By Jerald and Sandra Tanner
September 11, 2001, will forever be an important date to Americans. On that day over 3,000 people on the east coast were killed by foreign terrorists. However, there is another reason this date will never be forgotten. On September 11, 1857, in southern Utah, approximately 120 unarmed non-Mormon men, women and children were murdered in cold blood by Mormons and Indians. This massacre of Americans by Americans was surpassed only by the Oklahoma bombing in 1995. The Provo Herald reported that the 1857 massacre was perpetrated “by the Iron County Mormon militia and a band of Indians at the meadow, . . .” (Daily Herald, Provo, Utah, December 29, 1996, p. A-1). The article goes on to state:
It was undoubtedly one of the most lamentable tragedies to ever occur in the history of the American West—a debacle the reverberations from which have echoed down through several generations and are still being felt by the descendants of both the perpetrators and those who died.
The attack on the Fancher wagon train at Mountain Meadows was once again in the newspapers this year when a metal plate was discovered that was supposedly written by John D. Lee, one of several local LDS leaders in southern Utah during the 1850’s, who participated in the massacre. The Salt Lake Tribune reported:
On Jan. 22, a National Park Service volunteer cleaning out Lee’s Fort at Lee’s Ferry along the Colorado River discovered a thin sheet of weathered metal inscribed with what purports to be a deathbed confession and blame-fixing of John D. Lee, the only person convicted in the conspiracy and mass murders of California-bound emigrants at Mountain Meadows in Washington County [Utah].
Lee hid out at Lee’s Ferry before he was convicted and executed by firing squad in 1877, going to his grave claiming that LDS Church President Young had scapegoated him. (Salt Lake Tribune, March 16, 2002, p. B3)
In another article, the Tribune reported:
The National Park Service is attempting to determine the authenticity of the rolled message . . . The misspelled text is dated Jan. 11, 1872, and states that “the time is closing and am willing to tak the blame for the Fancher [wagon train]—Col. Dane – Maj. Higby and me—on orders from Pres. Young thro Geo Smith took part . . .”
Although other sources attributed to Lee had inferred LDS President Brigham Young’s complicity in the crime, the inscription’s discovery triggered worldwide media coverage. (Salt Lake Tribune, March 20, 2002, p. B8)
While document experts are questioning the plate’s authenticity (see Salt Lake Tribune, May 1, 2002, pp. B1, B3), the text is consistent with John D. Lee’s statements in his book, Mormonism Unveiled, reprinted as Confessions of John D. Lee.
Prelude to Murder
The attack on the Fancher wagon train in 1857 is a sad example of innocent people being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Richard Abanes explained that the group came through Utah during a particularly tense time:
Conflict between Mormons and federal appointees to various government posts in Utah was inevitable. These began almost immediately after the region was declared a U.S. Territory in 1850, as federal officers were subjected to threats, harassment, and physical violence at the hands of Young and his security forces. . . . Washington officials finally decided that only a military expedition sent to Utah would be able to restore territorial order to the region. . . .
On May 28, 1857, marching orders to Utah were given to three full regiments (at least 2,500 men), or one-sixth of the U.S. Army, with a compliment of artillery. President James Buchanan’s justification to Congress for the decision came in the form of nearly five dozen letters and reports written over a six-year period, “alleging treason, disloyalty, or other serious offenses,” against Mormon leaders. The president’s detachment of soldiers, . . . would eventually be led by Col. Albert Sidney Johnston of the Second U.S. Cavalry, . . . (One Nation Under Gods, by Richard Abanes, Four Walls Eight Windows Press, 2002, pp. 227-231)
Abanes further comments:
Barely a year had transpired since the inauguration of Brigham’s reformation. Moreover, winter was coming, which always meant additional hardship for the Saints. And Johnston’s approaching [U.S.] army was almost within striking distance of the territory. “We are invaded by a hostile force who are evidently assailing us to accomplish our overthrow and destruction,” Young announced on August 5 [1857]. Anticipating an attack [by the U.S. Army], he then declared martial law, ordering all his forces to “hold themselves in readiness to march, at a moment’s notice, to repel any and all such threatened invasion.” (One Nation Under Gods, pp. 243-244)
Emotions ran high among the Mormons. Some had taken an oath to avenge the deaths of Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, and held the gentiles [non-Mormons] responsible for their being driven out of their homes. Apostle Abraham H. Cannon recorded in his journal that his father, George Q. Cannon (a member of the First presidency) admitted that when “he had his endowments in Nauvoo that he took an oath against the murderers of the prophet Joseph as well as other prophets, and if he had ever met any of those who had taken a hand in that massacre he would undoubtedly have attempted to avenge the blood of the martyrs” (Daily Journal of Abraham H. Cannon, Dec. 6, 1889, p. 205, original at BYU; photocopy at University of Utah).
