Criticism of Mormonism/Books/American Massacre/Chapter 8

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Response to claims made in "Chapter 8: Deseret, August 3, 1857"

Chapter 7

A FAIR Analysis of: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows A work by author: Sally Denton

Chapter 9

Response to claim: 104 - Deaths in the handcart companies caused "most Salt Lake Mormons" to lay the blame "squarely at Young's feet"

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

According to the author, deaths in the handcart companies caused "most Salt Lake Mormons" to lay the blame "squarely at Young's feet."

Author's sources: No source provided.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader

The author has no evidence to support this claim.

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

The book discusses the "Mormon Reformation."

Author's sources: * N/A

FAIR's Response

• For a detailed response, see: Mormon Reformation

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

The author claims that Brigham said that "all backsliders should be 'hewn down'".

Author's sources: *Josiah F. Gibbs, 'The Mountain Meadows Massacre, 8ff

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

A list of thirteen questions was "conceived by Young and expanded by Grant."

Author's sources: *Gustive O. Larson, "The Mormon Reformation," Utah Historical Society Quarterly 26 (January 1958).

• Hirshson, 155
• David L. Bigler, Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847–1896 (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1998), 127. (bias and errors) Review.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

This list of questions sounds very much like a temple recommend interview today. A number of the same questions are still asked.

• This claim is also made in One Nation Under Gods: p. 234, 560n43 .
• Mormon Reformation
• Crime and violence in Utah
• Danites in anti-Mormon polemic.

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

Blood atonement

FAIR's Response

• For a detailed response, see: Mormonism and doctrine/Repudiated concepts/Blood atonement

Response to claim: 106 - The author claims that "those who dared to flee Zion were hunted down and killed"

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

The author claims that "those who dared to flee Zion were hunted down and killed."

Author's sources: Cannon and Knapp, 268.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader

This is nonsense, and there is no evidence that this actually happened. This also contradicts what the author said on page 59, where she claims that Brigham said that anyone was "free to leave."

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Response to claim: 106 - The killing of William R. Parrish, "an elderly Mormon in high standing"

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

The killing of William R. Parrish, "an elderly Mormon in high standing."

Author's sources: Cannon and Knapp, 268.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

• This claim is also made in One Nation Under Gods: p. 238, 562n60 (PB)

Question: Were William Parrish and his son murdered as they attempted to leave Utah because leaving Utah was "forbidden"?

No guilty parties were ever found

The Los Angeles Star reported that Indians had supposedly killed Parrish and two others; it noted too that "rumor had it [that Parrish]...'had a difficulty with the authorities about removing property which he had previously 'consecrated' to the church.'" No guilty parties were ever found.

The only "leader" accused was Parrish's bishop. If a local leader did commit an act of murder, this proves nothing about Brigham Young or other general leaders ordering it, or that this is a representative example of how Utah Mormons dealt with apostates.

Response to claim: 106 - Castration of a man by Bishop Warren Snow who was "engaged to a woman Snow wanted to take for a plural wife"

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

Castration of a man by Bishop Warren Snow who was "engaged to a woman Snow wanted to take for a plural wife."

Author's sources: David L. Bigler, Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847–1896 (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1998), 132. (bias and errors) Review

Castration as a punishment among 19th century Mormons

Summary: I have read about a group of men (LDS) that went around castrating immoral men (who were also LDS) with the express permission of local church leaders. These events supposedly happened during the Brigham Young's administration. It is claimed that Brigham was aware of and approved of this and may have given the order. What can you tell me about this? I read that missionaries who selected plural wives from female converts before allowing church leaders to select from them first were castrated.

Jump to details:

• Question: Did Bishop Warren S. Snow forcibly castrate twenty-four-year-old Thomas Lewis?
• Question: Was Thomas Lewis castrated because he wanted to marry a young woman who was desired by an older man as a plural wife?
• Question: Was the castration of Thomas Lewis approved by Brigham Young?
• Question: Other than the story of Thomas Lewis, are there other accounts of men being castrated by Mormons in the 1850s?

