Mountain Meadows Massacre
September 11, 1857 marks one of the greatest tragedies in Mormon history—the Mountain Meadows Massacre. A group of emigrants, driving their cattle through Utah on their way to California, were ambushed and killed enroute. That this was a terrible thing to have done, no one denies. That this was a terrible and shameful crime, no one denies. But critics of Mormonism often use this awful incident as a sign against the truth and morality of the faith as a whole. In this article, we hope to put the massacre in its correct context and sift fact from accusation.
The Baker-Fancher Party
In 1857, July, the Baker-Fancher Party arrived in Salt Lake City. The party hailed, originally, from Arkansas, but Missouri was the source of a number of the emigrants. Altogether, the size of the party was probably somewhere between 120 to 140 persons, men, women, and children (along with hundreds of cattle). California was their destination—Utah was just a stop off point.
The Utah War
That same July marked the tenth anniversary of the Mormon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley. The Mormons were celebrating, but that wasn’t the whole of it. The leaders of the Church saw their flock as an increasingly apathetic one and sermons were very fiery. And simultaneous, Brigham Young had just learned that Utah’s mail service had been cut off by President Buchanan and a new territorial governor was making his way to Utah. Brigham Young, President of the Church, had also been acting as governor—and this new appointment was news to him. Perhaps the government was aware of the surprise. This new governor was coming by troop escort for the purpose of “restoring order.” The Mormons had done nothing wrong to their knowledge, but they had elected Brigham Young as their governor, something which had embittered some of the former appointees of the territory. These appointees had returned to Washington, bringing reports of Mormon insurrection and Mormon treason. The President responded.
Ten years was not long enough to dull the memory of the persecutions the Mormons had suffered in the East. They saw the approaching troops as a threat, designed to drive them from Utah as they had been driven from multiple settlements in the East. Brigham Young declared the territory under martial law, reinstated the Nauvoo Legion, and made preparations for war. Alliances were sought with neighboring Indian tribes, for the Mormons believed that to band together would be essential to avoid destruction.
Contentions and Accusations
In the midst of all of this, the Baker-Fancher Party went quietly unnoticed until they reached Fillmore. After that point, though, Mormons reported threatening and rude behavior from the party. They claimed that those members of the party from Missouri called themselves the Missouri Wildcats, bragging about helping to drive the Mormons from Missouri and Illinois. They even, by the reports, bragged about killing the founder of the Church, Joseph Smith, and his brother Hyrum. Those members of the party from Arkansas, to add to it, boasted of killing another leader in the Mormon Church, Parley P. Pratt, just months before. Responsibility was also claimed for having poisoned a spring, which killed a number of Indians and a Mormon settler. At the last, the party said that, after arriving in California, they’d return to Utah to help the Army deal with the Mormon problem.
It’s impossible to verify whether these reports had any truth or not, but we can be sure that the Mormons felt threatened. The Army was advancing on Utah, California newspapers were making threats, and the suddenly noticed presence of the party only fueled Mormon anxieties. Even if the rumors were completely false, that they associated the Baker-Fancher Party with the murder of Joseph Smith and others may have been a primary cause of the massacre.
The Siege
Mountain Meadows was a pasture outside Cedar City, Utah, and the emigrants reached it in the beginning of September. There, they intended rest themselves and their cattle, giving the animals a good grazing period before they pushed across the desert to California. But, by this point, the militia leaders of Iron County had heard the rumors about the party. Initially, these leaders ordered nearby settlements to leave the group alone. Unfortunately, one militia leader, Major Isaac Haight, made the decision to incite local Paiute Indians against the Baker-Fancher. He sent John D. Lee, and others, on September 5th to carry out his plan. We can’t be sure how serious the Indian involvement was, whether it was slight, extensive, or non-existent, but Haight’s order and Lee’s involvement, we are certain of.
A council meeting in Iron County, the very day afterward, revealed more mixed opinions than Haight’s decisive (and violent) one. He continued to press the idea of action, but was finally persuaded by Laban Morill that it would be wisest to ask Brigham Young what to do.
On the morning of September 7, James Haslam rode toward Salt Lake City, for the purpose of receiving orders from Brigham Young. Messengers were dispatched to Lee, ordering him to delay any inciting efforts, but they came too late. By that point, we believe, the Paiutes had already made their attack at Mountain Meadows, killing several, but the attack turned stand-off at that point—from active conflict to a siege that lasted four days.