This oath took on added meaning when word was received that Apostle Parley P. Pratt had been murdered in Arkansas on May 13, 1857. Apostle Wilford Woodruff recorded in his journal for June 23, 1857:
The Eastern mails arived at 5 past 2 oclok 23 days from Indipendance. . . . We learn that all Hell is boiling over against the saints in Utah. We also are informed that Elder Parley P Pratt was Murdered By [ ] MCLain who shot him in Arkansaw. This was painful news to his Family. The papers of the United States are filled with bitter revileings against us. The devil is exceding mad. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, edited by Scott Kenney, Signature Books, vol. 5, p. 61)
[Bold in quotations is added for emphasis and does not appear in originals.]
It appears that this murder helped to seal the fate of the peaceful, wealthy group of non-Mormon farmers from Arkansas. Besides the Mormons avenging the blood of the prophets, there was the added incentive of money, property and livestock to be gotten from the group. A description of the wagon train is given by David Bigler:
Led by 52-year-old John T. Baker and Alexander Fancher, 45, the company was made up mainly of farm families from northwest Arkansas moving west to make new homes in California. Among an estimated 135 members, it numbered at least fifteen women, most young mothers. Dependent children made up the largest age group, more than sixty, or roughly half the total. Of these, more than twenty were girls between the ages of seven and eighteen. The rest were adult males, mostly heads of families, but they also included some teamsters and other hired hands.
The Arkansas company was relatively affluent. Most of its wealth took the form of a large herd of cattle, estimated by various observers to number from three hundred to a thousand head, not including other animals, work oxen, horses, or mules. . . .
Since they were moving permanently, Baker-Fancher train members were also better off in other worldly possessions than typical emigrant parties on the California Trail. John W. Baker later placed the value of property his father took on the journey at “the full sum of ten thousand dollars.” Besides animals, some thirty or forty wagons and equipment, members also carried varying amounts of cash to cover unforeseen costs on the journey. (Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847-1896, by David Bigler, Utah State University Press, 1998, pp. 159-160)
At first the large wagon train was traveling south at the rate of about seven miles a day. But after a troubling meeting with a Mormon Apostle and some Indian chiefs on August 25th, they increased their speed to twelve miles a day (see Forgotten Kingdom, p. 167). Bigler commented:
As they [the wagon train] hurried to get away, [newly appointed Santa Clara Indian Mission president Jacob] Hamblin and some twelve Indian chiefs on September first met with Brigham Young and his most trusted interpreter, 49-year-old Dimick B. Huntington, at Great Salt Lake. Taking part in this pow-wow were . . . leaders of desert bands along the Santa Clara and Virgin rivers.
Little was known of what they talked about until recently when it came to light that Huntington (apparently speaking for Young) told the chiefs that he “gave them all the cattle that had gone to Cal[ifornia by] the south rout[e].” The gift “made them open their eyes,” he said. But “you have told us not to steal,” the Indians replied. “So I have,” Huntington said, “but now they have come to fight us & you for when they kill us they will kill you.” The chiefs knew what cattle he was giving them. They belonged to the Baker-Fancher train. (Forgotten Kingdom, pp. 167-168)
Mormon writers have claimed that some in the Fancher group had been boasting that they had been involved in the murder of Smith (see Comprehensive History of the Church, vol. 4, pp. 154-155). However, this may have just been a rumor used to justify the killings. In her biography of John D. Lee, Juanita Brooks tells of the meeting of the local LDS leaders in Cedar City, on September 6th, to discuss the fate of the wagon train. She concludes:
So the discussion went on, some in favor of “doing away with” the men who had been the chief offenders, others preferring to let them all go . . .
