Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows

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About this work

Author: Will Bagley

Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows," BYU Studies (1 January 2003) off-site
Lawrence Coates, "Review of Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows," BYU Studies (1 January 2003) off-site
Robert D. Crockett, "A Trial Lawyer Reviews Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 199–254. off-site
Eric A. Eliason, "Review of: Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847–1896," FARMS Review of Books 12/1 (2000): 95–112. off-site
Paul H. Peterson, "Review of Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows," BYU Studies (1 January 2003) off-site

Quote used...	The rest of the story...
Bagley quotes D.B. Huntington, Brigham Young's interpreter, as saying that the Piedes band of Indians were "afraid to fight the Americans & so would raise [allies]" (brackets by Bagley).	Huntington's journal entry for 1 September 1857 actually says they were "afraid to fight the Americans & so would raise grain.
Blood of the Prophets (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 114.	Lawrence Coates, review of Blood of the Prophets, BYU Studies 42/1 (2003): 156. PDF link Robert D. Crockett, "A Trial Lawyer Reviews Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 199–254. off-site

Commentary

Driven by his passion to indict Brigham Young in the Mountain Meadows massacre, Bagley — a professional historian — seriously distorts the historical record, changing the clear reading in Huntington's handwritten journal in an attempt to manufacture evidence.