Response to claim: 106 - The author claims that the "bloody regime…ended with [Jedediah] Grant's sudden death, on December 1, 1856"

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

The author claims that the "bloody regime…ended with [Jedediah] Grant's sudden death, on December 1, 1856."

Author's sources: David L. Bigler, Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847–1896 (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1998), 133. (bias and errors) Review

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources

There is no evidence of Grant implementing "blood atonement."

Response to claim: 108 - Surveyor General David Burr "fled for his life"

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

Surveyor General David Burr "fled for his life."

Author's sources: House Exec. Doc. 71, 118-20.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is false

Burr did not mention any threats against his life even in his official report to Congress.

Surveyor general David H. Burr

Jump to details:

• Question: Was Surveyor General David H. Burr threatened with death by Mormons while he was in Utah?

Response to claim: 110-112 - It is claimed that Parley P. Pratt was killed because he married Elenore McLean when she was not divorced from her husband

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

It is claimed that Parley P. Pratt was killed because he married Elenore McLean when she was not divorced from her husband.

Author's sources:

• Reva Stanley, The Archer of Paradise: A Biography of Parley Pratt, 163.
• Steven Pratt, "Eleanor McLean," 227.
• Fielding, Unsolicited Chronicler, 382.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources

Eleanor declared herself divorced from Hector, who had been abusing her.

Question: Was Parley P. Pratt murdered because he stole another man's wife?

Parley Pratt is accused of being sealed to Eleanor Mclean without her having divorced her husband

Pratt’s last wife, Eleanor, “was sealed to him without divorcing her legal husband, who fatally shot Parley near Van Buren, Arkansas” (p. 333). There is, however, much that we are not told. Eleanor’s husband was a heavy drinker, which in 1844 resulted in separation. The couple was reconciled, and the family moved to San Francisco. While in California, Eleanor discovered the church. Her husband forbade her to join and “purchased a sword cane and threatened to kill her and the minister who baptized her if she became a Mormon.”

It is therefore claimed by critics of Mormonism that Parley P. Pratt's practice of polygamy was responsible for his murder, partly because he married a woman who hadn't been divorced from her first husband.

• Was Parley P. Pratt building a "harem" of wives?
• Did Parley P. Pratt "induce" another man's wife to join the Church simply so that he could add her as a polygamous wife?

Eleanor's husband Hector physically abused her

Eleanor attended LDS meetings, and one Sunday at home, “while Eleanor was singing from a Mormon hymn book she had purchased, Hector tore the book from her hands, threw it into the fire, beat her, cast her out into the street, and locked the door.”

Eleanor declared herself divorced from Hector

Eleanor lodged a complaint of assault and battery against Hector and planned to leave him until prevailed upon by local church members and her physician. At that point, said Eleanor, “I presume McLean himself would not deny that I then declared that I would no more be his wife however many years I might be compelled to appear as such for the sake of my children".

Eleanor was not baptized until 1854, and she had the written permission of her husband to do so. However, he forbade her to read church literature or to sing church hymns at home. It is not clear, then, why G. D. Smith feels Eleanor owed an observance of all the twentieth-century legal niceties to a violent, abusive, tyrannical drunkard. Through it all, as a church leader, Parley Pratt had tried to help the couple reconcile.

Eleanor's husband Hector erupts over baptism of children and tries to have her declared insane

Eleanor had her children baptized, and Hector responded by filing a charge of insanity against his wife so he could have her committed to an asylum. Hector sent her children by steamer to their maternal grandparents’ home, confined Eleanor to the house, and again threatened to have her committed for insanity. Eleanor eventually found her children at her parents’ home, but they refused to let her take them. Eleanor went to Salt Lake City and married Pratt on 14 November 1855. As we have seen, she considered herself divorced from Hector from the time he violently threw her from their home in San Francisco. They never received a civil divorce, however.

Nineteenth century marriages did not always end in a formal divorce

It is assumed that nineteenth century marriages always ended in a formal divorce. They did not--this was often impossible. From which authority, exactly, would G. D. Smith prefer that Eleanor receive a divorce? She was in Utah; Hector was in San Francisco. He had abused, beaten, confined, and threatened to institutionalize her. As we have seen, notions of divorce were also more fluid in the mid-nineteenth century, especially on the frontier. It is unlikely that most contemporaries would have insisted that Eleanor required a formal divorce.