Thus events followed one another, leading inexorably to the final tragedy. . . . Strong hatred, deep-seated beliefs, and greed were all combined in the drama. That this was a wealthy train with good wagons and ox teams and horses; with a large herd of cattle; and with loads of household goods and necessities was without doubt a factor with some who were involved. Their own deep religious convictions increased in potency—that “the blood of the Prophet should be avenged” and that by their own covenants, taken in the Nauvoo Temple or in the Endowment House, they were bound to help carry out God’s will. (John Doyle Lee, by Juanita Brooks, Utah State University, pp. 207-208)
The initial attack on the group was started on September 7th, but the immigrants held their ground. It became apparent that it would take a greater effort to conquer the wagon train. When the first attempt was not successful, the Mormon leaders called a meeting and developed a new strategy. Richard Abanes writes:
So on September 11, John D. Lee and William Bateman approached the wagon-train under a white flag. After entering the camp, they convinced the Arkansans that their only chance was to surrender their arms and exit the area under the protection of the Mormon militia that had arrived and was waiting to serve as an escort. Soon afterward, the men of the Baker-Fancer party gave up their weapons and fell into a processional suggested by their Mormon rescuers.
The first wagon, carrying children under six years old, was driven by Samuel McCurdy. The second wagon, driven by Samuel Knight, carried two or three wounded men and a woman. The remaining women and older children marched at a slight distance. About a quarter of a mile farther back walked the unarmed men, formed in a single line, each one escorted by an armed Mormon guard. Then without warning, the wagons stopped between some hills thick with brush.
Higbee, on horseback at the rear flank of the male emigrants, also halted. “Do your duty,” he shouted. With sudden fury, the Mormon soldiers shot and/or knifed the men they were escorting, as the women and children up ahead looked back and began screaming in horror. At that same moment, the gunfire cued Indians hiding in the nearby brush to emerge and begin their attack against the defenseless children and their mothers, all of whom finally understood with terrible clarity what was happening. The Indians, along with several Mormons disguised by native clothes and war-paint, butchered their victims . . . The screams and gunshots continued, as the wounded emigrants [from the earlier attack] in the wagons were executed at point blank range. A few of the Arkansas men, who had managed to avoid the initial assault by their escorts, desperately tried to run to the aid of their families. But they were cut down by Mormons on horseback almost as soon as they began racing toward the carnage. . . .
The brutal assault lasted but a few minutes. The only survivors were seventeen children and infants, all six years old or younger, some of whom had been wounded by the gunfire. They had been spared because their blood, according to the Mormon doctrine, was still innocent. Fifty men, about twenty women, and approximately fifty children between the ages of seven and eighteen, had been slaughtered. Their bodies were left exposed until the next day, when [John D.] Lee, Haight, and other local church leaders rode back to the location and dumped the corpses into shallow trenches, covered by a thin layer of dirt. (One Nation Under Gods, pp. 247-250)
After the Massacre
After the massacre the surviving children were rounded up and taken to Jacob Hamblin’s home. A few were later placed in various LDS families. The goods and wagons were later distributed among the Mormons and Indians. Mr. Abanes explains:
Regarding the property taken from the train, it was divided up throughout the various Mormon communities via a public auction at Cedar City. Nothing was discarded. According to [U.S. Army Maj. James] Carleton’s report, the Mormons even took “[t]he clothing stripped from the corpses, bloody and with bits of flesh upon it, shredded by the bullets.” . . . As for the seventeen remaining children, they were finally returned in 1859 to Arkansas relatives, after being located and claimed by federal agent Jacob Forney. The Mormons, in turn, actually billed the U.S. government thousands of dollars in reimbursements for boarding, clothing and schooling the children during their time in Utah. (One Nation Under Gods, p. 251)
Why Participate?
Outsiders often wonder why a person would have agreed to participate in such a horrible act. Weber State University professor Gene Sessions commented on the pressure to go along with the crowd:
Somebody made a terrible decision that this has got to be done . . . I don’t justify it in any way. But I do believe it would have taken more guts to stay home in Cedar City on those days in 1857 than it would to go out there to the meadows and take part. (Salt Lake Tribune, March 14, 2000, p. A-4)
To understand that type of fanaticism, one must understand early Mormon trials, fears, prejudices, oaths of obedience sworn in the temple and Brigham Young’s teachings on “blood atonement.” Historian David Bigler, author of Forgotten Kingdom, says:
When you have 50 to perhaps more than 70 men participate in an event like this, you can’t just say they got upset. . . . We have to believe they did not want to do what they did any more than you or I would. We have to recognize they thought what they were doing is what authority required of them. The only question to be resolved is did that authority reach all the way to Salt Lake City? (Salt Lake Tribune, March 14, 2000, p. A-4)
“Men did not gather here by chance or mere hearsay . . . they had come because they were ordered to come . . . not because individuals had acted upon impulse.”