On September 9th, two of the party did manage to sneak past the Paiutes and make their way toward Cedar City, intending to get help. On their way, they ran across some militia members, who they turned to for aid. That they turned to the militia members would seem to indicate that, at this point, the party did not associate the Mormons with the Paiute attacks. This would immediately change. The moment the militia realized who the emigrants were, they opened attack and killed one. The other escaped.
In Mormon belief, this incident sealed the fate of the Baker-Fancher Party. By attacking openly, the Mormons had shown themselves very hostile indeed. If the party arrived in California, they would have a fully justified and concrete reason, even, to stir up the Californians against the Church. The entire state might unite to destroy them. The members of the militia were terrified of the impending consequences of their own panicked and awful actions.
On September 10th, James Haslam arrived in Salt Lake and was able to convey his message to Brigham Young. The very same day, he rode back toward Iron County, with a letter from Brigham Young, stating the emigrants should be left alone. Unfortunately, also on the same day, Lee sent to Cedar City for further orders.
The result was the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre
By morning, September 11th, fifty to sixty members of the militia had arrived at Mountain Meadows. A white flag was raised, which was answered by party member Mr. Hamilton. Lee said that if the Baker-Fancher Party would let down their weapons, the Paiutes would let them be and the Mormons would give them safe passage to Cedar City, at which point, they could continue their journey to California. The party was exhausted. Their ammunition was depleted. They had several dead already and more dying. They accepted the terms. The party’s guns were loaded on one wagon, their wounded on another, and they were marched in single file in the following order: wagons, women and children. Then the men. Each male member of the party marched on the left of a militia member. When the group entire reached a patch of cedar and scrub oak, the leader of the march gave a signal, which is reported to have been the shouted phrase, “Do your duty!” Each member of the militia turned to their man and shot him. By report, the Paiutes fell on the party as well. Initially, a few escaped, but even these were caught and killed. Children under eight, all seventeen of them, were spared. Everyone else was slaughtered.
The Aftermath
September 13. Two days too late, Brigham Young’s orders arrived. John D. Lee would report to Salt Lake City some time later.
The massacre would later be described as an Indian attack by local leaders and was largely forgotten, what with the arrival of the army and the new governor. But when the evidence began to implicate settlers and the accusations began to run in that direction, Brigham Young asked Cummings, the new governor, to conduct an investigation. However, in 1858, President Buchanan had granted the Mormons amnesty for the Utah War. It was thus Cumming’s opinion that the amnesty covered anything that whites had done during the war. So the matter was not formally investigated, but it did not die—several unofficial accounts appeared, including one written by Mark Twain in Roughing It. These accounts were distorted, based mostly on evidence more supposed than existing. The massacre’s only survivors had been young children and those responsible were not talking about it.
Many in Arkansas were quite understandably furious, though, and a full, federal investigation may have proved inevitable if the Civil War hadn’t interceded. The matter re-emerged in the 1870s, but fifteen years late. The rage was far less by that point and much of the evidence had been lost. Further, the Mormons were still wary of the re-emergence of persecution and banded together to protect their own, guilty or innocent. A case was difficult to make against Mormon jurors and John D. Lee was the only man to be convicted. He was executed in 1877.
Recent Events
For many years, the Mountain Meadows Massacre was a taboo subject among Church members, a terrible event best forgotten. Even in such an atmosphere, however, Church Historian B.H. Roberts wrote about the massacre in the early 1900s. Mormon writer Juanita Brooks published a very thorough treatment of the matter in 1962, which the Church never condemned or endorsed. However, the massacre was not a debated issue at the time, nor the subject of much wide notice, so her nicely detailed, straightforward, and clarifying account came and went quietly.
Gordon B. Hinckley helped dedicate a new monument at Mountain Meadows in 1999, in memory of the murdered. Perhaps partly as result and perhaps through the rising influence of the Internet, the issue recently resurged in importance, used as a jumping off point for attacks on the Mormon religion and Mormon doctrine.
Two recently published books try to pin the blame entire on Brigham Young. These books are Blood of the Prophets and American Massacre. Although Brigham Young would later be denounced by John D. Lee, because the prophet singled him out as the perpetrator (and only him), even John always insisted Brigham Young was innocent. Several historians of Church history (Mormon), Glen Leonard, Richard Turley, and Ronald Walker are working on a book on the subject, a book which they hope will be definitive, due to access to historical documents that weren’t available before.
What is not a point of debate is that the Baker-Fancher Party was murdered in cold blood and those responsible will be judged severely of the Lord.
Mormon leaders and many of the descendants of the murdered have worked hard to restore good will between both parties. To this aim was the Mountain Meadows Association founded.