After Eleanor married Parley, Hector pursued and shot him six times and stabbed him twice

Pratt was arrested on trumped-up charges, freed by a non-Mormon judge, and pursued by Hector, who shot the unarmed apostle six times and stabbed him twice. He was left to bleed to death over the course of two hours. In G. D. Smith’s worldview, are men like Hector entitled to hold women emotionally or martially hostage, civil divorce or no? One suspects not. But in his zeal to condemn the church, he does not provide his readers with the facts necessary to understand the Pratts’ choices.

Response to claim: 112-113 - In Brigham's speech on July 24, 1857, he said that "This American Continent will be Zion..."

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

In Brigham's speech on July 24, 1857, he said that "This American Continent will be Zion...for it is so spoken of by the Prophets." The author interprets this to mean that the "godless American government's moving against them signaled the beginning of their Armageddon scenario" and would result in Brigham's "ascendancy" to rule the Kingdom of God on earth.

Author's sources: Fielding, Unsolicited Chronicler, 383.

FAIR's Response

Mormonism and government/Anti-American nineteenth century Saints/Brigham Young's "Zion" speech on 24 July 1857

Response to claim: 115 - The author claims that "Indian" massacres that occurred in Utah Territory were actually carried out by "white-faced Indians who used Mormon slang"

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

The author claims that "Indian" massacres that occurred in Utah Territory were actually carried out by "white-faced Indians who used Mormon slang."

Author's sources: No source provided.

FAIR's Response

{{|propaganda|The author needs evidence beside her assertion to prove this point.}}

Response to claim: 115 - Brigham instructed the people to "hoard their grain" and not sell to any gentiles

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

Brigham instructed the people to "hoard their grain," according to the author. People were told to "report without delay any person in your District that disposes of a Kernel of grain to any Gentile merchant or temporary sojourner."

Author's sources: Brooks, Mountain Meadows Massacre, xvii-xviii.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources

Counsel and advice were given to the citizens not to sell grain to the emigrants to feed their stock, but to let them have sufficient for themselves if they were out.

Question: Did Brigham Young issue orders that no food or grain should be sold to "Gentiles" that were passing through Utah?

The full context of the letter from Brigham is totally and utterly lost in an effort to cast Brigham in the worst light possible

The critical book One Nation Under Gods mentions "Brigham's prohibition on trading with Gentiles." The author states that "on August 2, 1857, Young wrote a letter telling church leaders to make sure no one sold as much as 'one kernal' of grain to their enemies. The author cites "Brigham Young letter to Bronson and Haight, August 2, 1857, MS 1234 LDSCA."

In attempting to identify reasons for conflict between Utah Mormons and non-Mormon emigrants and travelers, the author uses a letter from Brigham Young out of context and insert words into the text that don't exist. All this, without even having a complete copy of the text of the letter the he used as documentation. The author has twisted and contorted this letter to serve the purpose of placing Brigham in the light of being a ruthless governor, attempting to starve the "Gentiles," while stocking up on weapons and ammunition. The full context is totally and utterly lost in an effort to cast Brigham in the worst light possible. It is simply misleading to omit the underlying reasons for Brigham's instructions.

The critics' version of the letter from Brigham Young

When asked for a copy of the text of the letter from Young to Bronson, the author provided the following:

Bishop Bronson, Dear Brother,

I wish you to notify all Presiding elders within Millard County to have the Brethren in their district to save all their grain, nor let a kernal [sic] go to waste or be sold to our enemies. And those who persist in selling grain to the gentiles, or suffer their stock to trample it into the earth I wish you to note as such. Let the Bishops get all the grain not necessary for immediate use, into their hands, if possible…. Save your ammunition, keep your Guns and Pistols in order, and prepare yourselves in all things-particularly by living your religion-for that which may hereafter come to pass. Praying that God may add to you his blessing.