Juanita Brooks
Quicksand and Cactus: A Memoir of the Southern Mormon Frontier, pp. 250, 255
Brigham Young Responsible?
Whether or not Brigham Young directly ordered the massacre may never be known. However, he seemed to have no problem with the bloody deed after the fact. When Young visited the site in 1861 Apostle Wilford Woodruff wrote in his diary:
May 25 [1861] A very cold morning much ice on the creek. I wore my great coat & mittens. We visited the Mt. Meadows Monument not up at the burial place of 120 persons killed by Indians in 1857. The pile of stone was about twelve feet high but beginning to tumble down. A wooden cross is placed on top with the following words, Vengeance is mine and I will repay saith the Lord. Pres. Young said it should be Vengeance is mine and I have taken a little. (The Mountain Meadows Massacre, by Juanita Brooks, University of Oklahoma, p. 182).
David Bigler adds:
One of Young’s escort lassoed the cross [on the burial site] with a rope, turned his horse, and pulled it down. Brigham Young “didn’t say another word,” recalled Dudley Leavitt. “He didn’t give an order. He just lifted his right arm to the square [a temple gesture], and in five minutes there wasn’t one stone left upon another. He didn’t have to tell us what he wanted done. We understood.” (Forgotten Kingdom, p. 178)
Brigham Young
Juanita Brooks observed:
While Brigham Young and George A. Smith, the church authorities chiefly responsible, did not specifically order the massacre, they did preach sermons and set up social conditions which made it possible. . . . Brigham Young was accessory after the fact, in that he knew what had happened, and how and why it happened. Evidence of this is abundant and unmistakable, and from the most impeccable Mormon sources.
Knowing then, why did not President Young take action against these men? . . . He did have the men chiefly responsible released from their offices in the church following a private church investigation, but since he understood well that their acts had grown out of loyalty to him and his cause, he would not betray them into the hands of their common “enemy.” . . . Someone assuredly warned all the participants, so that for many years they were all able to evade arrest.
The church leaders decided to sacrifice Lee only when they could see that it would be impossible to acquit him without assuming a part of the responsibility themselves. . . . this token sacrifice had to be made. Hence the farce which was the second trial of [John D.] Lee. The leaders evidently felt that by placing all the responsibility squarely upon him, already doomed, they could lift the stigma from the church as a whole. (The Mountain Meadows Massacre, pp. 219-220)
The Scapegoat
Twenty years after the massacre John D. Lee, one of dozens of men involved in the attack, was the only man convicted and executed by the U.S. government for the crime. Mr. Bigler comments:
But too many had been involved to cover up the atrocity by tearing down monuments, taking oaths of secrecy, or swearing to falsehoods, however artfully contrived. As more and more of the story was revealed, protests spread and outrage grew. . . . So it came about that one man was chosen to pay the price for many.
The most likely candidate, John D. Lee, was excommunicated by his church in 1870 as a show of punishment and sent to operate a ferry at a remote location . . . In November 1874 Lee was arrested. He was tried a year later at Beaver, Utah, for his part in the massacre, but the trial was abortive. Others included on the indictment could not be found. Missing, too, were key witnesses, and those who did appear suffered lapses in memory. . . . as a result, while all four non-Mormon jury members voted for conviction, eight Mormon jurors chose acquittal.
In a second trial, restricted by agreement to Lee’s role, witnesses found their memories restored and an all-Mormon jury unanimously found him guilty. On March 23, 1877, he was taken to Mountain Meadows, the scene of the crime, where at age 64 he was perched on the edge of his coffin and shot to death by a firing squad. (Forgotten Kingdom, pp. 178-179)
Cover-Up
The Mormon efforts to cover-up the details and whitewash the massacre continues even today. In March of 2000 the Salt Lake Tribune told of the accidental unearthing of “the skeletal remains of at least 29 slain emigrants” at Mountain Meadows in Southern Utah.
