Criticism of Mormonism/Books/American Massacre/Index/Chapter 8

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Chapter 7

A FAIR Analysis of: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows A work by author: Sally Denton Index of claims: Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Note: This is a review of claims and/or responses to misrepresentations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints found in this work. The inclusion of an author's work here does not imply that he or she is "anti-Mormon," or that none of his or her works have value. Those who do not wish to examine the claims contained in what some would consider an "anti-Mormon" work are advised to proceed no further.

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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 source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

•  Mind reading: author has no way of knowing this.

Claim
The book discusses the "Mormon Reformation."

Author's source(s)

• N/A

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Mormon Reformation

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

Author's source(s)

• Josiah F. Gibbs, 'The Mountain Meadows Massacre, 8ff

Response
 FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources

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

Author's source(s)

• 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.

Response

• 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.

Claim
Blood atonement

Response

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

Claim
Brigham is claimed to have said: "I want their cursed heads cut off that they may atone for their sins."

Author's source(s)

• Juanita Brooks and Robert Glass Cleland, eds., A Mormon Chronicle, I:98-99.

Response
 ^{[needs work]}

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

Author's source(s)

• Cannon and Knapp, 268.

Response

•  Internal contradiction: This contradicts what the author said on page 59, where she claims that Brigham said that anyone was "free to leave."

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

Author's source(s)

• Cannon and Knapp, 268.

Response

• This claim is also made in One Nation Under Gods: p. 238, 562n60 (PB)
• For a detailed response, see: Leaving Utah forbidden?
• Mormon Reformation
• Crime and violence in Utah
• Danites in anti-Mormon polemic

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 source(s)

• 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

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Utah/Crime and violence/Castration in the 1800's

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

Author's source(s)

• 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

Response

• There is no evidence of Grant implementing "blood atonement."
• For a detailed response, see: Mormonism and doctrine/Repudiated concepts/Blood atonement
• For a detailed response, see: Mormon Reformation

Claim
Surveyor General David Burr "fled for his life."

Author's source(s)

• House Exec. Doc. 71, 118-20.

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Surveyor general David H. Burr threatened with death?

Claim
Did Brigham accuse Parley P. Pratt of adultery, as the author claims? The author quotes Brigham's "great-granddaughter" as saying "He was not woman-crazy, but Gospel-crazy."

Author's source(s)

• Reva Stanley, The Archer of Paradise: A Biography of Parley Pratt, 163.

Response

•  Misrepresentation of source: Page 163 of the cited work is a generic account of Pratt's death and the circumstances surrounding it, but there is no mention of the material listed here.
• For a detailed response, see: Parley P. Pratt's murder

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 source(s)

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

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Murder of Parley P. Pratt

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 singaled the beginning of their Armageddon scenario" and would result in Brigham's "ascendancy" to rule the Kingdom of God on earth.

Author's source(s)

• Fielding, Unsolicited Chronicler, 383.

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Brigham Zion speech on 24 July 1857

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 source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

•  Absurd claim: the author needs evidence beside her assertion to prove this point.

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 source(s)

• Brooks, Mountain Meadows Massacre, xvii-xviii.

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Orders to starve immigrants or not sell grain?

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

Author's source(s)

• Author's opinion.

Response

• Jacob Hamblin would testify that the Fancher train "being of southern people had preferred to take the southern route."^[1]

Claim
Brigham is noted as having given a "current sermon" in which he vowed to "turn [the Indians] loose" on the emigrants.

Author's source(s)

• Basil Parker's memoir, 7.

Response
 FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources

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

Author's source(s)

• Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 99.
• Compare treatment in Blood of the Prophets: p. 99.

Response

• Junaita Brooks pointed out that accounts of provocation from the immigrants appeared within days as far away California, and from |multiple sources.
•  Double standard
• For a detailed response, see: Double standard of skepticism

Endnotes

1. [note]  Jacob Hamblin statement in James Henry Carleton, Report on the Subject of the Massacre at the Mountain Meadows, in Utah Territory, in September, 1857 of One Hundred and Twenty Men, women and Children, Who Were from Arkansas (Little Rock, AR: True Democrat Steam press, 1860), 6; cited by Richard Turley, Ron Walker and Glen Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows (Oxford University Press, 2008), 101. ISBN 0195160347. ISBN 978-0195160345.