FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows/Use of sources/William Hawley account
< Criticism of Mormonism | Books | Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows | Use of sources
- REDIRECTTemplate:Test3
Contents
William Hawley account
| A work by author: Will Bagley
|
Questions
- Critics rely on William Hawley's account of being chained up while he protested about the massacre.
To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, click here
Answer
Critics are often happy to accept any attack on the Church uncritically, and leave unmentioned (or hidden in endnotes) qualifying statements which would help the reader evaluate the claim's reliability.
Detailed Analysis
Noted one reviewer:
- Vignettes should be presented with balance, regardless of which point of view they support. Bagley reports the account of William Hawley's objections to the massacre and how he was chained to a wagon wheel when he voiced his objections to the massacre plan (pp. 119—20, 143). It might have helped our understanding of this story had Bagley not relegated to a footnote (p. 407) the explanation that Hawley was one of the massacre perpetrators and that his story was written from the headquarters of a schismatic organization opposed to polygamy and Brigham Young. [1]
Notes