Scientists wanted to do a full study of the remains. However, Gov. Mike Leavitt, a descendent of one of the participants of the massacre, “encouraged state officials to quickly rebury the remains, even though the basic scientific analysis required by state law was unfinished. . . . the governor’s intercession was one of many dramas played out last summer, all serving to underscore Mountain Meadows’ place as the Bermuda Triangle of Utah’s historical and theological landscape. The end result may be another sad chapter in the massacre’s legacy of bitterness, denial and suspicion. (Salt Lake Tribune, March 12, 2000, p. A-1)
A rushed examination of the bones prior to reburial in 2000 showed:
At least five adults had gunshot exit wounds in the posterior area of the cranium—a clear indication some were shot while facing their killers. . . . Women also were shot in the head at close range. . . . At least one youngster, believed to be about 10 to 12 years old, was killed by a gunshot to the top of the head. . . . Virtually all of the “post-cranial” (from the head down) bones displayed extensive carnivore damage, confirming written accounts that bodies were left on the killing field to be gnawed by wolves and coyotes. (Salt Lake Tribune, March 13, 2000, p. A-5)
The Salt Lake Tribune quoted the following from Gene Sessions, president of the Mountain Meadows Association:
It raises the old question of whether Brigham Young ordered the massacre and whether Mormons do terrible things because they think their leaders want them to do terrible things. (Salt Lake Tribune, Mar. 14, 2000, p. A-4)
The paper went on to report:
Noted Mormon writer Levi Peterson has tried to explain the difficulty that Mormons and their church face in confronting the atrocity of Mountain Meadows.
“If good Mormons committed the massacre, if prayerful leaders ordered it, if apostles and a prophet knew about it and later sacrificed John D. Lee, then the sainthood of even the modern church seems tainted,” he has written. “Where is the moral superiority of Mormonism, where is the assurance that God has made Mormons his new chosen people?” . . .
But acknowledging any complicity in Mountain Meadows’ macabre past is fundamentally problematic for the modern church.
“The massacre has left the Mormon Church on the horns of a dilemma,” says Utah historian Will Bagley, author of a forthcoming book on Mountain Meadows. “It can’t acknowledge its historic involvement in a mass murder, and if it can’t accept its accountability, it can’t repent.” (Salt Lake Tribune, March 14, 2000, p. A-4)
(To date the most thorough research on the 1857 attack has been The Mountain Meadows Massacre, by Juanita Brooks. However, Oklahoma University Press has just announced the forthcoming book, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, by Will Bagley.
Innocent Blood
While the Bible offers the repentant sinner forgiveness for any sin, including murder (see Matthew 12:31; Mark 3:28-29; Acts 8:1; Acts 9:1; 1 Timothy 1:15), the LDS Church maintains a murderer cannot achieve eternal life (which is different from merely going to heaven). One of the few conditions placed on those who received their temple endowment and second anointing was that they were not to shed innocent blood. The Doctrine and Covenants states:
Thou shalt not kill; and he that kills shall not have forgiveness in this world, nor in the world to come. (D&C 42:18)
It also states that those who have been married “in the new and everlasting covenant” will be forgiven of any sin except murder “wherein they shed innocent blood” (D&C 132:19, 26). This was a major concern for those involved in planning the Mountain Meadows massacre. Mr. Buerger explains:
John D. Lee’s recollection of the deliberations preceding the 1857 Mountain Meadows massacre describes their concern that by killing the women and children, they might be guilty of shedding innocent blood. This task was left to the Indians so that “it would be certain that no Mormon would be guilty of shedding innocent blood—if it should happen that there was any innocent blood in the company that were to die.” (John D. Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, . . .) . . . Lee received his second anointing on 17 January 1846, . . . (The Mysteries of Godliness, p. 124)
The LDS teaching on murder has led the Mormons to conclude that when King David, in the Bible, arranged to have Uriah killed (2 Samuel 11:15-17) he committed an unpardonable sin that would keep him from exaltation. Joseph Smith taught:
. . . no murderer hath eternal life. . . . Now, we read that many bodies of the Saints arose at Christ’s resurrection, . . . but it seems that David did not. Why? Because he had been a murderer. . . . the man who forfeited his life to the injured laws of his country, by shedding innocent blood; . . . cannot be forgiven, . . . (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, compiled by Joseph Fielding Smith, Deseret Book, 1977, p. 188)
Evidently the LDS Church has now decided that John D. Lee did not shed “innocent blood” as they restored all of his temple blessings, which would include his sealings to his plural wives, in 1961 (see The Mountain Meadows Massacre, by Juanita Brooks, p. 223). John D. Lee was married to nineteen women, and fathered 60 children (see John Doyle Lee, Appendix). Three of his marriages were after the massacre, thus showing that the LDS leadership still considered him a faithful Mormon.
One wonders how the LDS Church makes a distinction between King David’s sin being unforgivable and John D. Lee’s actions acceptable? King David only conspired to have one innocent person killed. Lee helped orchestrate the murder of 120 innocent men, women and children.
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