horrors of the Mountain Meadow massacre.