I am your Brother in Christ

Copy sent to president I.C. Haight for the Bishops and presiding Elders in and south of Iron County.

The author did not have a copy of the actual letter. He only had an abbreviated and incomplete copy obtained by someone else

Here is the complete letter (The author didn't know the contents of the omitted portion) from the Church Archives (with the omitted portion in ellipsis, above, written in BOLD ALL CAPS, below):

I wish you to notify all Presiding elders within Millard County to have the Brethren in their districts to save all their grain; nor let a kernal [sic] go to waste or be sold to our enemies. And those who persist in selling grain to the gentiles, or suffer their stock to trample it into the earth I wish you to note as such. Let the Bishops get all the grain not necessary for immediate use, into their hands, if possible; AND BY HAVING GOOD STOREAGES, TAKE MEASURES TO PRESERVE IT AS LONG AS MAY BE NECESSARY.

LET EVERY POUND OF WOOL BE USED TO THE BEST ADVANTAGE IN MANUFACTURING COMFORTABLE CLOTHING AS IT MAY HEREAFTER BE HIGHLY IMPORTANT TO US. Save your ammunition, keep your Guns and Pistols in order, and prepare yourselves in all things-particularly by living your religion-for that which may hereafter come to pass. Praying that God may add to you his blessing.

First, the intent of Brigham's orders was not to "starve" the travelers by withholding food. There was absolutely no malice involved, using this source as a reference. The obvious purpose was conservation and having the bishops store all the grain they could and not let "one kernal" go to waste, period. Of course, the reader wouldn't get this from the selective quoting the author uses or without the entire context and the omitted section about storing and preserving it as long as possible.

Second, there is no mention of "food." The author's assertion that food was implied by Brigham, as an item not to sell or trade with the emigrants, has no basis. This letter only mentions grain, which was used for feeding livestock or could be turned into flour for obvious food purposes. It has been pointed out by others that traveling emigrants would have had no use for grain as food. They didn't have mobile wheat grinders. The grain would have only been used for livestock. Had Brigham meant food, he would have included many other food items that were in the possession of the Utah residents. Brigham's deposition in John D. Lee's trial also demonstrates that was exactly what he was talking about.

Counsel and advice were given to the citizens not to sell grain to the emigrants to feed their stock, but to let them have sufficient for themselves if they were out

Was any counsel or instructions given by any person to the citizens of Utah not to sell grain or trade with the emigrant trains passing through Utah at that time? If so, what were those instructions and counsel?

[Brigham Young] Answer—Yes, counsel and advice were given to the citizens not to sell grain to the emigrants to feed their stock, but to let them have sufficient for themselves if they were out. The simple reason for this was that for several years our crops had been short, and the prospect was at that time that we might have trouble with the United States army, then enroute for this place, and we wanted to preserve the grain for food. The citizens of the Territory were counseled not to feed grain to their own stock. No person was ever punished or called in question for furnishing supplies to the emigrants, within my knowledge." (The Mountain Meadows Massacre by Juanita Brooks, p. 286)

Third, this conservation and preparation effort was not limited to "food" and "weapons" as the author would have his readers believe. In the context of the letter, wool and clothing and storage of grain are also mentioned, giving us a larger picture that malice toward the "Gentiles" was not the intent; preparing for battle with and deprivation of the "Gentiles" was not the purpose. Conservation, preparing for hard times, and the imminent arrival of the Army were the purposes.

Response to claim: 120 - The author claims that "it seem most likely that [Charles] Rich advised the Fancher train to take the Southern Trail"

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

The author claims that "it seem most likely that [Charles] Rich advised the Fancher train to take the Southern Trail."

Author's sources: Author's opinion.

Response to claim: 121 - Will Bagley claims that "all information about the emigrants' conduct came from men involved in their murder or cover-up"

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

Will Bagley claims that "all information about the emigrants' conduct came from men involved in their murder or cover-up."

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources

Junaita Brooks pointed out that accounts of provocation from the immigrants appeared within days as far away California, and from |multiple sources.

• For a detailed response, see: Double standard of skepticism

Notes