FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Mountain Meadows Massacre/History
Revision as of 16:19, 3 January 2006 by MikeParker (talk | contribs) (Link to Gene Sessions; add critical sources; hide unused sections)
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Contents
Criticism
In September 1857 a group of Mormons in southern Utah killed all adult members of an Arkansas wagon train that was headed for California. Critics charge that the massacre was typical of Mormon "culture of violence," and claim that Church leaders—possibly as high as Brigham Young—approved or even ordered the killing.
Source(s) of the Criticism
- Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows.
- Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith.
- Sally Denton, American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows.
- Richard Abanes, One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church.
Response
Wilford Woodruff, April 1894:
- One instance I will name here: A man went around Nauvoo asking every man he could, saying, "You come and be adopted to me, and I shall stand at the head of the kingdom, and you will be there with me." Now, what is the truth about this? Those who were adopted to that man, if they go with him, will have to go where he is. He was a participator in that horrible scene--the Mountain Meadow massacre. Men have tried to lay that to President Young. I was with President Young when the massacre was first reported to him. President Young was perfectly horrified at the recital of it, and wept over it. He asked: "Was there any white man had anything to do with that?" The reply was No; and by the representations then made to him he was misinformed concerning the whole transaction. I will say here, and call heaven and earth to witness, that President Young, during his whole life, never was the author of the shedding of the blood of any of the human family; and when the books are opened in the day of judgment these things will be proven to heaven and earth. Perhaps I had not ought to enter into these things, but it came to me.[1]
Endnotes
- [note] Collected Discourses 4:?.
Further reading
FAIR web site
- Mountain Meadows
- Gene Sessions, "Shining New Light on the Mountain Meadows Massacre," 2003 FAIR Conference presentation.
External links
- Encyclopedia of Mormonism
- Robert H. Briggs, "Sally Denton’s American Massacre: Authentic Mormon Past versus the Danite Interpretation of History: Review of American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857 by Sally Denton," FARMS Review 16:1 (2004): 111–134.
- Robert D. Crockett, "The Denton Debacle: Review of American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857. by Sally Denton," FARMS Review 16:1 (2004): 135–148.
- Robert D. Crockett, "A Trial Lawyer Reviews Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets," FARMS Review 15:2 (2003): 199–254.
Printed material
- Juanita Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre (Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 1962).
- Richard Turley, Ron Walker and Glen Leonard, Tragedy at Mountain Meadows (Oxford University Press, forthcoming; title is tentative, promises to be the definitive work to date).