Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows/Use of sources/Double standard: violence in immigrants

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Use of sources: Double standard - violence in immigrants

Unpardonable sin

A FAIR Analysis of: Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows A work by author: Will Bagley

William W. Drummond and murders‎

Questions

• Critics are inconsistent in their treatment of the supposedly violent society in Utah when compared to the massacred immigrants.

To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, click here

Answer

This represents a clear double standard on the part of the author, and intent to slant the narrative to condemn the Mormons, rather than understand the period.

As one reviewer noted:

After arguing for the idea of Utah as an institutionally violent society, in what seems a non sequitur, Bagley refuses to believe that any of the stories of conflicts between the Mormon settlers and the Fancher-Baker migrants, except those over herd grounds, have any value. He acknowledges that both Alexander Fancher, who served as a private in a "border-land vendetta" (58) and John "Jack" Baker, who "apparently did kill a few of his neighbors" (63) had violent backgrounds. Nevertheless, he whitewashes those admissions with the rhetorical device of inserting a chapter of idyllic prose on the families of the Arkansas emigrants. He provides no similar idyllic treatment of Mormon family life.

While this does no credit to the work under review, this is no way means that the immigrants "deserved" the treatment that they got from their murderers. The Mormons, however, do not deserve the one-sided treatment they receive from this historian either.

Notes